HappyDays

I think it was more a really poor decision and throw than a great play by Rapp. My initial instinct is that I don't like this deal. At times I thought that Rapp was a liability on the field and he appears to be in the Jordan Phillips mold of committing incredibly stupid penalties at the worst times. I'll wait to see what the contract actually looks like though before fully judging it. The initial headline pumped out by the agent is probably laughably overstated. But I think there will be true starting caliber safeties on the market for a similar cost so I don't know why we rushed to get this extension done.

Even if we take a chance on a day 3 QB we still need to have a baseline in place. That's the goal for 90% of free agency. Make sure you have baseline talent in place at every position so that you're not reaching for needs in the draft. Ideally some of that baseline talent will be supplanted by rookies, but you can't count on it.

From a reliable source, Knox was asked to take a paycut. I heard this last week but never got an update.

Maybe. But part of me wonders if Beane threatened him - take the pay cut or we'll release you as a post-6/1 designation. A couple months back I thought that would be one way of handling his contract, I just didn't know if Beane would be willing to be that ruthless. If Von was cut he would get a paltry contract offer from another team, and we would be stuck with a bunch of dead money, so it is a good compromise for both sides to accept this pay cut.

Turns out being a GM is easy. All you need is a sharp axe.

Over the Cap and Spotrac are showing different outcomes, it will probably take a couple days before we know for sure. But I am pretty sure that once Hines's release is official we will already be below the cap, and that's before the inevitable restructures of Allen's and Oliver's contracts. Even with Rapp and Edwards re-signing I suspect we will have enough to work with to make one above average signing and then a few signings to fill holes. Most importantly we will be in excellent cap shape heading into 2025.

Quite the opposite. Putting younger less injury prone players on the field and freeing up cap space puts us MORE in contention this year. No doubt in my mind we will be a better team than last year.

When the offseason first started, my dream was cutting White, Morse, Poyer, and Harty, and convincing Von to take a paycut. Consider me satisfied! Once we restructure Allen's contract we can be real players in free agency.

Over the Cap thinks we are saving even more:

So for seemingly no reason at all, Von agreed to give us $8.6 million in cap relief this year. This is one time where I will say Beane is a wizard. I have no clue how he pulled it off. Just insane that before even restructuring Allen's contract we have already gotten under the salary cap.

I am glad we released him but I don't understand the post-6/1 designation. We could have taken a $10.3M dead cap hit this year and saved $6M right a away, with no ramifications in 2025. Instead we take a $6.2M dead cap hit this year AND a $4.1M dead cap hit in 2025. And we don't really get to use his savings this year until after FA is over. I wonder what the thought process was here?

With the news about Morse I'm changing my opinion on the Edwards contract. $2.3M for a baseline starter is a good deal. Ideally a rookie or Alec Anderson will beat him out, but now we at least have a solid floor.

The only thing I don't understand is why the post-6/1 designation? We won't be able to use that $10M until after FA has dried up, unless the plan is to roll it over to 2025. That being said I am really happy that Beane went this route. I did not think he had it in him.

Spotrac is fully updated: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap// We are still $19,782,663 OVER the cap, but a simple restructure of Allen's contract will get us under. And there are still plenty of potential moves to be made.

Brandon the Executioner strikes again. What a day.

This is my dream offseason. Out with the old, in with the new. This was the only way to stop the salary cap bleeding.

This is all happening too fast for me to process. Poyer gone, Douglas restructured, Neal gone. Beane isn't messing around about the cap. I love the moves personally.

Great news!! This tells me Beane understands the kind of offseason this needs to be. All that being said I will always appreciate what the Hyde/Poyer tandem meant to us and it sucks that it has to end so abruptly.

I would be fine with Latu at #28 because everyone agrees he is more like a top 15 player in this draft. I'm not so WR hungry that I'm going to pass up on a player at a premium position of need if that kind of value is there. But absolutely no to trading up for him. I want us using all of our picks and filling the bottom of the roster with rookie contracts. I don't see any player in this draft worth trading up for.

Ideally the backup swing guard is on a day 3 rookie contract. But I'm okay with it. Edwards is a capable spot starter.

https://overthecap.com/player/david-edwards/7960 For all intents and purposes it's a 1 year deal. $2.3M cap hit in 2024, $875K dead cap hit in 2025. A bit of an overpay but I'm fine with it.

Alohi Gilman from the Chargers. High upside and won't be expensive.

That's because Belichick and co. are not fun coaches to be around. It has nothing to do with the roster management strategy. We have tried the friendly family environment and it hasn't earned us a bunch of free agent discounts. Players know it is a business.

This is something I will staunchly disagree with. We have to start being ruthless. The Pats were a dynasty for 20 years because of that ruthless mindset. The Chiefs are now following suit. Morse has done everything right since day one. He has been a model player. And that should have zero impact on our decision to keep or cut him.