BarleyNY

I understand that is what you meant. The Browns won’t be interested in taking back an older player back in trade - especially an older one with a large salary and recent injury issues. It would only undermine their rebuild.

I’m with you on Rousseau testing the market. It’s the most likely scenario. If he wants the bag, that’s what he’ll do. There’s always some team willing to overpay a good, but not great DE.

Zero chance. While I think it’s highly unlikely that the Browns trade Garrett this offseason, there is no chance that they would take an over 30 player back in trade. They’d be in rebuild mode and would be looking for picks and young players. Still basically a rookie.

As I already said, not the part about it being worth trading him for 63. The part where you said we used a higher pick on him. That part that isn’t true.

Why do people keep saying this? We used 63 on him. KC’s pick would be 63. I get why people wouldn’t want to do it, but it’s the same pick.

In this scenario we’d be getting pick 63 in the 2025 draft. We used pick 63 in the 2022 draft on him.

It depends on his contract extension demands. If KC is going to give him a 4/$60M extension then I’ll gladly take pick 63 for him.

What stats indicate Rousseau is a top 15% DE? That would put him in the top 10 Edge players unless you’re including depth players. (64x.15=9.6) What qualifier? You said they could leave the cap hits from his 4 void years in place. That’s incorrect. Once he is no longer on the team, they accelerate to the current year (or next if after 6/1).

I disagree on Rousseau’s value and ranking. As for Spotrac & OTC’s valuations of players, they are very hit and miss. I do my own work. So why spend so much time on structure of a potential Rousseau deal? The only way we see aggressive structures of deals like that is if Pegula agrees to spend more. Otherwise it does us no real good. Incorrect on Brown. All remaining void years accelerate into the first year a player is not on the team. That is subject to post 6/1 designation or release. If he plays out his deal they may extend him a year so they can use that designation and split the cap hit between two seasons. That’s their only option.

I understand the cap and void years very well. What you wrote in this post is largely correct. I’d note that void years after year 5 of a contract are not included at year 1. Common practice is to add them when salary and/or roster bonuses are converted to signing bonuses in year two and beyond. I’ve advocated for the Bills to adopt an aggressive cap management strategy like the Eagles and Browns employ. But that would require Pegula to open the purse strings and spend at a higher level overall. It’s not about timing of payments to the players. Salary conversions to signing bonuses are ow almost always paid on the same schedule as they would have been as salary. But the payments do become guaranteed. Just as a point of clarity, the inclusion of 4 void years to AJ Brown’s one year contract only pushes 80% of his signing bonuses amount out one season (unless he is re-signed before the new league year starts). There also seems to be a misunderstanding about the purpose of such an aggressive cap management style. It is not so that teams can overpay players. That would defeat the advantage it can create - accumulating more talent and more elite players. That only happens if a team pays market value to the right players.

That is not how teams budget and not how a player’s value is determined. Also your example is bogus. Signing bonuses can only be spread out over five total years (current plus four) so the two void years would not have any impact on year one of a five year deal. They would impact restructures after that however.

I agree with the “good not great” comment. Ultimately it comes down to how much Rousseau demands. I’m not a proponent of paying him anything near the $25M AAV I’ve seen. Let another team make that mistake. Good DEs are available at much more reasonable contracts in FA every year. That might mean a one or two year deal instead of five, but doing that work is part of being a GM. You just need to let the market shake out and not overpay in the first wave. I don’t blame Rousseau for wanting to make every dollar he can, but I don’t want the Bills to be the team that overpays him. A team just can’t spend like that on players who aren’t difference makers and expect to win a championship.

I’ll be on it as soon as the details come out. At this point I expect it to be a fair deal. The “up to” modifier is always interesting. They’ll give the agent a few days to take his victory lap before the real numbers hit OTC & Spotrac. Might be longer since it can’t be sent to the league until the new year starts. I expect a negative impact on the cap space though. Shakira is still on his rookie deal. I think Benford or Rousseau is next. I’d do Benford. Much like Shakir, they pretty much have to do a deal with him. I’d let Rousseau play 2025 on the option and then walk for a comp pick. But if they want to extend him, then he is the guy with whom we can open up space this season due to him being on the 5th year option.

