BarleyNY

It’s worth noting that James Cook’s agent, Matt Leist, has only negotiated two NFL contracts. One was Dalvin Cooks’.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with the draft and other extensions. What they do at RB in the draft will tell us a lot. Beane has typically done extensions like Cook’s in or around September. Lotta time between now and then.

I never said I was mad at Cook for asking for more than he’s worth. That’s not a problem unless he escalates it to a problem. I simply pointed out that he’s not worth what he’s asking for. His size and limitations as a RB limit his role and snap count. That limits his value.

Making Cook play out his deal and then hitting him with a tag next offseason is certainly a reasonable course of action if a deal on an extension isn’t reached. Extensions on rookie deals (and fifth year options) usually include the dollar amount and remaining year(s) of the current contract and add new years at current market value to that. Some current and future salary is then converted to a signing bonus to give the player some cash up front. So there is a lot of incentive for both sides to get a deal done. That should happen ad long as both parties are reasonable.

I wish I could disagree with you. That really does seem to be the big flaw in just about any plan.

Your low end of $11M is not much different than the $10.5M AAV I used in my example, but it is significantly different than the $15M for which you had been advocating. I’ll stress that the $10.5M AAV is on new years only in my example. I thought would be a fair compromise and realistic MV. Cash is what matters to players. Structure is largely about cap management. I have no problem giving Cook a nice signing bonus this offseason and taking his salary down to vet min this season and next. I would try to limit guarantees to the first two seasons, but a partial in year 3 would be on the table for a longer extension.

The reflected spotlight coming off of his son isn’t bright enough for him.

You can always find good rotational DTs in FA for a reasonable price. Finding a difference making DT there is another story. So unless you find a prospect that you think can be special, then it doesn’t really make sense to spend much draft capital on the position - especially since they often take years to develop. Hopefully Beane has learned from the Star debacle. He was an excellent DT in Carolina except for his last season there when he was poor. For some reason Beane paid him like that season never happened. He rewarded us by repeating that last poor season and then getting even worse. I was angry the day I saw the contract and I am angry about it now. I loved the Oliver pick. Heck, I advocated for it on this site. But he’s turned out to be much more Robin than Batman. He’s got talent and can make an impact on a game, but he just can’t be “the guy”. Rousseau is another Robin, but at least that was always my expectation. This DL needs one big difference making DE in the worst way. A Crosby, Garrett or Parsons would make an enormous difference to this team. I have no idea how they’re going to find one though. I expect another churn of solid FA DTs to round out the interior, but what they do at RDE is going to make or break this defense.

It’s going to be very difficult to find difference makers at multiple positions in one offseason. I agree that we really need that, but I see FA as more for finding adequate starters to fill roster holes. It’s not going to be an easy road this offseason, but the Bills put themselves in this position.

The current market is nowhere near what Cook is asking for. I outlined what I thought was fair market value for him earlier in this thread. Feel free to comment on that or be specific about what you think he’s worth. Conveniently you’ve left some important facts out of your comparison - the cash and cap space allocated to Cook in a new deal could be used elsewhere if the Bills went in another direction this offseason or next. Plus any pick they would receive from a trade partner or via the comp pick formula. Cheaper to do it now? Not if the price is $15M, it’s not. It’d be way cheaper to let him play out his $5.3M 2025 season and then franchise him for less than $15M in 2026 if you wanted to keep him for two seasons.

You have a lot wrong in your post. I’m going to focus on the most important points you got wrong. I never said that I was okay with the Bills “not spending like other teams”. For starters, they do spend as much or more than other teams. Up until this past season they’d been a top 6 spender for several years. But the Eagles (and Browns) found a way to spend more. I’d like them to be the third team to adopt that model. I’m not protecting a billionaire’s money. I’m advocating for spending wisely and maximizing the talent on this team because of, you know, that pesky salary cap. So why are you in favor of overpaying Cook? What about overpaying other players? If not, why not them when Cook gets more than his value? Seems a great recipe to stay slide back from where we are now. Cook is not a special player. He’s limited as an overall back, though I think his vision is elite and he is an excellent runner. Still, his pass pro sucks, he is only a fair receiver and his snaps are limited to <50% because of his limitations in the passing game and durability due to his size. Why would you make a player like that the second highest paid at his position?

