Magox

I created a thread on who I’d prefer and why

He is a decent man corner and played solid football with the Bills. Personally, I'd hope for someone better in FA but you could make it work as long as their is decent money spent for other positions.

The only way I'd agree to a deal with him is if it was very incentive based. You offer a low guarantee of around $12 M with the possibility of earning $4M if he plays in 15 games and if he plays all 17 games he gets $6M. And then another max potential of $6M per year if he hits certain sack production.

Interesting nugget in what Brett wrote is that he speculates that the 8% share Laurie sold which was $650 Million was used to help finance their "rolling bonus options" to keep all their players. The Bills did just sell a 20% stake which is supposed to net Pegula around $1 Billion, maybe and hopefully they will use some of that to do the same?

For those that are interested in what the future of the salary cap could look like in the next 4-5 years, this is an excellent read.

DT - DJ Jones and Tier Tart - FA acquisitions and use one of your premium draft picks and another mid to late rounder on DT's Release - Daquan Let everyone else walk except Oliver and Carter DJ Jones should come in somewhere around $8M AAV - really good run stuffer who can push the pocket and Tier Tart who will be a lot cheaper DE - No FA acquisitions - Swing for fences for either Garrett or Crosby - Assuming you can't get them - Use one of your three premium picks on a DE Release Von Keep Smoot Safety - Justin Simmons will play the role that they are lacking, will add experience, should be relatively cheap around $5M - Draft another with mid to late rounder CB - FA pickup DJ Reed, or Chavarious Ward - one of those two, based off the coaching additions it appears Bills will be employing more man to man schemes and they would be a fit - They need to get a higher end CB. Draft one with a mid to late rounder Trade Elam for whatever you can get. WR - Either Slayton or Hollywood Brown - someone who has speed and can stretch defenses, it would need to be under $10M AAV - Use one of your premium draft choices on a WR who can separate.

There has to be a renewed sense of urgency to go for it. San Francisco and the Eagles do this far more than any other teams which is why they have had the best and most expensive rosters in the NFL. Eagles have two star tackles, they had a star center, two star WR’s, a franchise QB, A really good TE, top 3 RB, and are loaded with high quality players across the defensive line, Really good DB’s and 2 very good linebackers. They are able to keep those players because of how they manipulate the cap with the voided years. Plus the Salary cap has exploded the last two years and some believe that the curve will even steepen with how they are now going to begin measuring viewership numbers which is what they believe is going to show even more viewers than they are counting them now. When the league goes to renegotiate in 2028/2029 with the networks CBS/FOX or whoever wants to make a bid, the league will have these massive viewership numbers and Netflix who is expected to make a bid. Netflix has a cap of $450 Billion, they can massively outbid CBS and FOX, and one of those two networks is going to lose out. The salary cap is going to go bananas in 2029/2030. I hope Beane pitches Pegula hardcore about getting more aggressive with their decisions. You can resign all the main guys, Benford, Bernard, Rousseau, Cook and Shakir and still go after. Garrett and a DJ Reed. I played around with the numbers https://overthecap.com/salary-cap/buffalo-bills#google_vignette They can totally make this happen if there is a will to do it

Trubisky Von Daquan But we will need to substantively replace Von, he was the Bills most valuable efficient pass rusher. DaQuan looks to be about finished, he has rapidly declined over the past year I think they can get Knox to take another pay cut

Netflix is expected to have the Sunday football games over either CBS or FOX for fall of 2028 which would bend the curb even more

It’s higher than what was anticipated. The anticipated amount was $275M. There were some high end estimates as high as $285 but this number is a good increase.

I hope Beane makes this case to Pegula.