Why is that?

Yep. And that’s concerning because there’s no need for a message like that to get sent through the media if it already got through privately.

He has given similar answers in the past. IMO it was smart and mature. Nothing wrong with reminding Cook who helped him get to where he is now and how much they like/love him as a person and player. Doing so publicly sends that message to the fans as well as him.

That’s the big question - what’s he got left? At the right price and paired with a draft pick in the first or second round I’d be on board. Draft pick, Bosa, Rousseau, Epenesa and Solomon is a solid DE group. That draft pick has to be of the twitchy, bendy, speed rusher type though.

5 sacks in 14 games last season. That makes him a cut candidate at his price. So it would make sense to wait and see what happens by 3/12 when he has a huge roster bonus due. He’ll either rework his contract because he wants to stay in LA or they’ll cut him loose. Do I want him here? He’s going into his age 30 season and has a concerning injury history so it would have to be on a heavily incentivized contract. Maybe he wants to chase a ring and we give him his best shot at that. That’s about the only way I see it working out. No way do I trade for him on his current contract.

Same as Bills. 0-4 except they spread it out over 8 seasons.

Did you actually read my post? And can you be more specific about what you’re disagreeing about? I never said he wouldn’t get a contract from the Bills or another team this season or next. (Though in previous posts I disagreed with some about his value.) I just pointed out that the timing of his public demands allows the Bills to cover their rear ends on RBs. You think that’s wrong?

It does. Simply put, every dollar paid to a player hits the cap. Jones is set to make $7.75M in cash this season. That hits the cap this season and next (due to the void years) if we keep him on that contract. Obviously he has some unaccounted for cap dollars that have yet to hit it too. Those would be spread out over this season and next if he stays on the team or just hit this season if he is released next month. (Also a post 6/1 designation would push out some of the hit if cut next month.)

The other issue is that keeping Jones will add $7.75M to what I refer to as “total cap burden”. (The total cap dollars in all years that keeping a player on the roster adds to the team’s annual caps.) IOW, cutting him next month doesn’t do our 2025 cap any favors, but it does eliminate his 2026 cap hit, which is substantial. The total difference in cap space is $7.75M to keep him this season. If he can’t play anymore, then cut him and manage the 2025 cap in other ways. Other players can be restructured or they can use a post 6/1 designation on him. That is much better than burning nearly $8M in space.

The Steelers denied inquiring about Lawrence. They would be stupid to admit it if they had, so the denial means nothing (except that they’re a reasonably competent FO). Maybe they did, maybe they didn’t. No way to know either way. I’ll say this though, they SHOULD be looking into every decent QB who is potentially available.

@Beck Water One additional thought: Cook has already made a big mistake IMO. I do not know if his agent had a role in Cook going public when he did and with what he said, but the timing was not wise. We are still weeks away from free agency and have the draft after that. Any competent GM is going to cover his rear end - and that is going to severely damage Cook’s leverage. If James and his brother had waited until mid-May to do this, then the Bills might’ve been in a tougher spot. If Leist is smart, he’ll get something done quickly.

That he’s inexperienced, which increases the likelihood that he’ll make a mistake in one direction or the other. Maybe he feels like he has to make a name for himself and overplays his hand. Or he feels like he’s gotta get a deal done and buckles when Beane pushes back. Could be anything in between. Looking at Dalvin’s deal, it got done after year 3 of his rookie deal (same as James now). It got signed just before week 1 of the season. Five year extension on top of his existing year. The AAV of the 5 extension years ranked 5th in the league in 2020 at $12.6M. He only played 3 of the 6 seasons and got about $27M total for the 3 seasons. That’s about one season at the rookie rate plus two at the AAV rate. I guess we just have to wait and see if he tries to reset the market or is good with a market value deal. Good chance that it drags on for a bit based on Dalvin’s timeline too.