WhitewalkerInPhilly

Bye buddy. I don't hate Gabe. I wish he had been active vs the Chiefs this January. The problem is that he's just been too danged inconsistent. We badly needed more from him this year and he delivered once a month. Even if the Bills had the money to retain him (we don't) and chose to (I wouldn't) the Bills would still need to invest in another outside WR. Even if we thought he could hang on as a #2, there is no way in hell he competes for Diggs, and the Bills need a succession plan in the works.

That's the thing though. Would you be upset if there was something in place to keep the claim of a late round pick and then let them spend the spring playing in another league? Worst case, they wash out and it's a sunk cost you've already paid, and you might get a contributing player.

You hit on two things for me: 1) I have abundantly fond memories of going to Bisons games. My dad would sometimes let us play hooky from school to sneak out and go to the home opener. Now I have a major league team in my backyard, and while the play is undoubtably superior, when I am physically at a game I am there for the experience. I want a few beers and hot dogs, and to break open some peanuts and arguably those parks are a more intimate setting. 2) I do not like that NCAA DI has become effectively a minor league. Apart from the whole "they should be student athletes" and "how are football coaches the best paid state employees" part, not everyone hits their peak at 18-20, and everything gets filtered through the lens of high powered offenses that have not worked at the NFL level. Minor leagues would answer both.

This was cropping up in the Stadium thread, and it seemed like a reasonable idea to make its own topic if people want to talk about it. I'm going to come out and say it: the play I saw from the XFL and USFL was inferior to what is in the NFL. The thing is, that's not a game breaker for me for a few reasons. I don't know about you guys, but the season has been over for maybe two weeks and I am already feeling the offseason doldrums. It's a week before Combine, three weeks until free agency, two months until the draft and five months before training camp opens. As you can see, I've been counting. Even inferior play scratches the itch for me in its run up to June. Let's be honest here: of all the big 4 sports the NFL is the only one that doesn't have an official minor league. The NBA has the G league and less officially the Euro Leagues. The NHL has prospect leagues and the AHL. With the NFL? You have the draft coming out of college and if you are not one of the top picks the players have an incredibly tenuous future. The average NFL career is 3.3 years, which means a lot of players are drafted, have a few months to try to make a mark, get cut and never see the field. It happens every year. While it's not the norm, you get guys like Kurt Warner and Romo and Jason Peters and Fred Jackson. Not everyone is in peak body shape at 21. If you want a league where you might develop a guy so he can crack a roster? How am I going to complain about that? I'm not saying I am going to sit down and breathlessly watch every game. But I'm going to try to catch a few and I hope it does well.

I'll be honest, I *want* a spring league. If Buffalo picked one up, I would try to watch. I followed the Destroyers for chrissake! It's not as good, but when I am in football withdrawal in March-June I take what I can get

The only thing I can think of it that he's entering the final year of his contract. But...I mean, that's actually not a bad thing for the Bills. In fact, that his contract will expire next year and that he has most of his salary non-guaranteed means that he's one of our prime choices to negotiate with to get our cap down.

I disagree with a couple. Milano as "injury concerns?" Dawkins is nowhere near my level of concern as Morse. I am NOT calling Spencer Brown a proven commodity after one decent season.

That's what I see from OverTheCap He's the shorthand: it's like getting a deferred monthly payment so long as you pay a minimum. The key word is "deferred" Any cap space freed up by a June 1st release or trade is immediately counted as dead cap for 2025. Now, maybe the Bills roll that all over, and just use it as stopgap roster FA money. But it *absolutely* effects the 2025 cap. The viability of a June 1st release is really only for a Russel Wilson like situation: the Broncos know he's not the guy, know they are going to need to rebuild and that it's going to be a fire sale for the next two years, so yeah, why not end the experiment two years early?

BR just did a breakdown on Keon Coleman https://www.buffalorumblings.com/2024/2/18/24070751/buffalo-bills-2024-nfl-draft-analysis-film-study-of-wr-keon-coleman Honestly, I would take him at 28. He's not the Y burner that Franklin would be, but I think he portends as a "open when he's covered" guy who can outmuscle a WR and his YAC seems to fit what Brady would like to do. But it's really going to depend on how the draft falls. I'm seeing a lot of "immediate starter at WR2, not an automatic upgrade from Diggs" profiles

That's misleading. He won't have any *new* money guaranteed. But was paid is on the books so the only leverage the Bills have is that they have a greater sunk cost

Oof. Is his salary guarantee is voided, I would not be shocked if he is sent packing. That said, it helps the Bills if the Raiders are QB shopping as well.

Oh hey, Tom Eillis! He was quite fun in Lucifer https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1839683/ Awake One of the more interesting police procedurals I found, where after a car accident a cop wakes up in one timeline when his wife survived and another when it was his son, and he sees the ripple effect of either. Seems the concept was too heavy, I only found it on Netflix when it was cancelled. Another one was New Amsterdam (no, not the medical drame) with a pre-Game of Thrones Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister) as a man granted immortality in the earliest days of what is now NYC

I need to take a full listen as I could only hear what they were streaming live at the gym last night, but some of the prevailing headwinds are to stand pat with Diggs contract. That will make some on here happy

He cost the Lions $4 M on their cap last year, which is why I mentioned it. The question isn't the money so much as his injury history

If you told me that the Bills cut Poyer and signed these two at the amounts listed to fill both positions for a cap increase of $3.5 M I would try to cartwheel. And fail, but it's the thought that counts.

At this point, I do not see such a thing as "too many quality budget FA replacements" While I am always going to give some love to Poyer, and think of him a standard bearer of the turnaround we saw in the early McDermott years, he looked slllloooowwww. I cannot imagine bringing him back in 2025, and that chunk of cap space is looking appealing right now.

I think we can honestly say that the situation is "budget free agents or no free agents"

I hadn't seen it, but I appreciate the legwork. That's pretty much exactly what I was hoping for: that if 2-4 of those guys are free on Day 2 and 3, I think a cap friendly solution can be had. I would not hate a 3-4 year deal that puts the payoff around 2026, as that's when we are to work through our dead money and the expected big cap bump from all the streaming contracts and gambling should finally bear fruit.

Admittedly, not great. But if the plan is to have play above bottom feeder level at a budget I think the Bills can very much do worse.

I ran across this on a BR article of "Free Agents the Bills should Avoid" so take this with a grain of salt. He's coming off injury, but it was a pectoral muscle tear. He has some injury history, but he's played well when he's healthy. Last year the best he got was a one year deal for a $4 M cap hit for the Lions. In my mind that's the perfect short term pickup as we are phasing Poyer out and grooming a rookie. What say you all?

Pretty much where I am. 19 points? Against the Chiefs, the way they were playing us and the Ravens (two teams that were not supposed to be defensive pushovers)? Hey, how did vaunted genius Kyle Shanahan do in terms of points vs the defense that Brady and Allen put up 24 on? This is Shanahan covering his ass and picking a fall guy as everyone has to point out that he got blanked in the endzone repeatedly and got shut out of the 3rd quarter.

Official now. Though seriously, he did a darn good job holding KC to what they had considering how the offense pooped the bed in the second half. I mean, you joke, but I would absolutely take him on staff if McDermott roped him in for a year as Assistant Head Coach.

It was when I watched it. Of course The Last Dance is in a class of its own.

Josh really can help Tiger with that nowadays

Curses, I was hoping the title meant he was hanging out with Joe Exotic along with Beane so they can discuss salary cap implications of cutting all of our starters