Hapless Bills Fan

Happy Birthday Sean McDermott! Time for a little roast "I practice my Lombardi Hold EVERY DAY. The Base will fit RIGHT HERE. I can see the resemblance ????? "Just put those orange pieces Right Here!" "Mmmmmm, orange slices!" I leave you with this McDermott Classic:

I think Beane probably has a maximum contract in mind, and if that's the offer, he'll match it. I don't believe Beane that we're flat against the cap. I think he has one or more moves he's ready to make to free more cap, but he'd love to see someone think we're broke and give Bates a qualifying offer sheet that's within our reach or within his idea of maximum contract. I agree with you that NFL players, especially players at the bottom of the depth chart, need to be hard-headed and practical and take the money. Look at Boettger, suffered a potentially career-ending injury near the end of the season. Last year, if he turned down a qualifying offer for multiple years or more guaranteed money to take our tender, he'd be kicking himself in the keister right now (I don't think he did).

Then Trust the Lawn Chair Niiiiiice.

FIFY He played G and C in college and has played G and C in the pros Spent last season on the Miami practice squad That positionally flexible backup Beane likes to bring into camp to compete, whether or not we keep Bates.

I agree with your overall point, but a key point for these guys to watch, always, is how much of that money is guaranteed and when? An example of difference would be Jon Feliciano's contract with the Bills last season. He was offered, and signed, a 3 year, $14.4M contract with the Bills. But $4.4M was guaranteed. So it was really a 1 year, $4.4M contract, with the employer's option to keep him around at a defined price-point if his play met their standard. Bates could be offered a 2 year, $10M contract but if only $2.433M is guaranteed, he could in theory get cut by that team before the first day of the season and have only the same amount of pay.

It's hard to tell with an Achilles tear. Some players don't come back at all. These days something like 2/3-3/4 apparently do. Eric Fischer tore his in the 2021 AFCCG and was back playing week 2 of the 2021 season, which must mean he returned to practice in about 8 months. He acknowledged he was not fully recovered at first, and he improved as the season progressed. There are some studies that say the first year back from the injury, the player is not as good, but after a year passes they regain their original performance It's a huge blow for a guy who was just beginning to get NFL starts. Sure - if the other team offers more guaranteed money. But most NFL contracts offered to lower-tier players with minimal playing time, also have minimal guaranteed money. The tender is fully guaranteed. I could be mistaken, but I think the most likely outcome is that another team may offer Bates a higher overall 2 year contract with a bit more guaranteed $$. So he might get a 2 year, $6M contract with $3M guaranteed, for example. Of course, as you point out, to most of us an extra $600k is Real Money.

That comment was on his original contract with the Browns. I think the purple means they went ahead and put it up because it was reported by a reasonable source, but they haven't confirmed it They've got players contracts in purple, red, and blue, as well as italicized, and I haven't figured out their color code.

That was in part a case of "***** around and Find Out" by the Broncos. If the Broncos QBs had been ruled out earlier in the week, during the time when a player in the NFL testing cadence could still be signed to the team or elevated to the practice squad, I believe Denver would have been allowed to sign their QB coach to fill one of the "Covid List" spots and he would then have been a player and could have played. The reason the other 3 QBs weren't ruled out as close contacts until Saturday afternoon when the contact occured Thursday, was because the QB deliberately tried to "game" the system by "socially distancing" their contact tracers but then sitting next to each other to watch film: https://www.si.com/nfl/2021/09/07/broncos-quarterbacks-attempted-to-cheat-contact-tracing-last-year The deception was uncovered when the NFL reviewed facility video footage of the QB room, which they did to identify additional contacts. Elway pleaded for a postponement or for the ability to sign and start the QB coach, but Goodell basically told him "play Stupid Games, win Stupid Prizes" and made them play. I'm frankly not sure why that wasn't explained at the time, or what additional penalties the players faced for deliberately trying to "cheat" the system; they should certainly have been fined.

Thanks for the info on the injury in camp. I'd forgotten that I would have to say though if the guy has had 2 years on the team, and been injured both years, even if they see him as promising it would be foolish to count on him as a contributor Please consider that autocorrect is a thing, and people do not necessarily require medical instruction over spelling errors

This totally fails as a replacement for Stefon Diggs workout Instagrams

Nice work putting this together! Little correction (may help your case): add in Efe Obada last season ($1.5M cap hit). This season Shaq Lawson, cap hit as yet unknown

I think Lee is a camp depth body who will be lucky to make the roster. Yolo I am unfamiliar with this guy^H^H^Hplayer** Should we be happier about this idea than I was about Josh Norman (which was, not very)? (I know Vicious Sid has some connection with the team and knows stuff sometimes)

I think Beane has conversations with his pending free agents on Locker Cleanout Day, that for transparency sake indicate how the team sees them. Something like "We really want you back and we hope we can work it out" "We'd like you back, but given our limited cap space we're not sure we'll be able to keep you. Expect an offer. Please keep us in the loop as you talk to other teams" "You've earned the right to test Free Agency and we wish you the best" "We appreciate all you've done for the team" If Beane doesn't have those conversations at the end of the season, it's a pretty sure bet he has them with the agents prior to the Combine. If the Bills saw Harry as a valuable depth piece, while other teams saw him as a potential starter, that was in all honesty, probably pretty clear to Harry and his agents by the Combine, first week of March. Now....I personally thought the Bills would see him as a starter and want to keep him "we really want you back and we hope we can work it out" class - in which case it would NOT have been clear by the Combine, first week of March how that would go down. Details matter in that case, details like guarantees and roster bonuses and incentives that don't get worked out on a cocktail napkin the bar. But in hindsight, the Bills could easily have matched what Harry got from the Vikes given what they decided to pay Da'Quon Jones. It now appears that the Bills decided they needed to re-work their DL completely, especially at DT. So yeah, if that's the case, Harry could know by the Combine that he wasn't coming back.

