In-A-Gadda-Levitre

and there's this from Sammy...

I don't disagree. What I think happened is that Parker says $9M (top of all safeties), the Bills say $7M (top 4-5 FSs), Parker ignores it, the Bills leak hey, we offered top 4-5, and it goes nowhere. As far as Berry's deal goes, remember he was 5th overall in the last class before the new CBA went into play...

So Benigni's tweet is wrong, they offered Top 3 safety money? Top 4-5 is $7.4M - $8M

If you're talking about the value of the Franchise Tag, yes, but just safeties, not all DBs. CBs are paid $10.854M as a non-exclusive tag. This is about your figure of $8.25M as what the Bills offered, because you're using all safeties as the base, not the CBA calculation of the Franchise Tag. IMO, this is not true. It's like saying a RT is worth what a LT makes.

One more time, Byrd is a Free Safety, so throw out Berry's and Polamalu's numbers and you have: #1- $ 9.2 - Antrele Rolle #2- $ 9.0 - Dashon Goldson #3- $ 8.6 - Eric Weddle #4- $ 6.9 - Jairus Byrd #5- $ 6.3 - Michael Griffin Not sure what why the Cap Hit is the number you used, but it doesn't change the picture much when you take out Strong Safety.

You don't seem to want to let go of the $8,25M figure and Benigni's tweet. Byrd is a FS, and if he was offered top 4-5 FS money, that's in the low $7M neighborhood. The conventional wisdom says that when a team offers $2M less than Parker's magic number, he ignores it. If the Bills were within $750K, a deal could have been done. They weren't, mostly likely because of the value the team placed on Byrd, his PF, and a new scheme, which presents enough unknowns to make the Bills wary of committing big $.

WGR quoted Mark Kelso, who is said to a be a personal friend of Byrd, that Byrd wants $9M and the Bills (apparently) offered $7M... and according to Tim Graham, the top FSs are: So ya, it was top 4-5

Where does the bolded part come from. I was under the impression the Bills never made AL an offer, probably because it wasn't going to be close to what the FA market would pay, so they let him walk. There was no shortage of articles on Levitre waiting for an offer. If you meant what the Bills offered Byrd, most of the people who know about these things, said the Bills were closer to $7m (~$2M less than the $9M Byrd was seeking).

they decided to keep him on the active roster, he won't go to PUP .

I'm curious, why do you think the Bills brought him in and signed him, given those limitations? Just really lousy alternatives?

here's an audio track, Florio is babbling in the beginning. The audio player says Track #1, click on the "1" and you'll be at the start of TG's interview. He doesn't say anything really controversial, except near the end, when he's asked about the Byrd situation, no surprise... then there's so much static, that it's unintelligible, which (to me) is really embarrassing and then the call is dropped. He's on his cell phone and talking to a national sports media show on live tv. Seems like he could've made sure he was in a place where he had a good signal, but I'm no Tim Graham.

I'm no expert, I suppose you're right, Byrd and his agent could conceivably come to some agreement in principle, but they'd have to get the Bills to agree (ie compensation, because they could tag him again..). The situation is the same if he has a great season; the Bills can sign him to a multi-year agreement, tag him again, trade him, or let him sign with another team with some killer compensation. to me, it was the player may sign only a one-year Player Contract with his Prior Club that excluded him from doing anything else. You're right, the Breer article didn't address trades. I only linked it to show the changes to the tag rule (via the new CBA) that allowed teams to continually tag a player, at a cost...

no, it's not true. Albert Breer explains how can you interpret the rule as he can sign a long term deal with another club after 7/15?

ok, so this timeline in Bleacher Report is interesting.. the article then quotes Werder's retake BUT, Adam Schefter's Tweet is now mysteriously deleted from his feed...

another link in the Byrd convo on Rotoworld