BarleyNY

Diggs can still play. Home games in a dome and playing in the AFCS will be helpful for him. The relationship was over here and him being on the team was going to be a real problem moving forward. Moving on while we could still get something for him wasn’t the worst thing.

First off the league won’t approve a trade if a player’s contract can’t fit under the cap. So we can’t get him here to rework his deal. It would have to be done in advance and that still won’t work since he’s not taking a pay cut and SF isn’t eating any of his contract. So we can’t trade for Aiyuk now. Could it work post 6/1? I don’t think the Bills want to wait that long. I doubt SF would want to either. If they are going to trade him I’m sure that they want it done before the draft. But I think it could theoretically be done on 6/2. We could squeeze his contract under and then extend him and lower his cap hit. A 4 year, $100M extension would put him on a 5 year, $115M contract. That could put his 1st year cap hit at about $6M. That would leave the team about $7M for signing draft picks, the transition to a 53 man roster, the practice squad, replacement players and other in season moves. That wouldn’t be enough. They’d need at least $5M more for that. I’m not sure if they could find that much or not.. So trading for him before 6/1 is not possible. Trading for him on or after 6/2 would be very difficult if not impossible. .

I’ve seen Thomas as high as 4th, but I’ve seen him a lot lower too. I do not think he’s a good fit for the Bills. He insisted a Metcalf style WR. An X who is big and fast and is excellent at contested catches. But the Bills have been running an offense with a much quicker passing game. He doesn’t do a good job of uncovering quickly so that limits him to contested catches on quicker routes or longer developing ones. Spending multiple picks on that style of player makes no sense to me.

I know enough about the cap to understand why the Bills can’t afford Aiyuk this season, which definitely puts me ahead of you on that subject. Also I understand that the trade and Aiyuk acquisitions are separate scenarios. Reread what I wrote. I’m not interested in trading up for any WR other than the top 3. Aiyuk is not feasible for cap reasons.

The writer just accidentally omitted him. Not much proofreading happens anymore.

Won’t work. Aiyuk’s current contract is over $14M. If you trade this year’s picks, then you can’t wait until after 6/1 to trade for him since that’s after the draft. Even if we did, we still don’t have the room since we need that $10M for the season. Also his next contract will still have a larger cap hit than we could absorb this season. He’s going to be a $25M a year player.

Aiyuk would be a tremendous addition to the Bills, but we can’t fit his contract under the cap so that won’t work. I have zero interest in a big trade up for any WR outside the top 3. Too much capital for not much difference than can be had near 28.

With the 85th pick in the draft the Cleveland Browns select Blake Fisher, OT, Notre Dame. @stinky finger and Houstong are now on the clock

The Bills are taking their medicine this year. Their cash spend last season was 5th in the NFL in 2023. As it stands today it is 22nd. I haven’t read the Globe article as it’s paywalled, but I think he’s drawing an unfair conclusion about the tightening of the purse strings. While it is true that the Bills are spending a lot less cash this season than last, they obviously decided to take a lot of dead cap hits now. It’s a massive $55M in total dead cap hits in fact. It’s a reset and it’ll be a bit of down season. But that’s not the same as a permanent cinching of the purse strings. If the spending doesn’t increase next offseason then that’s a different story. But it’s definitely jumping the gun to think it’s more than a reset.

Knox can’t be traded at this time due to the cap hit. His cap hit would INCREASE by $9.8M if traded by 6/1. Plus the contract of the player replacing him would have to be added.

I can’t believe that Roethlisberger has only been out of the league for two seasons so far. I would’ve sworn that it’s been 4 or 5. As for Johnson, not for the $10M the Panthers are paying him. No freaking way.

Didn’t he push a woman who ran on the field as part of a crowd after a game ended? I’m curious if there’s more tho. Seems like there has to be, but if that’s it……

I appreciate that information. I’ve looked for it, but have never found anything definitive that states which of them has final roster authority.