Obviously it's convenient to exclude the two most successful organizations in recent history simply because they have a HOF coach and and to not look back over the past 25 years, specially considering that the league is pretty close to where it is in passing utilization as it was back in 2020. With that said, I decided to look at the list of recent WR's that you listed that you thought was a better example to use. And here is what I found. AJ Brown (twice) Deebo/Aiyuk/Kittle Cooper Kupp Ja'Marr Chase Mike Evans Mike Evans went to the Superbowl during the 2020 season. Mike Evans signed an $82.5 million contract extension in 2018. That is an an AAV of $16.5M. The salary cap for the 2020 season was $198.2 million Which Equals 8.3% of the total cap towards their star WR Deebo Samuels in the 2020 Superbowl which was for the 2019 Season was on the roster and Aiyuk was not. Deebo Samuels was on his rookie contract on a 4 year $7.25 million contract which is an AAV of $1.812 Million contract. The Salary cap was $188.2 Million for this season meaning that it equaled about 1% towards the cap for him. Deebo Samuels for the 2024 Superbowl which was the 2023 season was on the roster and Aiyuk was still on his rookie contract. Deebo Samuels signed a contract extension of a 3 year $71,550,000 deal which is an AAV of $23,850,000, the salary cap in 2023 was $224.8 Million meaning that it equaled about 10.6% towards the cap. Cooper Kupp The Rams went to the Superbowl in 2022 off of the 2021 season. Cooper Kupp signed a 3 year extension in 2020 for 3 years $47,250,000 that applied towards this season. That's an AAV of $15,750,000, the salary cap for the season (COVID year so it had gone down) was $182,500,000 which equaled 8.6% of the cap Jamar Chase Made the Superbowl in 2022 off of the 2021 season. Jamar Chase was on his rookie contract which was a 4 year $30,819,000 contract which is an AAV of $7.7Million and the salary cap that year was $182,250,000 which equaled 3.9% of the cap AJ Brown Made the Superbowl in 2023 off of the 2022 season. AJ Brown signed a 4 year $100 Million contract extension with an AAV of $25 Million - The salary cap in the 2022 season was $208.2 Million which equaled 12% of the cap And for the 2024 Super bowl season this past year his latest extension is 3 year $96,200,000 which is an AAV of $32 Million. The salary cap this year is $255.4 Million which equaled 12.54% of the cap The only true outlier are the AJ Brown contracts. What is it that the Eagles are doing differently that allows them to spend so much on offense? 1) The Eagles lead the league by an incredibly huge margin that applies voided years money. They currently have $390.4 Million in voided years. The 2nd place team is San Francisco with $204 Million. Buffalo which is right around where the league average at 16th place in Voided years has $33.1 Million. 10 teams have less than $10 Million. This means that the teams that employ this are willing to extend cap hits over a larger number of years. Simply put, teams that use this are having much larger cash expenditures throughout the lifetime of these contracts. Jeffery Laurie is willing to pay a lot more money from a cash perspective to field his team. The team that does this the second most is the San Francisco 49ers. It's not coincidence that the only two outliers up above are the teams that are willing to pay the most to retain their star players. 2) Drafting success - A) 2021 Draft -1st pick DeVonta Smith STARTER, 2nd round pick Landon Dickerson STARTER, Milton Williams 3rd round pick DT Impact player one of the stars of the Super Bowl STARTER- B) 2022 Draft - 1st pick Jordan Davis STARTER, Cam Jurgens STARTER, Nakobe Dean STARTER C) 2023 Draft - 1st pick Jalen Carter (Top 3 DT in the NFL), Nolan Smith STARTER D) 2024 Draft - Quinyon Mitchell IMPACT starter, Cooper Dejean Impact starter You said Sure. Lets get the owner to go ahead and increase his voided year usage by 1200% and pay out significantly more going forward to retain all your star players and get some in FA. I'm for it, sounds easy. And yes, lets make sure that we can draft pro bowlers every year and get some immediate pro bowl caliber level of play from rookies from our draft choices and pick up ALL PRO's along the way. Sounds good. Now that I think about it, every team should just go ahead and draft this well and spend this much money lol. Of course this is the extreme outlier, most teams are not willing to pay that much real money to keep and collect talent and don't have this incredible recent success through the draft. This is not the realistic takeaway of roster construction. Each team is different in how much their owners are willing to spend, how they construct their teams, where they are up against the salary cap, schemes and player personnel strengths/deficiencies. When you look at Superbowl champions the two biggest takeaways are: 1) It is almost a must to have a top tier QB. In over 90% of the Super Bowl winners over the past 25 years they had one. 2) It is almost a must to have a top 8 defense. Out of the past 25 Super Bowl winners, in over 85% of the winners, they had one. The Eagles did not win the Super Bowl because of their offense, they won it because of their defense. Any of the playoff teams could have played the Chiefs with their offense and would have won that game with the performance the Eagles had. The point of the thread was primarily two fold. 1) Are Wide receivers and their ascending contract values overinflated? We know 100% that the rate of inflation for WR pay has dramatically increased to the salary cap, that is a fact, not an opinion. 2) And for most teams, more specifically the Bills, does it make sense to go into FA and pay these overinflated rates? Considering that the NFL is trending towards running more and passing for nearly 10% less than just 4 years ago and that top defenses and having an elite or near QB are necessities, and that the Bills barely have an average defense, the conclusion for me is that YES, WR pay is without doubt overinflated and NO, it does not make sense for most teams, specially the Bills to chase after a WR via FA to the tune of over 10% of the Salary cap.

