BarleyNY

The Iggles have the exact same cap numbers whether Ertz is traded or released. That means they’re just dragging this out to maximize value. Theoretically they could wait until cut down day to release him, but they won’t want him in training camp where if he were to get injured they’d be on the hook for his whole $8.5M salary. They won’t risk that, so the endgame will likely be just prior to the start of TC - which starts on 6/27.

Yup. For me it’s probably Ground Hog Day, What About Bob?, Princess Bride and Finding Nemo. Honorable mentions to Stardust, Office Space, Tropic Thunder and pretty much any Tarantino movie. The first five on the list are all movies my kids and I watch when we are sick. I haven’t watched Finding Nemo in years but it was the only thing that would soothe my son when he was young and got sick. He’s graduating high school this month and though I haven’t seen it in 10-15 years I still quote it regularly.

My favorite two Oscars ever awarded are to Marisa Tomei for My Cousin Vinny and Kevin Klein for A Fish Called Wanda.

It really is such a slow time of year for football news

Yeah, good catch. The egregiously bad Clay contract would be bigger any way you look at it.

Their leverage is that they can wait until cut down day to release Ertz for cap purposes. The only problem with that is that don’t want him in the building where they’d be on the hook for his salary if he got injured. So the likely endpoint for this is just prior to the start of training camps on July 27th.

Your kidney? Well this is awkward.

RAS methodology separates DTs and Edge players so it looks like someone combined them to look at Epenesa. His scores obviously looked better in that light, but he was bigger when he came out and it might’ve made sense if he was looked at as a DT/DE hybrid. In any event he’s reshaped his body and those numbers are probably not all that useful anymore.

Saying that EJ should’ve been a 3rd or 4th round pick is a very different thing than saying that at the time he was drafted he thought EJ should’ve been a 3rd or 4th round pick. It looks like Whaley chose his words very carefully as saying the former is truthful and leads people to imply the latter, which would not have been.

Sad that it happened. Glad that it’s been corrected, finally.

I was only trying to explain the situation, not give an opinion of whether we should acquire Ertz. I am not a big fan of our TE corps so I’d love to get Ertz. As for what he’s worth in the FA market, I already said that I didn’t have a great idea because it’s June and there are less teams in need of a TE and less cap space in the league. That muddies the waters. Is he worth $8.5M? Probably, but if Beane can flip a day 3 pick to lessen his salary and cap hit, then all the better. Or if he hits the FA market and we get him for 2 or 3 seasons instead of 1, that’s better too. Or maybe he take a little more money to play for a team that’s not a contender and we miss out on him. But did we want him if that’s where his head was?

Here is my quick breakdown using Spotrac: The Iggles have the exact same cap hits whether Ertz is traded or released at this point. $4.22M cap hit in 2021, $3.55M cap hit in 2022. They would save $8.5M in space and salary this season. Any salary they would take on in a trade would add to his cap hit this season. The Bills would take on his $8.5M salary and cap hit this season, less anything the Iggles agreed to take. So the trade is really a pick for taking on some cap/salary on the Iggles side. On the Bills side they’re just looking to buy down his one year contract with a day 3 pick. Presumably they’d be looking at how much less they’d be paying him versus what it would be on the FA market, not his current $8.5M salary. There are ways to value the cap equivalent of draft picks - this OTC article has examples - but I can definitely see why this would be such a difficult trade to make. Without knowing his market price it’s impossible to figure out what the right pick for salary amounts are fair - or if it’s even possible to make them fair.

I didn’t want to keep this thread going, but I’ll respond for two points: 1) @Rochesterfanis correct that Callahan was not a Browns coach when they traded for him. He did have a very high opinion of him prior to the draft and talked about that when he took the Browns job. My mistake that he wasn’t with the Browns and part of the trade decision. Right after Callahan came on board Teller was slated for starting RG. 2) I never said anyone thought he was going to be an All Pro when the Bills traded him. But no one in the Bills organization saw Teller - a player at a position of need who became an All Pro a season later - as even having solid starter potential? Or that he was more worthy of developing than others on the roster? Others did, and it paid off for them. If Beane had been on the other side of a trade like this, people would be talking about how much smarter he is than other GMs and how he hosed the other team on the trade. This one went the other way and he should take his lumps. That’s all I was saying.

Show me where he pushes the pocket one on one. Things are shifting all over the place with Star’s fans here. I’ve heard that his job is to take on double teams and keep the LBs clean. He doesn’t. I’ve heard that he was doing great in 2019, but then the same people applaud him for losing a bunch of weight. If he was doing so great, then why is changing his body so much a good thing? That makes no sense. Now are you honestly telling me that he’s here to rush the passer? Sorry. I hope he turns it around this season and he gets back to being the player he was in Carolina, but he hasn’t been close yet and I’ll believe it when I see it. Yeah. But then in that Dallas game post with the clips why was there only one clip of him getting doubled on a run?

