BarleyNY

I believe that the roster bonus for this year has been paid already, but the one next season kills any thought of the deal. No way would I take on that guarantee. Even if SF ate that too, I'm still not interested. Because if Kyle Shanahan can't make anything out of him, then I have zero faith that Dorsey can. Also Sam Darnold just beat him out for QB2. SMH. So even though Barkley is hot garbage and Kyle Allen is just a tad better than hot garbage, I'll pass.

Condolences to you and everyone who loved Shawn. RIP, Shawn.

As of today I don’t think there’s a place for Simmons on the Bills either. But it was a very nice, opportunistic move the the Giants.

It is robbery. Arizona stupidly tried to make him a MLB. Let him play safety/slot/overhang and see what he does.

Agreed, MGK. I think the play at LT is to draft one next season to develop behind Dawkins. That doesn’t have to be in the first. Cash outlays to Dawkins this year and next are definitely great bargains for even average LT play - and he’s been a tick above that to date. But I think the Bills prioritized a lot of other positions over RT, which is why they need their third rounder to work out there. I like that they took an OL in the second this year. I hope that shift to prioritizing the offense continues. I’ll add that their draft and FA missed on the DL and OL have really hurt. They tried to fix the DL problem by dropping $30M a year on Von Miller, but then the knee happened.

$15.4M is still a lot of dead cap. Currently the Bills only have $5.2M total dead cap for this season, although that will probably grow a little after the cut down. $15.4M should be around 6.5% of the 2024 cap allowance, which should be around $240M. To put that into perspective, only 4 Bills players account for more than 5% of this year’s cap. That is why I think they’ll designate him a 6/1 cut.

I know the book isn’t written on either one, but imagine the right side with Torrence and Jones together.

https://twitter.com/jackduffin/status/1684187145169149956?s=46&t=YCtwdE4Hu9f12jkTstxw9A Average offensive tackle compensation notice for current market value comparison purposes. Looks like it’s about $19M/yr for an average player at that spot. Tytus Howard, RT, of the Texans just got a three year extension worth $56M. $36.5M guaranteed. This goes a long way in explaining why the Bills have stuck with Dawkins and Brown. What it doesn’t explain is why they haven’t tried harder in the draft to improve there or get better prospects in the pipeline.

Yup. I think if Bates was playing better Morse would be out the door next week. Morse’s play has been steadily declining over the last few years, but I don’t see Bates really stepping up either. The Bills brass probably won’t want to change up Allen’s center just prior to such an important season. I think he stays one more season, but I wouldn’t be shocked if he didn’t.

Totally agree. They have made all of the easy moves available to create cap space. Now it gets dicier.

This is not even remotely correct. Miller is not his last year. Due to his contract guarantees and structure the Bills have to keep him through next year, 2024. Most of his salary that season is guaranteed anyway. They can release him before the 2025 season, but he will have a large dead cap hit of $15.4M. I expect that they will designate him a 6/1 cut to kick some of that into 2025. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/von-miller-7717/

That would actually lose us cap space due to guaranteed money (Ford, $1.5M), dead cap (Basham $362k) and the replacement salaries of players taking their roster spots. That won’t work. It is already maxed out in that way.

Yes. It’s a good topic for discussion. I’ve been kicking the can down the road on It because there are not a lot of great options. Tre makes the most sense to me since he is signed through 2025, but the Bills need more than the $5M or so they can get from his contract. All of the other players you mention are the logical places to look, but all are near the end of their deals. Johnson, Dawkins and Morse are signed through 2024 and Jones only for this season. Restructures with void years (Dawkins already has them) could be used or legitimate extensions would have to be done. I don’t know which contracts could be extended by the Bills without the player approval. No way to know without having access to it. If they have a say, then I’d think they’d want extensions rather than a restructure. Which of those players would you extend? Morse is at the end. No way. Extending Dawkins scares me so I’d pass on that too unless I could get away with guaranteeing next year in exchange for cap relief. I doubt that would fly tho. I guess Johnson is a decent possibility. He just turned 27 so he should have some years left. Jones is tough due to his age. We’d have to guarantee money next season. I wouldn’t go further than that. That’s all I got unless they think they can get away with Bates at C and cut Morse. I would not do that at this point however.