So you want to exclude what the two most recent and successful dynasties have done? 10 out of the last 25 years, you just want that to just disappear and not count towards this argument? Well, that's awfully convenient, and no I won't do that. I listed the last 25 Superbowl winners, and the vast majority of those teams did not have elite boundary WR's. Most had good, competent ones but not elite top 8 caliber players at that position. You would be hard pressed to find many people that would tell you that the problem with the Bills this past season or in the playoffs or even specifically the Chiefs game and say that one of the top 3 problems with the Bills was the offense. - Coaching defensive scheme - Defensive line not getting enough pressure - DB's getting thrashed Those were the main culprits, not the Bills only being able to generate 29 points against the Chiefs. Which happened to be the 2nd most they had given up against anyone up until that point. 2nd to the Bills I might add. The Bills scored 29 points against the Chiefs and that is with 2 missed 2 point conversions, meaning they would have had 31. You want to go ahead and blame Kincaid for dropping that pass? Fair, he should have caught it but as a whole the offense was not the problem that game. The crux of this thread is not to diminish the role of the WR, it is to say that the current valuations for WR's are overinflated, I don't see how any logical thinking person can think differently. As a group, they are overpaid relative to their peers and it's indisputable that it is not necessary to go into FA and pay top tier dollars to grab one. The only team in the past 25 years to have had a WR account for 10%+ or more of their salary cap has been the Eagles, no other team has come close. Usually the top tier WR's have either been on their Rookie contract or were reclamation projects such as Keyshawn Johnson was for the Bucs, Brandin Cooks with the Patriots or Odell with the Rams. When you consider the top needs of this team, which is a deep ball safety, a CB opposite of Benford, an IDL, DE and Boundary WR, and you consider how efficient the offense was and how porous the defense this past year specially on third downs and against the Chiefs, and then you look at your Salary cap resources that are left, it's from my perspective borderline insane to think "Let's spend $25 - $30M a year on a WR" when you have all these other bigger glaring holes. I want to address the boundary WR position, but not spending gobs of money in FA. I think the Bills should go into FA, get a Hollywood Brown or Darius Slayton player and then use one of their premium draft picks and hope to hit on it. That's a good investment at that position. The majority of the money should go to CB, DE, IDL. Those are the bigger needs.

I can't help what others say, I can only speak for myself. I have hope that Kincaid will be a really good TE. Plus the Bills have a very good offensive line, elite QB, upper end slot guy. It's clear that the offense hasn't been a problem, it's the defense.

When Jaire is healthy, he's as good as it gets in man to man coverage. An absolute dawg! With that said, he's a bit of a basket case, has demonstrated behavior detrimental to the team and he has been injured a lot. So there definitely would be a buyer beware tag pinned all over him. Jonathan Allen, would love that guy but they have so much room and defense is a need, I just don't see them parting ways with him.