Just to be clear, that is not something I or anyone else here seems to have suggested they will do. Low tender on Bates not.eq.to Losing Bates Losing Bates not.eq.to "role" (sic) with Ford with no other plan Again, I would argue that we have a real need to draft a quality OLman (probably in the 1st 3 rounds) regardless of whether or not we sign Bates. But either way, insisting the hole be filled at Pick 25 is silly.

It was last season (2020). Cover1 did a piece after the season.

I thought it was interesting he mentioned hard on Cole and his family in the community. I wonder if there were harassment of Cole's wife and family? I wonder because just before Cole went out with Covid, Josh's girlfriend Britt posted an Instagram photo of herself hugging Cole's wife. Shortly after that, she deleted her Twitter account and made her Instagram account private. Cole's wife has no social media presence and without occasional photos shared by other WAGs, I doubt anyone would know what she looks like. Roughly 2.6 million people in the WNY area, you only need 2 or 3 ***** to make someone uncomfortable when they have a family and young kids. On the other hand, if there were anything much, I would have expected Feliciano to wax loudly indignant about it like he did when apparently some drunk fans shouted "your dad should get vaccinated" at Cole's kids as they were in the car leaving after a game. I said elsewhere, I personally think Beane isn't going to throw a previous valued contributor "under the bus" or diss him - but if Cole's 2021 contributions were as strong as his 2022 contributions, I think Beane's focus woulda been "you're uncomfortable, OK, you're here for another year, how can we change that?" vs "you're uncomfortable, OK, we don't want hostages, you can seek out a trade"

So the take home I have from Phillips message is that he knew relatively early that he had several suitors who were all going to offer him more than the Bills. Therefore he could well have known the writing was on the wall and he was going to go somewhere else, prior to "tampering period" - not sure where, but clearly going to get better $$ several other places. He could also have shared this knowledge with friends OP's story isn't proven, but it's not un-plausible in this instance What's the point of a lot of things people do, like make up fake Adam Schefter and Ian Rapoport and ESPN and NFL accounts?

My take, FWIW, is 1) the running game turn around preceded Bates starting (though I do give him props that I felt Dawkins and the whole line played better with him at LG) The Jets, the Saints, and the Bucs were all good running games featuring Boettger and Williams at OG. 2) the run game didn't work better because we ran the same plays with different OLmen blocking (Bates instead of Boettger, Boettger instead of Feliciano; Williams instead of Ford). it worked better because we were running different blocking and different plays - more pin and pull, less zone 3) an uncomfortable amount of the rush game resurgence was more designed attempts for Josh Allen - 12 or 15 attempts per game. This isn't just because Josh is an incredible athlete, it's because it gives us an extra element of misdirection or an extra blocker. 4) Bates was playing LG, no clue if he'd play as well at RG I'd like to see us keep Bates but given that Beane apparently set out to remodel the entire damned DL, I can't quarrel with taking the minimalist tender approach. We have a chance to match whatever offers he gets. And make no mistake, Beane is a "cards close to the vest" guy. He would love to lull the Vikes or Bears or whoever into the idea the Bills have 0 cap so they don't have to work hard to draft an offer sheet we can't beat. Then he'll have some strategy in mind and Surprise! if he wants to match it.

LOL on Duke Williams As far as Kumerow - he may run the right routes and be where he's supposed to be, but when he's seen playing time I see no evidence he can separate and get open against NFL level DBs ? did injuries derail Hodgkins this past off - season? I thought he just got cut and put onto practice squad, no injuries.

Right. I'll preface this by saying I believe accused people deserve their day in court, and we just have the lawsuits so far. There may be evidence on both sides, exculpatory and incriminating. BUT suspending that temporarily and taking the accounts in the suits plus the additional (not part of the lawsuit) Vrentas SI article at face value.... ...we have a young, handsome, wealthy famous athlete who could pretty much walk into a bar and choose any "cruising" or unattached woman to take home for a casual encounter ...he could hire any number of professional escort or sex worker of any appearance and attributes to provide any consensual services he wanted ...most pro athletes get massages from a small number of skilled therapists they work with regularly, and treat those therapists with respect to remain clients - because that assures the best chance they will get the therapeutic results they need to keep their "business" in peak condition, from someone who knows them. At very best, Watson was clearly seeking out large numbers of massage therapists, some of whom seem to have been less experienced or trained in working with athletes, and behaved in such a way that 22 of them joined a lawsuit (with all the disruption and negative social media attention that brings down on them). And it begs the question "why"? The simple, Occam's Razor explanation seems to me, that what Watson was looking for, wasn't something he could in fact obtain from a consensual encounter.

I will be very disappointed if the Bills don't draft a WR, even 2 WR or a WR and a TE. I wouldn't rule out some wheel-n-dealing for someone on our roster who might be down the depth chart and not in our plans, for a guy in a similar situation on another roster. Think Kelvin Sheppard for Jerry Hughes equivalent, only at a lower level. Moss for ???

Shenault was a mid-2nd-round pick - 42 overall The point that Woods brought a low pick because he's a salary dump and therefore Shenault might bring more is relevant. But when healthy, Woods also has a strong track record of performance that Shenault lacks