HappyDays

OTC shows they can restructure his contract in 2025 and 2026 to save $20.7M and $22.5M respectively. So, more likely his cap hits over the next 3 years will be $7.3M, $14.1M, and $18.6M. They won't feel any real pain on the contract until 2027 at the earliest.

Love Joe, but his mock offseason would depress me. It has a very "running it back" kind of feel. Jones back after a major injury, Epenesa paid way above his true value, bringing back players like Jackson and Lewis and Johnson that can be found on day 3 of the draft or in late stage FA. Not a single difference maker brought in, just a lot of rotational players. Offseasons like this is why we haven't gotten over the hump. Similarly I don't like his draft. McConkey in the 1st round would be a mistake IMO, he has no special traits and projects as maybe a faster Cole Beasley. He's a 2nd round talent. Braden Fiske is probably a late 3rd round talent. He is a 3-tech only so he would be a rotational player for us. His weakness in scouting reports is hand usage, which is a good predictor of a player not translating to the NFL. Honestly reminds me of Boogie Basham, a 24 year old prospect who may have already maxed out his abilities and has poor hand usage. His offseason is overall just way too safe for my liking. We need to take some swings.

Figured it was time to get this started. A flurry of re-signings are starting to get reported.

No longer an option for us:

You have to really squint your eyes to find preferential treatment here. By shifting the reward from the team that hires the black coach to the team that loses them, the NFL has avoided this problem entirely. Quite brilliantly IMO - as evidenced by the fact that some people still grumble about the policy, but no one is shouting from the rooftops. They have protected their own legal interests, and have given minority employees some measure of deference, and have managed to piss off the least amount of people, all while navigating the most contentious political topic this side of abortion. In business terms they have scored a perfect 10.

I think it does help. I don't believe the problem was that NFL owners' racism was preventing them from hiring the best candidates. I think it was just classic nepotism which gave certain coaches an opportunity to get their foot in the door ahead of others. AKA the Buddy Ryan effect. The new policy actively encourages franchises to get their minority coaches a foot in the door at other organizations. Terry Pegula and Brandon Beane now have an incentive to campaign for Terrance Gray to get GM interviews. I've always thought if you could solve that foot in the door problem, the entire problem would go away. Most importantly for the NFL's interests, now if another Brian Flores tries his hand in court the NFL can point to this policy as a clear example of promoting non-discriminatory hiring.

Someone would have to show a measurable negative impact on the hiring of white coaches to prove legal discrimination. I highly doubt any negative impact exists. I think the NFL came up with the most elegant solution they could. It is a fact that a league dominated by black players, and heavily biased towards former players as coaches, was somehow heavily imbalanced in favor of white coaches. The math didn't make sense. Still the NFL couldn't outright reward teams for hiring black coaches and GMs because the optics would have been terrible. So they have begun rewarding teams for developing and supporting their minority coaches for career advancement. To me two 3rd round comp picks is too rich of a reward but the concept makes sense and does not constitute discrimination. The NFL in fact was faced with the prospect of a real discrimination lawsuit if they didn't institute a policy like this.

To be fair most of what the NFL does wouldn't withstand legal scrutiny. As an example the draft and the salary cap are laughably blatant violations of collusion laws. The league structure itself arguably represents an illegal monopoly. No one is stupid enough to slap the golden goose though, not as long as hundreds of billions of dollars are at stake and there is no measurable harm to the public.

Everyone seems to think at least one of Coleman, Franklin, and Legette will still be there before pick 40.

Using the Drafttek trade value chart, the most obvious candidate to get us our 3rd round pick back is Washington. Trade back from #28 to #36. In return we get #99 from them (last pick in the 3rd round), and a late round pick swap, something like we get #138 for #188. Washington would get two 1st round picks to support their new franchise QB and they have another 2nd round pick at #40 so the trade makes as much sense for them as it does for us.

I am over WRs like McConkey and Pearsall. We have dipped into that "smooth route runner" well many times. What we have been lacking is size and/or speed outside. This draft features an amazing opportunity to finally grab a WR with traits at our original 1st round pick. Blowing that opportunity on a guy that projects as maybe a faster Cole Beasley would be a big mistake IMO.

Sounds like Cleveland is taking his entire cap hit on, so this wouldn't have been feasible for us. Stay the course. Sign one of the 2nd or 3rd tier WRs and draft two more by the end of R4.

Why does this remind me of when mommy and daddy pulled me into a room to ask which house I wanted to live in

Now I would really like Beane to trade down in Round 1 if possible, even to the top of Round 2 if needed. The realistic WR targets there - Coleman, Franklin, Legette - are likely still going to be available a few picks later. Get a 3rd rounder if at all possible. Also with all of these day 3 picks in our bag I would actually use all of them, don't be tempted to trade them away to move up the board. We need the bottom of our roster to get a lot cheaper and start maximizing the value of day 3 rookie contracts. If we plan it right we will be able to make one splash signing in FA because we won't have all our money tied up in overpaid rotational/depth players.

I could be wrong but I don't think that's how it works. I don't think there is a limit to the number of comp picks in a given round. Pretty sure the super secret comp pick formula just screwed us somehow. Why the NFL doesn't make this information known I will never understand. Don't they want their GMs having all the facts when they make decisions? Think of all the work our front office and scouting departments have done on 3rd round targets, now all of that work is for nothing. So stupid.

One theory I've seen is that the NFL supposedly factors in playing time with the comp pick formula. Edmunds missed time in 2022 so that may be the thing that screwed us. Man this really really sucks. Beane traded for Rasul Douglas because he thought we had another 3rd round pick.

Wow what a huge bummer. I don't understand, everyone agreed we would net a 3rd. I thought I had even heard Beane allude to it. How does this happen?

I thought people were saying Von had a chance to earn a lot more than his paycut next year if he hit all his incentives. The way you laid it out here he would only earn more if he hit 15+ sacks, or 10.5+ sacks plus a Super Bowl appearance. So yeah this is just a straight up pay cut. Von didn't "bet on himself" as some have said. I am quite confident that Beane forced this on him with the threat of release.

I just want us to be more willing to let rookies take on roles. Save the cap space for difference makers. My issue with a contract like this is Rapp is basically guaranteed a spot on the roster - it costs slightly more to cut him than to keep him in 2024. Before the offseason really starts we are already deciding his role is too valuable to be handled by a rookie (or a late stage FA signing) and I just don't understand that thought process. So yes an extra $1M-$2M is not a huge deal on its own, but when you add all these slightly overpaid depth contracts together if does start to become an issue.

I was off a bit. So $2.8M cap hit this year which is a bit steep for me. We could cut him after the season for $1.3M in dead cap in 2025 or keep him for $3.7M. Now that we know the real numbers this is still an overpay IMO. Depth safeties should be day three rookie contracts.

I'm not great at analyzing these things, but I believe his cap hit will be ~$2.3M this year, and we could cut him after this season for like $700K dead cap in 2025 and 2026. Not too bad. I just hope he isn't a starter.

The Bills haven't even been in contact with Daquan Jones. They're going in a different direction this season, cheaper and younger. Looks like we are filling non-premium positions with players that don't hurt the comp pick formula. NT (when the Fatukasi signing becomes official), safety, backup QB, all players that don't count. Davis, Epenesa, and Jones will probably net us a comp pick as long as we sign no more than 2 qualifying UFAs .

That's an interesting thought. Maybe they see him as Siran Neal's replacement, similar cost but gives you more on defense.