BarleyNY

6 games, quietly reduced to 4 games after appeal.

I agree with you. The only thing I’d nitpick is that you use the word unique. I think the Bills are in the upper echelon of teams, but there are some others right there with us and maybe one or two that have us by a hair. Franchise QB, roster, front office, coaching, facilities, culture and more play into it. About the only thing that teams like the Rams and KC have on us is that they’ve won a SB recently. That carries some weight. The Bills are favorites to do that this year and if they pull it off, then they’ll be second to no team.

Why would someone chose to pay more in legal costs than for settlements only to spend countless hours in legal proceedings and risk decisions by juries?

That's certainly possible. I do think that Buzbee would have led with one of the strongest cases though. The Solis case is the first and did not get settled.

That is incredibly naive

Cases get settled every day because it costs more to fight them. I’m not saying that he’s innocent, just that the legal system often rewards people who bring suits that have little or no merit. My guess on why there are 4 remaining cases is that they have the most merit and/or angriest plaintiffs. The rest accepted $X each to go away. The last 4 are looking for more than that.

I disagree with that. Carolina has had 5 wins in each of the last 3 seasons. Their best case at QB this season is Baker Mayfield. WRs would much rather play with Watson than Mayfield. While Jacoby Brissett is a step down from Mayfield’, that’s not long term. Also Anderson isn’t really a WR “of significance”. He’s more of a competent WR2. He also said he doesn’t want to play with Mayfield so Carolina might want to ship him out for that reason alone. If that happens, what’s he going to do? Try to force the Panthers to keep him so he can play with a QB he publicly ripped?

Individuals do not bring criminal charges against others, they can only bring civil suits. Criminal indictments are brought by grand juries or prosecutors As discussed, it was brought up by the NFLPA and is pertinent because of the NFL’s Personal Conduct Policy’s direction on punishments for owners and players. I’m not going to repeat it all, but it’s in this thread. Also why bring up civil suits? The PCP doesn’t even mention them.

Anyone can be sued by anyone else regardless of merit. That isn’t a reliable litmus test for anything. Charges were not filed against Watson. Charges were filed against Kraft, but they were later dropped because it was determined by an appeals court that the video footage of him at the massage parlor was obtained unconstitutionality and would be inadmissible.

I agree with all of that except the single allegations part. I’m not sure about Jones, but Kraft made multiple visits to that massage parlor and there were a multitude of women making allegations against Snyder. Those might’ve gotten rolled up into a single charge or class action suit, but there was more than one event and woman involved in both.

I guess we will find out soon enough

I agree with all of that. I’m just surprised they’d agree to a clause in the Personal Conduct Policy that states that they have to be more strict with owners than they do with players. Oops.

Absolutely. But the best organizations keep their own house in order. The NFL has failed in that. Sooner or later that comes back to bite ya. We’re seeing that with Snyder. Do you think he’d have skimmed the other owners if he knew he would get hammered for it? He wasn’t afraid.

https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2022/06/16/nflpas-defense-of-deshaun-watson-will-take-aim-at-nfls-treatment-of-multiple-owners/ The NFLPA intends to challenge any suspension of Watson, citing the very lenient handling of violations of owners Snyder, Kraft and Jones and the Personal Conduct Policy that states: “Ownership and club or league management have traditionally been held to a higher standard and will be subject to more significant discipline when violations of the Personal Conduct Policy occur.” I never thought the league would agree to a clause like that. The NFL rarely holds owners accountable for just about anything so they had to see something like this coming.

Really? Having an All Pro at safety isn’t going to help the Bills make a Super Bowl run? What other players and positions do you think don’t matter?

Or maybe just respect the family’s request for privacy

If this doesn't get resolved, then that's probably his move - either “retiring” or sitting out with an “injury”. If he says “pay me or trade me to a team that will or I’m retiring” then what’s the Bills play? Moving from Jordan Poyer to Jaquan Johnson or Siran Neal isn’t going to help this team win a championship.

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/contracts/sort-value/safety/limit-100/ Link to safety contracts above. It seems like this shouldn’t be that big of an issue. Even a deal like Harrison Smith’s wouldn’t be prohibitive. Honestly, it would be helpful in many ways since it looks big at 4/64 but is really a 2/26 that pushes much of the cap hit to year 3. That seems too easy so there’s got to be reason that hasn’t happened yet - and it is probably because Poyer wants more than that. Due to the Bills and Poyer keeping this largely in house we really don’t know: - what Poyer wants - what the Bills are offering or - what Poyer will do if a new deal isn’t worked out. That last one is where it gets interesting. I think this gets worked out, but if it doesn’t I don’t think the answer is that Poyer plays out his deal without incident so that the Bills can tag him next offseason if he balls out again. The Bills didn’t exactly plan for this by bolstering the safety position with quality depth either. Again, I think this gets worked out but that’s because the Bills are going to have to pay Poyer. This is it for him, he has earned a much better contract than what he has currently. That and his age dictate that the time is now for him to get paid and he has to do everything he can to make that happen. Realistically the Bills don’t have any other real options than to pay him.

That’s not correct. The big difference is their ages. But that will impact the length and guarantees of the contract more than the AAV. Poyer won’t hit Fitzpatrick’s AAV, but this contract for a safety with first team All Pro selections in 2019 and 2020 will definitely raise the price of this other safety coming off a first team All Pro selection in 2021.

Wow! That was a very surprising read. I would not have thought a LEO would take a guilty upon accusation and until proven innocent approach. No corroborating evidence other than similar accusations (at least in the cases that officer investigated) is big.

Robby Anderson being floated in trade for Mayfield. I don’t know which side that is coming from though. Carolina just restructured his contract so that would mean the Browns would have to eat a lot more of Mayfield’s contract.

There also were rumors that when they were trying to trade for Watson, the Phins offered to settle the cases against him for $100k each.

That is a great question. The Browns will still need him to restructure his contract to eat some of his salary so they don’t want to escalate the situation too far. They also don’t want him to get injured at the facility. Mayfield might actually want to come to TC though - even if excused - and the Browns really can’t prevent him from doing so as long as he’s on the team. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Baker can’t hold out. If he did, the Browns would just void his contract. They’d love for that to be the outcome, but I can’t see Mayfield giving up $18.9M to become a free agent. I don’t see him ever playing for the Browns again, but he can’t hold out.