BarleyNY

The Bills' offense desperately needs a deep threat across from Watkins. It honestly might be their biggest single priority (although I'd probably put the collective OL ahead of it). Sanu or Benjamin would be FA possibilities if they make it. As for Gordon, Cleveland won't be letting him go and he's looking for a big payday as soon as he can get it. He's in debt to his agent already.

I agree that fans care more about rivalries than players. There are exceptions, but those are usually between teams that are in fights for playoff spots and/or meet in the playoffs year after year - Steelers v. Ravens is a good example. The Bills need to be more relevant for that to develop.

That's fair. If his new contract fits his ability to contribute, then I'd be happy to keep him. No more return duties though.

You're dropping 15 players, most of whom are starters or important backups (nickel CB, 3rd WR, back up QB etc.). The Bills are also going to part ways with Harvin, another starter. How are you going to fill all of those holes in one offseason, much less think the team will improve?

Totally agree on Shaw. As for Chip, yes, his GM job was horrible, but he didn't adjust his offense enough for the NFL. It was way too simple for the pros.

Correct. But your original post had numbers that were way off because that article is from March.

EJ. has $1.4M guaranteed, but the team has offsets. That means if he's waived then whatever another team pays him gets deducted from that. Keep him into TC and see what he does. Or trade him if someone comes calling. I wouldn't rush him off the team, but his name would be written lightly in pencil because not much good can come from him remaining in Buffalo.Agree with Mario. Probably have to part ways. A trade would be best. Agree on Kyle. Not sure why some are rushing to part ways with him or why they think renegotiation is a good solution. Much like with Mario, he's likely to play under his deal or not at all. Unlike Mario I don't see him going anywhere this offseason. Gilmore is heading into his option year. Perfect time to lock him up - and save a little cap room for 2016. Agree on Glenn and Incognito. Both should be huge priorities right now, but I worry we will miss the boat on Glenn. Less worried about Incognito, but still concerned. Agree with the rest, except Aaron Williams would only be a $1.2M hit if cut/traded/retired. That could be done (or designated) post 6/15 to push most of that out to 2017 though.

Not sure where you're getting the cap info, but you're way off. Everything I've seen about cap space has been in the $150M-$153M range. Example: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2015/12/05/nfl-salary-cap-will-rise-above-150-million-in-2016/ The Bills currently have $5.3M in cap space for this year that they can carry over. http://overthecap.com/salary-cap-space/ They sit at $154M in cap expenditure for next season. The figures assume Harvin is gone but they'll add the carryover and another $7.5M in space from the inevitable Clay roster bonus restructure. 50 players will be under contract. They'll need to make moves to free up some space though.

I caught most of that. He said what I hoped he would. Happy with what he's given us, but he needs to continue to develop and we will bring in competition. Hope he becomes "the guy" but not there yet. He was nicely specific about where he's been able to attack the field and where he hasn't. Some good questions too. Taylor needs to worry about his development and improve. He can't do anything about the OL except help them by making good, quick decisions with the ball and improving his pocket awareness and movement. A better RT wouldn't hurt, but they've got FAs at LG and LT to worry about too. That's a nice way of saying they gave him as much as they thought he could handle and that was it. I covered this on the previous page, but the short version is that he pulls the ball down and runs so often that more passing plays would mean more of a physical toll on him. It also considerably reduces his number of attempts in the stat line. It's the right way to bring him along and he certainly passed the test, but he's still got his work cut out for him. I hope he can beat the odds.

This is all true, but I'll add: Taylor has often run when he doesn't see a receiver open, including times he hasn't properly gone through progressions to find someone who is open. He's to be complimented that he's made a lot of positive plays instead of negative ones in those instances. But he's still not recognizing open receivers in some instances and he's taking a lot of additional punishment by pulling the ball down so often. He threw 18 times and ran 14 times against Dallas. Maybe 2 or so of those runs were called. So that means he pulled the ball down and ran on pass plays about 40% of the time in that game. That's way too much. I wish I knew the season numbers. If Roman called more pass plays and he kept up that running percentage Taylor would get killed. He's got to improve his reads and progressions or this is his ceiling.

Keeping Pettine and dumping Farmer is actually a smart way to go. Farmer's been awful.

I assume you mean a deal with $3M base plus incentives. I don't have a problem paying Harvin well, but I do have a problem guaranteeing him any money. It was a mistake this season and it's a mistake going forward. I'd insist on multiple roster bonuses throughout the season - every game if I could get it. It's been done before. Greg Hardy has such a deal, with a $750k base and $9.25M in weekly roster bonuses, plus a hefty workout bonus of over $1M. So if Harvin wants a similar deal - maybe a base around $750k plus something like $500k per game in roster bonuses and bonuses for being on the active game day roster. He can make his $8M-$9M if he performs all season and is willing to gut it out and play dinged. If he steps out of line, nurses an injury or even genuinely gets injured he'd be out. Also if the roster bonuses were small, but the active game day roster bonuses were large he could be kept on the team if he was to miss some time due to legitimate injury, but would be expected back. While I don't think he'd accept that kind of contract, it'd be the only way I'd touch him. *Please note that failure to pay a roster bonus terminates a contract whether or not a player is injured.

I agree almost entirely with those lists. I'd move Cousins and maybe Bortles down to the close, but no list and I'd move Bridgewater, Romo and probably Stafford up to the next tier list.

That sucks. Here's wishing him a speedy and full recovery.

I wonder how many of the fans that paid full price would have purchased tickets and showed up if they hadn't already sunk that cost? The Jets game offers an excellent chance at resale (which the Dallas game certainly did not) so the percentage of Jets fans should be a much better indication of how fans feel.

Oh, I think we are all far too well aware of what's on the line for the Bills.

Geez, it's tough to imagine that americanthinker and Al Jazeera don't see eye to eye on something.

The funniest part of this is that she's the reason he signed in Miami. I know that Cleveland offered him more to go there, which was a big deal at the time because he was coming off of a nasty injury. He had other options too. He took less to go to Miami because that's where she wanted to live. Now she's saying that she always knew that Tanny sucked. So she apparently cared more about living in Miami than she did about her husband making more money in Cleveland or him going to a more successful team elsewhere. She's a crazy trainwreck, but I'm sure Brent would contend that she has at least one redeeming cake-related quality.

Exactly. It doesn't help when the thread title declares a 13 for 18, 179 yard, 1 INT day as "spectacular". Even with the 14 rushes for 67 yards it was far short of that.

This is a concern of mine too. It showed on the interception in the end zone at the end of the first half. Taylor made a poor decision and threw to a well covered receiver instead of the open one nearby.

No, not particularly. They seem more concerned with keeping their jobs via short term gains at the long term expense of the team than with the team's long term success.

Can we put this discussion to bed now?

Tip of the iceberg

Just find it funny that people who are pimping him don't even know where he typically plays. Or that he's getting toward the end of his career (as is pointed out above).

In Baltimore Ngata only rotated over the C's shoulder to play the 0 technique when the NT took a breather. He typically played the 3.