BarleyNY

Megatron has a $16M salary and a $24M cap hit in 2016. There's been a ton of talk about his deal being restructured to lower that which makes me wonder if this is about him wanting out of Detroit as a free agent. Or maybe he's just giving an early indication that he won't be taking a pay cut.

Torn on this issue. I prefer to see games outside, but a dome would be better for the city and a retractable roof is likely to be cost prohibitive.

IMO the top priorities would be to retain Glenn and Incognito and acquire a high quality X WR opposite Watkins. I extend Gillmore, then I replace Williams as best as I can (assuming he's gone in this scenario) and acquire a shifty slot WR. A developmental rookie QB and a vet QB are added. After that I'm looking upgrade wherever else I can.

http://overthecap.com/player/mario-williams/246/ It'll all be accounted for in 2016 (unless they designate him as a post June 1st cut, which is very doubtful). $7M in dead money, $12.9M cap savings in 2016, no charges after. He's got a roster bonus so I'd wager that he'll be on the trade block up until that day. You'd think there'd be some trepidation based on chances of a career ending injury happening. That might affect the contract structure in some way. It's also a good reason why the team would have held off on a new contract. They wanted to see how he came back and performed before investing a lot into him. That's hilarious!

I agree on the first point. A lot of teams had a lot of bad injuries and some of them made the playoffs. In fact, almost all of the teams in the playoffs had major injury issues. There seems to be an increase among all teams due to the shortened training camp and practice rules. As for Harvin, his give-a-crap has never worked very well and he's been such a malcontent his whole career I question the severity of an injury that he could have played through. The fact that the Bills seemed to have issue with the situation definitely points toward him not playing through his injury. When looking at what some of the other players on the team played through I see it as a slap in the face to them.

If they don't, then I don't see how the OL won't tank the team. It's close to a nightmare scenario. The right side is already marginal and Woods was good last season with Cogs next to him, but sucked the season before when lined up between two crappy guards. Slapping two new left side players that are either rookies or cheaper vets does not bode well.

SBNation did some good work there. I agree that the 5 year, $55M deal is a good approximation of what it'll take to re-sign Glenn at this point. I think it's a little more than what his value to the team is, but it's the deal you have to do at this point if you want to keep him. FA is looming and the market would definitely put his contract in that range - and maybe higher if some team got stupid.

Their contracts make your bad idea impossible.

Didn't Depodesta work for Shapiro?

Agree on EJ. Time to be done with him - a little late actually. I'm all for drafting a quarterback, but I also want to see a vet signed as an additional player. I'd expect a guy at the end of his career who can help the rookie and TT understand the game.

The big problem for the Chargers is that an LA team would dramatically reduce their market size. Right now they're the only team in So Cal and have it all to themselves (even though there are many fans of many teams in LA). Still, it is the Charger games getting broadcast in So Cal and they're the only close stadium. If a team moved into LA then all that would change. Suddenly they'd have a fraction of their old base and coverage. The 2010 Census has the LA area with just over 12M people and San Diego with just under 3M. Sharing the whole market (or, better yet, remaining the only So Cal team) is a far better option business-wise. I don't think they had a real choice barring some insane deal from the city. As someone born and raised in Cleveland I wholeheartedly agree.

The expectations of most Bills fans were overinflated, but they were more realistic - or pessimistic - everywhere else. Heck, most fans of other teams probably would say that they had no expectations of the Bills making it to the post season (why would they?) and that 8-8 was pretty decent for them. I had the Bills as a fringe playoff team (6th seed, loss in WC round) and they just missed the postseason by a game or two. A slight letdown? Sure, but still pretty close to expectations.

I've had the same gripe. It makes sense to do what he did if a team is poised to challenge for a title in the short term, but not the long. That clearly wasn't the case here. The lack of a proven QB alone should have precluded spending that way. Any GM can bring in talent that he significantly overpays for. Finding value consistently in the draft and free agency is another matter. Whaley has primarily done the former.

Bravo for Woods stepping up like that. Stuff like this is why Harvin nursing injuries and taking a powder were such slaps in the face to the team.

It's good to have guys like Woods on a team. He works hard, knows his responsibilities and has adequate (or better) NFL talent across the board, but he's never going to be a stud. The problems occur when you either overpay for such a player or that player is your expected starter for the season. Guys like Woods are there to push the youngsters with more talent, step in when they're needed and show the value of dedication to their craft.

Only concern yourself with what's best for your own team. If something has no substantive effect on your team, then go with whatever makes you happy. Personally, I liked that Bills showed heart this past Sunday. I thought the Jest would win that one since so much was on the line for them and really nothing but pride for the Bills. But the Bills showed me a lot, including that they'll still play for Ryan.

Yup,

Probably. I remember thinking along those lines at the time. Here's a guy who did OKAY at Syracuse, but wasn't anything special and supposedly all these NFL teams are suddenly fighting over him. No way. It didn't make sense then, it didn't make sense last offseason and it doesn't make sense now.

Agreed.

He's got a good agent trying to make it look like he's in demand.

I'm hearing the Browns have already agreed with Brian Kelly (Notre Dame HC) and Duke Tobin (Bengals DPP) to be the next HC and GM, respectively. They are going through formalities with the HC search and waiting for Tobin to become officially available (once the Bengals are no longer in playoffs).

I think Marrone's agent is working overtime to make it look like he is in demand. Just like last offseason. There doesn't seem to be any more substance to it this season than there was last.

Harvin's last two years voided so he is automatically gone at the season's technical end. Obviously he could be re-signed, but that's incredibly unlikely.Clay's restructure will move $7.5M into future years.

Yes, Whaley has overpaid for a lot of the talent the Bills have, but I don't blame players for their draft cost. I see three issues capping Watkins' production:1) Taylor's reliance on pulling the ball down and running on such a high percentage of called passes. That directly limits Watkins' opportunities and also indirectly limits them because Roman has to limit the number of hits Taylor takes by calling more running plays. 2) The lack of a deep threat opposite him. Watkins isn't going to beat dedicated double coverage very often, he just doesn't have the size. Defenses eventually adjusted when he was the only real receiving threat at WR and took him out of games. In the second half of the KC game there was a CB up tight and a S over him. After a tremendous first half he got nothing in the second due to that adjustment. 3) Injury. He's had issues missing time due to injury with his current workload. If he gets more use, then he's going to take more punishment. I hope his body is maturing and can handle it, but it's a huge worry right now.

He's a great NFL HC candidate, but I think he's smart enough to know that Stanford is both a tremendous fit for him and a rare situation. I doubt he goes anywhere for a long time. I've been saying the same thing for two years.