I wondered that myself. My guess is that the Cowboys were working inside out on pass pro and it just happened to work out that way. Doubling a DT with the extra OL would keep the front of the pocket clean which is helpful for any QB, but particularly important for those on the shorter side like Dak. Still, I have no idea why they’d bother doubling Star. Not even his most fervent supporters pretend he’s here to rush the passer.

Go back and read my comments on him getting doubled by extra pass blockers - and him not pushing the pocket whether double or single teamed as a pass rusher. So now we’re talking TWO running plays he got doubled on? I did miss the first one you linked because he was turned so his number didn’t face the camera. My bad.

I guess I will believe it when I see it. I can’t imagine how he’d look so different game to game, but we have a bunch of new ones to watch this year. In the meantime feel free to point out games he did well in and I’ll give them a look.

Probably converting to DE

I rewatched the condensed Cowboys game on Game Pass. 30 minutes to see a nice win wasn’t exactly a chore. Star had two really nice plays that game, including his best as a Bill - the INT of Dak on a screen. He also knocked down a pass at the line. I can see why those plays would lead you to chose that game. But the problem is that the rest of it looked like everything else I’ve seen. He played 35 defensive snaps (46%) and 3 on specials. He was double teamed on run plays only once where he was moved out of his gap and the RB went through it easily. He drew no other doubles on runs, was easily handled by one blocker and made no impact outside of the two plays mentioned. There were several pass plays where a second blocker engaged him, but he never pushed the pocket. It just looked like the extra OL was just picking him up because he had no one else to block. Star had a great and a really good play in that game, but it’s really a reach to say those are indicative of his contribution to the Bills. In two seasons that was his lone INT and he has one other pass defended to go along with two sacks. But again, those are not what he’s supposed to be here for. His job is supposed to be drawing double teams and clogging up the middle. He has failed at that main aspect so far. It looks like he’s got one season left to show he can change that.

It’s worth noting that restructuring only takes away flexibility next season if the additional space created this season is spent this season. What isn’t spent rolls over and that washes. Usually at least some is spent like that, but sometimes space is just created for emergency spending in the event of injuries, etc. In the case of Diggs restructuring the Bills need some of that space to get through the season. That includes some emergency fund money which will roll over if unused. Also sometimes spending this year on things like retaining players long term can keep a team from having to sign free agents in the future. That can be a net cap gain, depending on the contracts and FA market.

I’ll rewatch the Cowboys game, but in general I just have to disagree on Star (until I see some consistent proof that outweighs what I saw in multiple games). As for guys getting paid to make these decisions, they make mistakes too. Star’s initial contract was based on him playing like he did for most of his time in Carolina and I sure have not seen play close to that caliber. Since then, the Bills have been stuck due to his initial contract, though they did see fit to reduce it. We almost certainly have him for one more season so the best I can do is hope the year off did him well and that he balls out this year. At minimum he should keep Oliver playing a lot more 3T which is a help in and of itself.

I get that such a situation can look bad, but it’s not bad from a cap perspective as the two year hit is the same. You might be pointing at a team using the extra space to overextend itself and that would definitely create problems. The potential other issue I saw on the Steelers years ago. They’ve been restructuring a lot of players like this for years. Usually it’s worked out fine, but they have had players underperform (due to getting paid and phoning it in, getting off the juice, getting old, etc.) whom they couldn’t cut right away. In general as long as a team is responsible it’s good to kick cap down to future years. One benefit is that future cap hits are discounted by the percentage of the increase in cap. Obviously 2020 threw a wrench in this, but for example if the cap rose a steady 5% per year then signing bonus hits would be discounted by 5% every year. A $4M SB on a 4 year deal would show $1M each season, but due to the 5% annual cap increase they would be equivalent to $1M, $950k, $902.5k and $857.4K. So you can see why teams love to utilize this to their advantage.

There’s really not a lot of those moves you’d WANT to make though. A Dawkins restructure is about it IMO. The Bills are now set up to make it through the season comfortably. The Bills could even make a move with a relatively modest hit this year. Even a bigger move - like with a Steven Nelson level contract - could be made if it were a longer contract or if voidable years were used on a short one.

Did you catch that Bills-Browns game replay? I watched Star in the first half. He saw one double team in that half - where he got blown into the secondary and the RB ran through his gap. Beyond that I saw one blocker handle him pretty easily. He didn’t occupy two blockers, anchor well, keep the LBs clean or make any impact that I saw. He was a lot better chasing plays laterally than I thought he’d be, but I didn’t see him make much of an impact with that either. I know that’s just one half of one game, but when I’ve watched him in others I’ve seen the same. If someone wants to point me to a game where he made a big, positive impact I’ll cue it up on GamePass.