BarleyNY

I’d love to play the Patriots......but.......oh........right

It was close. It happens. Nothing to see here.

To be fair, the Browns installed a completely new scheme during this shortened offseason. Also Mayfield is running his third offensive system in 3 years. It’s starting to click there, but it started badly. Interestingly Mayfield has done much better with OBJ out. Bleacher Report broke out his ratings on plays with and without OBJ on the field and Mayfield has been far better without him over the last two seasons. The people here who wanted Daboll canned were missing the impact that kind of change can have on a QB - especially a young one. Likewise the positive impact of a star WR your QB clicks with (Allen and Diggs) can be huge, but it doesn’t always work that way. The Bills have done a lot right and maybe even had some luck. Now they’re reaping the rewards.

Cutting him would’ve saved $8M less what his roster replacement cost. Incidentally $1M of that is in per game active roster bonuses. They’re saving a little bit by making him inactive since week 10 at least. That’s not enough to make a big dent in either contract, but it wouldn’t have hurt. I actually thought he’d be a solid, if unspectacular, early down contributor at DE this season. After seeing our DE corps crippled by injuries last season I wanted depth and I did not want to have to depend on a rookie for a lot of snaps. So keeping him made sense to me, but his time in B-lo looks very over now if he can’t even get on the active roster now.

I agree except it’s not about money, it’s about cap space. People want to see it used to better the team and not wasted. But there are worse examples of wasted space than Murphy - and some of those contracts will still have an impact next season. Murphy will be gone and off the books.

The Pats are not sticking with Newton so they’ll be a new starter there next season. If I got to chose one for them, Wentz would be very high on my list along with the likes of Mitch Trubisky.

It really would make a lot more sense for the Bills to be in the AFCN and the Ravens in the AFCE

If Brown were to be extended I see it similarly. He’s a speed WR who is 30 now so inking him to a new contract that - however long it is on paper - is really a 2 year deal makes a lot of sense. I could see that happening and it would be a good move if the money is right. I’d be good with that or having him play out his last season. Morse is not getting a real extension though. He’s got two years left on his contract after this one, he will be 30 at the end of it and he’s already had 5 known concussions. The only exception would be if the Bills restructured and/or extended his contract to lower his compensation and/or to move some of 2021’s cap hit out. But that would not be done with the intention of keeping him around longer. His current contract is so front loaded that his new money ($7.6M & $8.5M) is not has significant as his overall AAV numbers ($11.1M) are. That might keep him here another season or two. But his concussion risk is now high enough that I could see the Bills moving on as early as this offseason. If not, then next. If I’m Beane that’s what I’d do.

Shout out to UB’s football team. 24th in the AP poll, on their way to 5-0 (up 28-0 over Akron now) and off to the MAC Championship game next weekend. A very nice, if short, season. I hope they get to play in a good bowl game and bring home a win there too. Also Jaret Patterson just went over 1k rushing yards - in less than 5 games.

$5.5M dead cap, savings of $4.9M. Morse is definitely a candidate to be cut (or traded). The contract we signed him to was comfortably over market value at the time, but that happens in FA and I get why we did it. He has been good overall, but probably not up to that contract (which was expected). He hasn’t exactly had world beating OGs next to him and that makes it difficult on a C. His concussion issues - which were a known risk at signing - have continued and that very well might be what tips the scales against him. I think the Bills move on from him this offseason or next. They can fill his spot with a slightly lesser player with less injury/concussion concerns for substantially less.

You can’t really restructure the last year of a contract. You can extend it and lower the first year cap hit or you can ask a player to take a cut, but that’s about it except for cutting/trading the player. The only possibility - and I’ve never seen this done on a one year deal or know if the league would approve it - would be to add voidable years to the current one year deal and pay out most of the salary as a signing bonus. That would just kick some of the cap hit to next season while paying him the same. I’d think him playing out his deal or an extension would be more likely.

Troof. Someone needs to step up their bread game. I don’t care for the heels on a sandwich, but they are the best with butter, cheese, etc. - if it is good bread.

This is absolutely correct. It is a spoiled fan base with a lot of entitlement. That said Steelers fans have generally been very nice to me, my wife excepted.

Thanks. Those are the two teams I’ll be watching closely too. Typically the road to getting under the cap is pretty straightforward even if it’s painful - and the situation usually makes sense. New Orleans is in worse shape than Philly, but they’ve got a 41 year old HOF QB. It makes sense for them to make a last run and then deal with Armageddon. But Philly? I have no idea what they were thinking. If they thought Wentz was their guy, then why necessitate a tear down? If they thought they made a mistake with him, then why go all in on 2020 with the rest of the roster? I get that teams got caught a bit with the revenue/cap decrease, but the NO and Philly situations were going to be very bad anyway. Those two teams are going to have to use every method at their disposal to get under the cap. And don’t expect them to get a break from the league. 30 other teams will benefit from their situations so they won’t be having it.

No kidding. They were really going to an extreme in what I have to assume was an attempt at another Super Bowl run.

The Iggles cap situation is so bad going into 2021 that they won’t be able to rectify it in just that one season. It’ll take 2-3 seasons to clear the books. $260M in cap hits for 41 players going into 2021. They’ll likely have something around $175M plus $22M in carryover to work with. Some of their high cap hit players aren’t cut or trade candidates due to huge dead cap hits so they’ll have to keep them and convert salary into a signing bonus to kick some of the hit down the road. Others will be traded or cut. Replacements will be cheap. It is ugly now and it’s going to be ugly for awhile for them.

A less superstitious man might make some glowing comments about how our team - and specifically our QB - has grown and improved. Stuff about how far they’ve come, how difficult and impressive that is, etc., etc. Ahem.

Indeed it would. I’d be getting up early on Saturday mornings

I look forward to having this conversation in earnest the week leading up to the Phins game. Keep winning and see where we stand.

Had same thought. Did the player refuse to sign his hat and then put his cigarette out on his neck?

I do not know much about him.

No thanks. We’ve got Beasley. We don’t need a poor man’s version of him on the roster. Now if a speed WR becomes available then that’s another story.

Ed Werder has the high bid on the autographed Joe Montana jersey.

Very nice to see Klein making a positive impact. Congratulations to him!

That’s fair about us putting resources into the TE position and just not getting value out of them. A third round pick for Knox was a very reasonable use of capital even if it hasn’t planned out quite as well as we’d have liked. The Kroft contract was just throwing money and cap space away though. I’ve hated that since the day we signed him. I’m just happy they cut their losses by reworking his deal to get out of it after this season. I’m not really sure what benefit there is to having Lee Smith on the team either. He does almost nothing but block and with the new rule this season requiring teams to have 8 active OL I don't see value in him taking up a roster space and $3M/year. I’m sure Nseke, Dawkins or Williams could block better and manage to catch 2 or 3 passes every year. Gilliam is our H-back. He’s cheap, doesn’t get a lot of snaps and I honestly don’t have a read on him. We obviously need a FB or H-back to fill that role though.