BarleyNY

I used to talk to a customer about once a quarter. Once or twice a year for probably five or six years I would get his coworker and I’d ask if my contact was available. He always shot back that line and for some reason it always made me laugh. I talked to so many people and so few jokes it always caught me off guard.

That certainly was the narrative pushed by the team and league.

I’m not getting into a petty snark war with you. You’re wrong about a lot here. I’ll cover some of that and leave it there. You keep talking about the FAs available last year and spending $12.7M on one of them. That’s wrong. Edmunds had his fully guaranteed, $12.7M fifth year option picked up last offseason, but it is not in effect until 2022. That’s when the money will be available to spend. As I said, I only posted the link to players signed in 2021 to show you what the ILB FA market looks like in general. Your statement that the $12.7M would have to be spent in one year is wrong too. Carryover allows for unspent cap to easily be moved forward. (There are also some ways to defer cap hits and spend future space earlier.) There are countless ways to use $12.7M and many of them would be better than on 1 more season of Edmunds. You are correct when you state that FA players would have to agree to a deal with the Bills, but you don’t give a reason why that would be a problem. Good teams rarely have trouble finding FAs at market value. It’s the bad teams that have to overpay for FAs. You’re wrong if you think it would be a problem to find players to agree to contracts here. His salary of $12.7M ranks 7th in AAV for ILBs in 2022. I don’t see him close to the 7th best ILB. In general, it’s not a high paying position except for a handful of difference makers. Edmunds has too many issues with his game to be in that pay range. I’d have been okay if the team had declined his option and signed him to a more reasonable contract. But $12.7M is his floor now. If someone wants to argue that Edmunds is a better player than I think he is (I’m looking at you @Thurman#1), then I’ll just say that I disagree and leave it at that. You are entitled to your opinion. I would point out that there team hasn’t signed him to an extension yet though. Not even a whisper about it. Allen’s deal has been done for some time now so there has been plenty of time and he’d be next in line for one if that’s the direction they wanted to go. Thel lack of an extension for Edmunds and the fact that his option wasn’t picked up until the last minute leads me to believe that the team tried to extend him to a longer term, but lower AAV deal last off-season. He didn’t bite so they picked up the option. That’s just an educated guess, but it makes sense. Now we just have to sit back, watch him play this season and see what the team does.

It seems like a younger, more cost effective player on a longer term deal will be available. Beane can have feelers out on better options, but you never know what’ll happen in FA. The decision on Beasley will probably have to stand on his merits. I have been thinking more about @Hapless Bills Fan’s point - that Beasley looses reps against teams with stickier coverage (or when that’s allowed by refs). If that’s the case, then we should move on and find someone who’s better against that because that’s what you get in the playoffs and prime time games. Refs let a lot go in those games. Beane will have some options in FA and the draft. The other option would be to keep Beasley for the last year of his contract and draft his replacement. Then bring the rookie along behind him and have him earn his playing time. Either option would be fine by me.

That’ll be tough. He’s due a $500k roster bonus on 3/20 and I don’t expect the Bills to be going crazy in the first wave of free agency. The new money due to him in 2022 is $6.07M. That’s certainly not egregious for a starting slot WR. But I wonder why he wasn’t on the field more in the KC game. He only played 30 of 64 offensive snaps. Diggs played 54, Davis 53, McKenzie 17, Sanders 16 and Kumerow 3. Knox played 63! I know Beasley still ranks 3rd among WRs - and 4th among receiving targets - in snap count, but it seems like he should have had more usage in such an important game. It makes me think that the team sees him in decline and that they were limiting his snaps. That makes it more likely that they’ll move on from him this off-season.

I understood your question. I just thought it was a dumb way to think about the situation. There are much better ways to spend $12.7M than on one season of Edmunds. And there are better values at the position. while the FA market at ILB isn’t loaded, it’s not like Edmunds is a good player. Just because some fans have massively overrated him or continue to believe that his potential will be realized someday doesn’t mean it’s true. Reality says otherwise.

It’s Star’s contract. $2.5M of his salary is guaranteed. That, along with other dead money for him, makes it difficult to cut and replace him from a cap standpoint.

Okay, so here’s the LIST of ILBs that signed as FAs last off season. The highest paid one, Kyle Van Noy, signed for 2 years at $6M per year. The next was Jarred Davis who signed a one year, $5.5M contract. There are several who signed for one or two years at $3M/year. And, of course, many who signed for a lot less than that. Edmunds wouldn’t have been a free agent until this off-season though. Those players all signed those deals last offseason. The FO had options for this season. They could have drafted JOK instead of Rousseau at 30 in the last draft. Or they could sign one of the FAs this off-season. Lots of the same names on that LIST. They could also draft someone this year in addition to a low priced FA ILB and use the money saved elsewhere.

I don’t think he’s seeing anyone seriously right now.

I’d love to trade him and dump his salary, but who going to trade anything for him? He’s an off the ball LB playing on a fully guaranteed one year, $12.7M contract. No one is trading for that.

I hope that we are nowhere near pushing the chips in. The Bills overspent in some places and now you’re right, it is gonna be tight. They have to be smarter and draft better going forward or they will have to make that decision on pushing in sooner than we’d like. Here’s hoping we can be more like the Steelers and Ravens rather than the Eagles in that regard. I agree on Levi. Some team will pay him. The Bills should be quiet during the first wave (or two) of free agency. They have to find a corner there though. And then probably another somewhere in the draft. I worry about when Tre will be back and rounded into form next season.