Thanks for starting this topic and taking most of the heat. I listened to Mariano’s podcast yesterday. I also listened to PFF’s brief review of the game and Sam Monson had a similar take on Allen. He said that it looked like he “was seeing ghosts” and bailing on the pocket even when there was no pressure. Both opinions support what I saw in that game and last season. I think this issue has more than one cause. The first is protection problems. The problems at tackle are the most prominent, but there have been issues inside too. The second is looking for the home run ball too often. That’s on multiple people. There are plays where Allen has held the ball - and often scrambled - while looking for a big play and ignoring receivers open short. But there have been plays where there are no short options - either because receivers didn’t adjust their routes or because Dorsey’s play didn’t include that option. What I’m seeing with Allen in the pocket now is him bailing early - often into pressure - even when there is a good pocket. When he doesn’t bail to the side I’m also seeing him drop back further rather than step up into the pocket. That creates issues with the OTs who will sometimes carry a rusher going outside deep. That works if the QB is supposed to be at 7 yards and they carry him 10, but not if the QB has slid back to 10. To Allen’s credit, he’s athletic and skilled enough to still make positive plays when some of that happens. But he needs to make life easier on himself and his body. That’s not all on him. Dorsey, Beane and the OL have to give him confidence that they’ll protect him. That includes OL performance, play design and execution by the other 10 players on the field. It might seem like I focused on Allen as the issue here because that’s where most of the problems manifest, but I don’t think that is the case. This is something that a lot of people need to fix.

You’re kidding, right? Not only was Tasker a Bill, he still works for the Bills. It’s how he has to do his job if he wants to keep his gig as a preseason color commentator for them - well as any other perks or jobs that come his way because of his relationship with the Bills (like local commercials for auto dealers, etc.)

I can’t tell you how excited I’d be about the right side of the line if the Bills had taken Dawand Jones in the third round. Imagine those two monsters next to each other.

You’re not the first person to mention Allen getting too deep in the pocket as one of the issues. IMO that’s more concerning than any individual lineman’s performance because it means that either Dorsey is making some pretty rudimentary mistakes or that Allen is. Either one is worrisome. I haven’t watched for that myself, but I will.

I mean, it’s the NY Jets at home for their opening game on Monday night on 9/11. The fans will be into it and I dare say, the refs might be slightly biased. That all notwithstanding, I would look hard at the under as both teams have a much better DL than OL. And what’s the over/under on broken QBs? I might want some of that action too.

It’s very rare and I don’t think either team did it Saturday. I have seen a coach with a poor team try to give his players confidence by doing things like that though. A little game planning, running a few plays normally reserved for the regular season, leaving starters in against 2nd stringers, etc.

I think there is good reason to be worried at this point. If Dawkins misses time, then we are screwed. Brown isn’t very good but he’s better than Quessenberry. I do not want to see him on the field.

This is worth having an honest discussion about. Last season PFF rated Dawkins at 73.5 overall. 80.0 pass pro and 62.3 run blocking. His overall grade places him at 24th among offensive tackles. His average salary places him 24th among offensive tackles. Dawkins PFF PFF OT rankings spotrac OT AAV To date it seems as though his play matches his performance. There are 64 starting OTs in the league and he’s 24th. That’s a little above average and he’s a better pass blocker than run blocker, which is preferable to the other way around. I don’t have any complaints about last year or the years prior, but it’s worth looking ahead. He is under contract this year and next. It was front loaded so he’s only due cash of $9.855M this season and $10.3M next. That’s a very good deal if you can get average or better play out of him. The concerns about how out of shape Dawkins has come into TC can’t be ignored though. He’s 29 now so he’s signed through his 30 year old season. Getting back into shape will become more and more difficult if he continues to do that. IMO the smart move is to have him play out his deal but try to find his replacement in the draft next offseason. He can coexist with a rookie for a year.

Damned if you do. Damned if you don’t.

Peters played on a 1 year, $2M contract last season. Some of that was in active roster bonuses and he wound up making $1.8M. I know he’s ancient at 41, but I’d sign him for that today.

That is incorrect. I'm not sure where you are getting that information. Jones started all three preseason games at RT. He started opposite Hudson against the Eagles, but he also started opposite the regular LT, Wills, against the Commanders. With Conklin out he even started against the Eagles with the first team OL in the practices. Also he's listed as the backup to Conklin at RT on the Browns depth chart.

What I heard was the the Browns really took it to the Iggles on day 1 of joint practices. In particular the Browns defense dominated the Iggles offense. This was a huge swing from last season when the Iggles dominated the Browns in all phases all week. So the Iggles players did not expect, like or appreciate what happened day 1. Consequently they showed up on Day 2 with a very large chip on their collective shoulder. Their intensity was much higher and they got dirty against more players than just Watson.