thurst44

There's always cap money somewhere. There's still a bunch of players who they could restructure. Hughes could be extended a year and money moved. Somehow teams like the Rams who were 36m over a couple days ago find ways to sign players to 20m contracts.

Do you not watch Flack? Seriously, though, yeah, that would be way over-the-top.

You're the most negative fan I've seen on here so I know you're joking, but the D was pretty close to elite (or at least dominant) in 2018 and 2019. But keep doing you.

It may never have been going to happen, but that is not why. Just look to the Chiefs who renegotiated contracts--we have the ability to do that too and it's in the interest of the players. Also, the 36m over cap Rams just signed a guy for 21m (ok, that one kind of broke my brain). Teams can find a way. There is still potentially 20-30m the Bills could spend if they choose. Can't help but feel this is what the Bills are doing. Perhaps the Dolphins as well. More often than not the team that goes on a spree is not the team that makes a big advance the following year. They don't call it Snydering for nothing (ok, just me?). Right now, it's kind of like the Patriots and Bills have been Freaky Friday'd.

Come on, there's no need to discuss much!

Oh, I didn't think that you were ragging on him at all, and I'd understand with him more than others. I've just seen a lot of people say no players will ever do anything but take the most money. Even in some down years, players (Hughes for example) have taken less money than they could have got to stay. I'll grant misread your comment as such. I hope Levi stays, partially because I love the energy at which he plays. He's a better tackler than people give him credit for. Also, I love the story and want him to be part of our championship in 2021 or 2022 (well, 2022 or 2023). If he doesn't, I don't think he leaves as big a hole as Milano or Daryl Williams would have. We can probably find a CB2 (or Dane Jackson can fill his spot and a rookie can be CB4).

Just saying a lot of people said the same thing about Milano... and Williams.... and yet here we are. You may be right, but I just think it's silly when people are so absolute about it even when the same logic has been proven wrong over and over and over :). Face it, players want to play here. Can we be happy about it instead of still presuming everyone's just going to chase the cash. This is a guy who is on an amazing path just to be here--he may value team (while still getting paid millions) or, you may be right, he may want to cash out while he's ahead and take a chance that he'll have a similar success on another team. (yes, success being relative)

Or...or... hear me out. Like a lot of other players on the team, maybe he wants to stay and will take a lower cap hit in order to do so. Or are we going to continue to do this dance where there's no way they sign [x]. I'm not saying it will happen, just that maybe after all that happened last week, I wouldn't rule it out.

The Judon signing was good, but this really feels like BB is being too cute by half. I may regret saying this, but it's weird being a fan of our team and not feeling afraid of the Big Bad Bill Belichick anymore. These moves reek of panic or of trying too hard to prove he's a great coach who can still make his unorthodox moves without the GOAT. I can't help but think if another team did what he's doing right now, 2010 Bill Belichick would be laughing at him.

Judon is a great move. However, the rest of the signings are way underwhelming. Ask any Iggles fan about Jalen Mills (they love him about as much as we loved his offensive lineman brother). They paid 12m/yr for a tight end who has never topped 500 yards. Godchaux {shrug}. Cam Newton has 8 TDs, 11 INTs in the last two years. Gilmore's very likely gone. Hightower is going to be 34 coming off a season in which he didn't play. Chung should be out of football, but that's irrelevant here. We should really pump the breaks on the panic (or at least the seeming awe). If anything, the word that comes to mind for me on this spree is Snyder-esque.

Gilmore also said pretty unequivocally that he does not want to play for the Patriots again.

It wasn't this year and neither of them is likely to cost all that much. There's no reason they won't carry both. I'm actually ambivalent (i voted make him an offer and if someone bests us, fine). Side note: I'm in NYC area and you should have heard how rueful fans were that they let Roberts go.

He made 1.3m last year after a Pro Bowl season. I think we can afford that for one of the best return men in football. I don't get why people are this eager to move on from him. I'd get it a bit if McKenzie were already signed, but if we don't sign either then we're at square one for kick returners and think back to when we've had bad special teams.