Lol. It’s always so hilarious to read fans say that players should - or even better yet, WANT to - be paid millions less than what they are worth so that the team can get a ring. But let’s get some stuff straight first. Diggs did not get a raise. The Bills converted some of his 2021 salary into a signing bonus to free up cap space. He did not get any more money. Also despite being a top 5 WR he is currently 17th in AAV. That position will drop further after free agency, even after Amari Cooper gets cut. Diggs should be comfortably top 10 at least. Why should he take less than he’s worth? So another player can get paid more? So YOU can have a marginally better chance at seeing the Bills win a championship? You want a man to give up eight figures for that? And you want him to do it to play with a QB that didn’t give up a dime on his new contract (nor should he have)? Please. The man is one of the best WRs in the game (just ask anyone on this board) and he deserves to be paid as such.

I know McDermott isn’t as seasoned as Reid, but damn. This is ridiculous. I didn’t know that he called two TOs on that drive and did not adjust or change alignments either time. Wow.

What back ups? Our starting 3 CBs (Wallace, Taron Johnson and Dane Jackson), our starting 2 Safeties (Poyer and Hyde) and our 2 starting LBs (Milano and Edmunds) played every defensive snap. 76 total. We were in dime for two plays and Neal came in for a DL. He was the only other back 7 player to see the field. No wonder they were gassed by OT. I didn’t say that Tre would not have made any difference. I said we were so shallow at coverage positions that no one could take a breather. Meanwhile the DL had a robust rotation with only Hughes and Oliver having over 50% of the snaps at 44 and 43, respectively. Of the 9 DL rotating through the game I only saw Oliver make a real impact. As for KC having players out, that was in response to people comparing the two defenses/teams and using Tre’s injury as an excuse. Every team has injuries. It’s a cop out to say “if we were totally healthy we’d have won” while ignoring the fact that the other team was more banged up than yours. Just a horribly weak argument in general and doubly so when your team ignored depth at that position.

I expect most of these moves, but they aren’t as clean as they look. Diggs will almost certainly want a pay raise and/or extension so the savings probably will be somewhat different. Players like Beasley, Haack and Matakevich will need to be replaced and that’s not free. Our WR corps without Beasley is pretty much just Diggs and Davis. I think Beasley gets swapped out for another vet and we draft another WR. That vet will cost something. There are plenty of other needs as well, starting with CB2. The good news is that, as you point out, we can create space. The bad news is that we are going to need it.

Fair point.

I guess you wouldn’t be hurting most chain pizzas with it anyway.

I was assuming that the crux of the story was true - that McDermott wanted a squib, which didn’t get through to the kicker, and that there was some disarray at the end of regulation. While I’m not taking the full report as gospel - things get embellished - the basics seem plausible if not probable based on what we all saw. Caution is often the result of disarray and uncertainty. When in stressful, high stakes situations it’s better to not make the situation worse if you can’t make it better. But obviously that is not nearly as good as being prepared and actively and calmly navigating those situations. The team that had the coaching staff and team that was better prepared for that incredibly frantic and stressful situation won the game. That makes sense because they had the far more seasoned HC. Reid was in McDermott’s shoes when he was in Philly where he fared no better than McDermott did Sunday. And if we would have won the OT toss, we’d still have won the game. To be clear, I’m not beating up the coaches here. They already have brought the Bills a long way. They need to learn and grow from this game so that next time we can get over the top. If they do, then this will be looked at as a galvanizing moment for the franchise.

If the pizza is of good quality then such accoutrements are unnecessary. What kind of pizza would I want ranch on anyway? Is there a pizza with raw veggies on it?

Only an idiot would willing admit to a situation as described above. Poor execution by staff and team? Sure. We all saw that. Failure to get a called play in followed by frustration and disarray? No. Even if true you can’t tell the world that. It is so much worse. You just have to learn from it an make sure it never happens again.

Fully understand where you are coming from. This is a good reason why it won’t happen and I would not consider it unless Tre was good with it.

He’s not Kelce, but he would be our best TE. So, yes.

It really is not necessary regardless of the exact circumstances here. He’s the HC. Ultimately it is his responsibility. He chooses his staff, he chooses how involved to be in scheme, preparation and play calling - and in what situations to do so. Ditto for personnel on the roster (along with Beane, whom he chose) and on the field. McDermott should be first and foremost where responsibility is concerned, be it good or bad.

I find it very odd that you insist my issue with not wanting to support EsPN is over $60 a year and not the mind numbingly poor content offered by them. Are you projecting you own financial struggles? Are you blowing too much of your income on your ranch dressing habit? If so, check one of your tubs for a ranch addiction help line.

DL: Star, Epenesa, Rousseau, Basham, Oliver. First, pick up Oliver’s fifth year option. Look to extend him during the season if he’s still playing at the level he was last season. Effing Star. We are stuck with him next season due to his contract and lack of bodies at DT. Please re-sign Phillips to a reasonable deal. He will have to want to be here because the DT market is going to get people PAID. We have to shore up the position somehow. Gotta go value shopping in FA or the draft at DE for depth too. LB: Milano, Edmunds and Klein. Stuck with Edmunds another season, but do not compound that mistake by extending him. Also no sense paying a 3rd LB (again) when you run a Nickel base. Klein was not good this season so he’s an easy cut. He’s due a 3/20 roster bonus so he should be gone by then. I’d add a depth FA and a draft pick (3rd round or beyond) with instincts and upside. DB: White, Poyer, Hyde, Taron Johnson, Joaquin Johnson, Dane Jackson. The obvious hole is CB2. I’d like to bring back Wallace if we can get a reasonable deal done. Plus we need to add another outside CB in case Tre is not back early in the season. A draft pick or a vet that comes at a decent price are fine. We also need to draft a safety as depth/future starter. Poyer is entering the last season of his deal and we should look to extend him. Specials: Bass, Ferguson, Haack. I would look to upgrade Haack. Otherwise I’m good. Also Id probably start talking extension with Bass’ agent later in the season or next offseason. He’s signed through 2023 now.