Read that the Haslams are having issues with their Brook Park dome plan. Seems like the issuance of local bonds as part of the financing isn’t feasible. Projections look to be based on a very unrealistic number of 50 annual sold out events over the next 30 years. As such, issuing them would be illegal under Ohio law. So it looks like the Haslams will have to come up with those funds or reconsider staying at the lakefront.

Beane’s chronic habit of leaving a hole at one position to be filled with their first round pick (or pick 33) in the draft has been very harmful to this roster. It’s allowed us to get jumped for players like KC did for McDuffie, required trade ups to get players at that position of need because every team knows what we’re drafting and resulted in better prospects being passed over because we had to fill that roster hole. I’ve given Beane a lot of credit in the past, but he’s made too many mistakes in strategy as well as execution of picks and trades for me to really believe in him these days. I hope he turns that around this offseason.

Have you heard of the salary cap? No reason to overpay a player because they’re throwing out ridiculous numbers publicly. And posting on social media counts as publicly saying words. I’d love for Pegula to open the purse strings and adopt the Eagles salary cap model, but that does not mean overpaying players as doing so would immediately and completely destroy the advantage it is designed to create. Lastly, no, the Bills do not need to make this work. They should offer a fair deal at market value. If Cook doesn’t want to make that work, then it’s on him not the Bills.

Yup. Certainly a big difference in variance between QBs and teams. I don’t think it was a surprise that the Bengals had issues last season. The Bengals didn’t put a good OL in front of Burrow and failed to replace a lot of defensive talent. Meanwhile the Bills have been nothing if not consistent.

I think you are right that Incognito wouldn’t have changed his behavior, but maybe he’d have realized that he was going to have to cut Martin out of it. Pouncey is a total POS too. He’s shown to be cut from the same cloth as Incognito.

The texts came out when my son was in the year of little league baseball when the kids first started pitching. It was brutal. Walk after walk after walk. I sat in my lawn chair and read every text released. My take away was that Incognito was definitely messed up. He was a big POS with his extreme partying, hookers and dangerous behavior. I’m surprised he’s still alive. While his treatment of Martin wouldn’t be tolerated in any workplace, I don’t think he was malicious nor do I think he was bullying him. That was how he treated his friends and he considered Martin a friend. It did seem to be a big stressor for Martin though. Lotta stress added to an already stressful job - and Martin did not seem to understand that Incognito’s intentions were founded in friendship and not malicious. There probably just needed to be a discussion about appropriate behavior and then an adherence on Incognito’s part since it was a work environment. There was no need for it to have gotten to where it did - unless Incognito refused to change his behavior and he never got that chance.

FA to fill holes with players that are ok starting caliber or better. Draft for long term needs, development and depth. Beane’s strategy of leaving one obvious need for the draft has not played out well. I hope we’ve seen the last of it.

In 2024 Bernard made 55 solo tackles and had 49 assists for a total of 104. According to nfl.com he also missed 24 tackles, which is the 5th most in the league. I’d like to see a possible replacement drafted this season. Good talent at LB can be had later so not a premium pick.

That’s standard operating procedure for the Eagles so they can maximize cash spend.

Deep draft at RB. I agree that there will be very good RB prospects available on day 3.

I’m not undermining my point that as more useful information is attained, better predictions can be made. You’re assuming a lot (incorrectly) in the rest of your post.

Were you able to adjust your expectations of the Bills’ final regular season record after they beat KC to get to 9-2? Were you able to adjust your expect of the Vikings regular season record after seeing how Darnold performed in that offense? I was. Another example is the Lions. I thought they were a strong contender to make the NFCCG and SB. Then just about their whole defense went down with injuries. That made me think they’d get bounced early in the playoffs, which they did.

Yes, we will all know more and be able to make better predictions as time passes. FA will bring things into better focus, then the draft, then cuts, then every week. Anyone skilled at projecting anything should know that our ability to project the season’s outcome today is very, very poor. I’m not sure what you’re even arguing. You seem to be disagreeing with me, but then you write paragraphs supporting what I’ve said.

Yeah. That’s all in line with my point. You can’t know how it’ll all shake out for your team or anyone else. No harm in some fans making some optimistic projections, but we will see dozens of things to change those projections leading up to the season and then again during the season.