I didn’t say they had to tell anyone, just that it is very out of the ordinary and odd. Why wouldn’t a team be transparent about it? I guess it rubs me wrong for this reason: Beane is the GM. If he has final say then I see no reason at all to not tell the public. But if it’s McDermott, then it’s a problem because Beane winds up taking the heat for decisions he’s getting stuck with. That would be dysfunctional. Edited to add: Gunner just posted that he has seen it states that Beane has final roster authority. If that’s the case, then I’m good with laying the blame and kudos for roster decisions at Beane’s feet. I just haven’t seen anything definitive on the matter myself.

I have levied criticism of McDermott and Beane. On thing I always note when doing so is that it’s unclear who is ultimately making the final decisions. I think that Beane reports to McDermott, but I’m not sure. The Bills invite this kind of speculation because they will not tell the public who has the final roster authority or what the reporting structure. I’ve always found this unnecessary and odd. I can’t say I’ve seen that level of secrecy over that information before.

That is brutal.

With the 54th pick in the draft the Cleveland Browns select Jermaine Burton, WR, Alabama. @Doc Brown is in the clock for Miami Burton has first round talent. I have him as my WR4 from that perspective, but I keep hearing about “off the field issues”. The problem is they no one is talking about what those are. In any event the talent is too great to pass up here.

Pick will be in shortly

It all does seem disingenuous.

I stay away from the “shouty shows” but sports radio is good white noise for me. I don’t really have to pay attention and it is pretty meaningless in the grand scheme of things so it doesn’t have the same strain as the important stuff.

Firstly, we all have seen how an unhappy Diggs acts toward his team. We saw it in Minnesota and we saw it here. Same guy. Same playbook. So no team was going to trade for him unless their expectation was that he wanted to be there and would be happy there. So Diggs had to sign off on his acceptable teams. The Texans were either that singular team or one on a short list of teams. So he chose the Texans, potentially along with others. At that point it would’ve been up to the team(s) to negotiate with Beane. I highly doubt that it was a coincidence that the Texans traded with Minnesota and acquired the pick they traded for Diggs just prior. That was the compensation that got the deal done. It’s probable that it’s what the Texans had to do to match or beat another offer.

Is anyone else more disgusted than usual with the media regarding the Diggs trade? Virtually every Bills centric media member was dismissive about the possibility of him being traded beforehand. Some went so far as to be rude about it and acted like people making the suggestion were idiots for even thinking it was a possibility. Fast forward to the aftermath and I’ve yet to hear one utter anything in the way of a mea culpa. I literally heard one of the more dismissive ones start off their podcast with “Well, it finally happened!” Like it was something he’d been expecting. It’s a good reminder that so many media people are just playing a game. I shared here that an NFL reporter who’d been in Vegas for SB week had said that the big rumor among teams that week was that the Bills would be trying to trade Diggs this offseason. I don’t write that here to LAMP. But if it’s something that can make it to someone like me, how do they not hear it. They’re supposedly so well connected. Or is it that they collectively kept a lid on it? I dunno, either way it’s not a good look. I lost a lot of respect for many of them.

It isn’t riskier for Diggs to have the one year deal versus the old one. His contract had no guarantees beyond 2024 so 2025 and after would’ve effectively been a team option. Roster bonuses eliminated any injury risk to the Texans of having to keep and pay him. Obviously a multi year contract with guaranteed money beyond 2024 would’ve been better for Diggs, but he got the next best thing.

Diggs’ leverage was choosing the Texans. That’s particularly important with a player who has forced his way out of two teams when he had several seasons left on each of his contracts.

This highlights the real problems with that kind of difficult situation. Allen was handcuffed. He wasn’t really in a position to be able to tell off Diggs and put him in line. You can only do that when you’re able to kick someone to the curb and that just barely became feasible this offseason. Florio was right that Diggs had the power in the relationship. Allen had to play peacemaker because burning down the relationship with Diggs would hurt the whole team. The real issue was the contract extension the Bills gave him. You can’t make a guy like Diggs happy for long. He’s only happy if he gets every last thing he wants and the minute he doesn’t he goes back to being a massive problem.