BarleyNY

I scrolled past this a couple nights ago and the wife blurted out "Oh my god! 4 Falls of Buffalo!" We have not watched it. Seems like something to punish my kids with if they get out of hand.

Not quite, it depends on the contract structure. For a contract that large there would be a signing bonus. So let’s look at a 4 year, $40M contract with the following structure: $10M signing bonus and salaries of $4M, $6m, $9.5M and $10.5 M. The cap hit associated with the signing bonus would be split among all 4 years. Here are the cap hits and cash payments: Y1: $6.5M (salary + 1/4 of signing bonus) [$14M cash] Y2: $8.5M [$6M cash, $20M total] Y3: $12.0M [$9.5M cash, $29.5M total] Y4: $13.0M [$10.5M cash, $40M total] Now, let’s say the player gets cut in March of Y3. The caps hits would be thus: Y1: $6.5M (salary + 1/4 of signing bonus) [$14M cash] Y2: $8.5M [$6M cash, $20M total] Y3: $5M (remainder of signing bonus) [$0 cash] So it is easy to see why teams use signing and restructure bonuses to kick out cap hits. And why players like that.

Cincy hitting Higgins with the tag so quickly tells us that they won’t be signing him long term. He either gets traded or plays on it this season and walks next. Either is a win for the Bengals, though a trade is the more favorable. To the end they made sure to tag him before the combine, where potential deals can be discussed. Smart move on their part.

He is one of the obvious restructures. Nice to see it moving along.

It would depend a lot on how we got there.

Just heard McDermott reiterate that “Only one team gets to lift the Lombardi trophy.” and that “31 teams go home disappointed every season.” In addition to McDermott having said this multiple times already I’ve heard Beane say something similar this offseason. My unpopular opinion is that I hate hearing the leaders of the team say crap like this. It gives everyone an excuse for failure every season. Oh well, there’s 31 of us. <shrug> No big deal. I wonder how he’d have responded to Bass if, after missing the game tying kick, he said something like that?

Or if he hand not played a significant portion of the season with a broken wrist.

This. If a team has an owner who has cash and is willing to spend it, then it is a sustainable model. But you have to spend on good players and then get out of their contracts by the time they aren’t anymore.

A couple weeks ago I noticed that Tasker on 550 and some other media close to the Bills started pushing the narrative that the team “had to get younger”. I took that to mean that the team was going to move on from some of the bigger names. This was the team’s way of preparing the fan base for it so there’s be less of a backlash or uproar. This would fit.

Okay, but it’s not like KC’s wasn't and they lost to Cincy. I’m not sure how unpopular it is either. I’ve read more posts like that than I can count. Every season it’s the same thing: “If x, y and/or z hadn’t happened, then we’d have won it all that year.” I’m not convinced. Pressure mounts throughout the playoffs and the Bills are yet to handle that well. I’ll give you this though, I think that it was their best opportunity for a championship.

The first thing to understand is that every dollar teams pay a player must be accounted for on the salary cap.* So if the Bills were to rework Von’s contract they would still be on the hook for cap hits for what they’ve paid him but hasn’t been account for. Think about it this way: There’s a running total of how much a team pays a player. Eventually the cap hits must equal that total. There is no way around that. *There are a few exceptions to this: 1) The Veteran Signing Benefit allows teams to give a small number of veteran players on vet minimum deals a small signing bonus that doesn’t hit the cap. 2) Cash that teams recoup from a player. 3) Salary forfeited by players who are suspended.

My opinion is the same now as it was then - a modest overpay. It was a four year, $52M extension, which is paying him $54.4M over 5 years. Is $13M AAV on the extension too much? I thought $10M AAV would have been more appropriate for his value, but at the same time some TEs were getting paid and Knox had great red zone production. So I can see how it got above that $10M AAV. A bit of an overpay, but nothing egregious IMO.

I don’t like ranch on my wings. Love a good blue cheese on them - and on the accompanying celery. It it absolutely the way to go. On this I am not flexible. But, oddly, I love wing dips that are made with ranch but never cared for the ones made with blue cheese. shrug

Only four more to take the lead….

In that SB the Rams beat the Bengals, who had beaten the Chiefs, who had beaten the Bills. Not to say it couldn’t have happened, but the Bills winning it all is a lot to assume.

If the Bills were to cut Diggs realistically it would have to be before 3/17 and very likely with a 6/1 designation. That’s because his guaranteed salary would still hit the cap as dead money. Diggs is much more likely a trade candidate. I’ve read that 6/1 designations may be used for trades as well as cuts. Each team gets 2 per year. So that is another possibility for a Diggs deal.

Also Jags tagged and traded Yannick Ngakoue. Did GB do it with Davante Adams too?

I think he’s getting franchised.

Agents everywhere:

Agreed. If Kincaid substantially improves his blocking this season, then Knox can get shipped out. Not happening until then. I think that’s the Bills plan tho.

Yeah, you can’t take a player back if he’s lied to you. You never know what else is lurking. This was still a big misstep by the organization though. Even if the Bills truly believed he was innocent, drafting him was inviting a lot of unnecessary distraction. You can’t have that on a team vying for a SB. The upside wasn’t even for something of much value. For a FQB, sure, no problem. But for a PUNTER? No punter in the league was ever worth that.

Thanks for the feedback. I like their stuff and the wife is a big fan. My brother lives in Denver so getting to visit him is a big bonus for me. Also Red Rocks is the nicest venue I've ever seen for a concert so that's a plus.

That's a load of crap. The MVP came down to one simple thing: There were a bunch of good candidates and every one of them had a garbage game and got their name crossed of the list - Josh Allen included - except for Lamar. He saved that for the playoffs, but that doesn't count as the MVP votes are cast right after the regular season ends. And guess what? Consistency is a good tiebreaker for a close race.

You have some good stuff there. I'll caution you on Modest Mouse though. The UB show was a crapfest. I got worried when the opener and guitarist both made a point of pumping up the crowd and telling us what a great show we were in for. No need to do that if the show is going to be great. Brock came out and started to slur his way through the songs. He was awful. Also the sound was garbage. I happened to be there with the guy who did the sound system for the room. He said they must've brought in their own sound people because the regular crew was top notch. This crew had it distorted and imbalanced - and too loud. We walked out about 30 minutes in to the show. Brock actually yelled at us "Where are you going?" I will forever be angry at myself for not flipping him off. It was literally the worst concert I've ever been to. I told a buddy about it and he said, "Yeah. I didn't want to say anything when you told me you were going, but that's pretty much how it was when I saw them a couple years ago. But you already had your tickets."

Looking into going to see Vampire Weekend at Red Rocks on June 19th. If anyone has seen them I'd appreciate hearing your opinion of them in concert.