Take it easy there buddy. Not sure why you're drunk on a Monday night/Tuesday morning but I hope you're alright.
I agree that there haven't been any reliable reports of how much the Bills offered him. The three year 30m offer was just a rumour that was in fact hinted at being false by Byrd's camp if I recall. I don't think the Bills offered him a better deal than the Saints did, especially not last year, but that's just reading between the lines and guessing on my part.
What I'm saying is that they should have franchised him. It gave them more time to work out a deal, either with him or another team, if they were inclined to do so. Regardless, you want facts...here are a couple:
1. Everyone is so sure he was feigning injury, yet he also wanted to play in the Cleveland game but our genius coach kept him out.
2. We will have more than 8.3m in cap space or could have easily made that room this year (byrds franchise number)
3. Byrd at that price for 5 games (which again is just conjecture on anyone's part) is still better than LETTING HIM WALK FOR NOTHING!!!! He is a really good player and could have made a difference even in those 5 games. Especially if we like to believe that the Bills are going to push for a wild card spot this year.
4. This so-called message it sends by keeping a player who wants to leave (which he also never stated) isn't any worse than the message it sends when you let a player dictate his future even though you hold the cards.
Ok, number 4 is more of an opinion not a fact. But you see my point. If you take emotion out if this and strictly look at it in black and white terms of winning football games, this was a stupid move by the Bills. Any defense of it, and you're just making excuses for them.