I would not rule it out yet. There's still a lot of wiggle room between Hughes' possibly restructuring, Smith retiring, and White and Dawkins could take the same sort of deal Mahomes and others around the league are doing. Diggs could be extended in a way that lowers his cap hit this year, but gives him a deserved raise for future seasons. If I were to guess, Addison is back more as a rotational player and team leader--a lot of this team's success has to do with its chemistry. I've been in the minority hoping he would stay (but definitely not without a big paycut), as (1) locker room chemistry and (2) we should maybe not judge a new defensive player too much last year as it was a beyond-weird year. I get why people don't want him back, but we'll see how he does next season. My guess is Beane still looks at a game changer edge rusher and an upside TE. Maybe it's just Autry taking the Jefferson spot. We sign Feliciano and McKenzie, both of whom have telegraphed that they don't want to leave Buffalo. The next RB will likely be in the draft and at 30 that very well might be the BPA (and there's some gems in the later rounds). We'll see, but these are my guesses. And every year the team in cap hell even finds some way to sign a premium FA (look at the Falcons last year with Fowler, although it's killing them now)... and we're nowhere near cap hell.

Both have been very open about how much they want to say (probably to a degree that drives their agents nuts), so I'm guessing if the Bills want them, they can keep them.

That's fair, but I would suspect they do, otherwise they would not let Brown go to free up 7m only to spend that on a WR who may not be all that much better.

If there are ways it could be done where it gives them the same money (as is implied) and they help the team, I don't get why they wouldn't rework their deals.

It is true that Steelers WR2's often excel only to go to another team and play meh. In truth, Ben is likely very underrated as a QB... I'd feel bad for him, but, you know... In fairness, Sanders did have his best season by far the first year Manning was throwing to him. Now that Brown was cut, I'd be curious about what Sanders is looking for. If his salary cap hit would be anywhere close to 8m, I'd rather have just kept Brown, but as 30-something WRs go, I'd be happy to see him. In any case, I suspect they are planning to spend money elsewhere as Diggs, Davis, Beas, McKenzie is still one of the best WR rooms in the NFL, and they have some interesting in-house options (Hodgins, Kumerow, even Duke Williams).

Given Ben R.'s history, if there's conflict between anyone and Ben R., I'll take the other guy's side. He's always been pretty quick to throw people under the bus. Also, I had a friend/boss who went to Miami(OH) at the same time and she was not someone who pays attention to any sports, but when I mentioned him she got quiet, she shook her head and said everyone knew about Ben R. and there was a big "stay away from him" vibe on campus. When the Diggs thing happened, Sanders seemed genuinely disappointed he didn't "get" to come to Buffalo, so while I'd rather we extend Brown and lessen his hit, I would be excited to see him come to Buffalo.

Yeah, that wasn't really you but you were the easiest to quickly respond to, so to a degree I apologize for coming on hot. However, by saying that their inability to move on from him after a year due to the opt out was "screwing the pooch" and implies they want to move on from him. I'm not so sure that's the case given the two years he was in the center of the defense, they had the number 3 defense in the league. I doubt they consider him the fiasco a lot of people here (not necessarily you) seem to.

Again, the defense was great two years in a row with Star, and meh his opt-out year. Yes, yes, I know correlation does not mean causation, but they improved 2018 over 2017 in many of the areas bringing in Star was supposed to help, so maybe we should stop trying so hard to run the guy out of town. I'm not going to pretend to know exactly how it works, but with new contracts, they can convert some of the money to bonus(?) and hence it's actually beneficial to the player b/c they get more guaranteed money paid out immediately and the team gets to save money against the cap (i think it pushes the cap into other years, which right now is ok b/c presumably there will be more space in future years).

Not sure of a restructure, but cutting him would cost more, and given how our D played in two seasons with him and this last season without him, I'd much rather they see if he returns and Oliver and Edmunds get a chance to make more plays.

Edmunds was likely considered the BPA at the time. Many mocks had him Top 10. I picked him occasionally in Fanspeak mocks with our 12 when he dropped, and even traded up a couple times--knowing all the while we were drafting a QB. Oliver was expected by some to go top 3. Epenesa was easily BPA as he was more often than not well within the 1st round in mocks. Ford was expected to go in the first by many. Just b/c the pick fills a need does not mean he's not BPA. You could argue just about anything fills a need. OK, if we drafted QB or WR, it would be hard to argue that it was a need pick. but we have two great safeties and solid back-ups, but people could still in retrospect call safety a need pick if we moved on from Hyde after his contract ended.

There is no official cap right now. According to Spotrac, we are a little over 3m under and that does not take into account Lee Smith's likely retirement which would get it to near 6m (if spotrac's guess turns out to be correct). If that TV deal goes through we could be even more under. I'd bet they'll do everything to be higher than 175 as that puts almost half the league over the cap.

What's the point in taking a 5m hit in a year we're right up against the cap when there's a good chance he could help us win?