No_Matter_What

Ok. But I think that even if everything you mention happens the obvious solution will be keeping 7 WRs. We kept 7 last year once Stevenson got back from IR - he basically took Zimmer's spot and we won't keep 11 DL like last year. Therefore I don't think that you scenario is an option. Like I said above, we are not keeping 6 WRs if it meant cutting Crowder. Agree to disagree I guess.

I am surprised by the credit given to Patriots in this thread. I think last year they were running over EV (much like we were running under EV) and they got even weaker this year. Roster-wise they are 6-11 team. Maybe Belichick can make 8-9 out of them but that is their ceiling. If Wilson takes a step this year Pats will finish last in the division. Bills 12-5 to 13-4 Dolphins 9-8 to 12-5 Jets 6-11 to 9-8 Pats 5-12 to 8-9

Sportrac says that he has $3,250,000 cap hit and $750,000 dead money. So savings would be $2,5M minus guy who replaces him. That's still a lot of money in our cap situation. Last year we kept 11 DL players. This year we have 9 with relevant NFL experience including Epenesa, Phillips and Lawson. Why do you think any of these guys are fighting for "last DL roster spot"? They are locks imo unless somebody else is signed before the season. All other guys on the roster are fighting for possible 10th spot. Agreed. He gets older every year so the odds of him not making the roster go up, but on the other hand he got $650k guaranteed so I doubt they will cut him. We'll see.

Can you guys elaborate these scenarios? Last year we started with 6 WRs with Stevenson on IR, in second half of the season we kept 7 on the roster. Crowder is a proven vet, who was very good with sub par QB play, has a very low cap hit (good reason to keep him) and almost the same dead money if cut (even better reason to keep him). If he doesn't make the roster then we are keeping only 6 WRs and including Kumerow (who was so far apparently kept for his ST play) and Stevenson/Hodgins ahead of him? Sorry, I don't buy it. Doesn't make any sense to me. If they want to keep either Stevenson or Hodgins, then we are either keeping 7 WRs (which I fully expect) or we find other ST solution and Kumerow is cut. EDIT: Same goes for McKenzie, but ok, with him I can imagine some weird scenario where he doesn't make it. But the chances are som slim that he is a lock in my eyes too.

I mostly agree but would make following changes: Crowder is black. I see no scenario in which he is cut with no savings at all. I'd also add McKenzie. You think that it is realistic that Hodgins and Stevenson both make team instead of him? Or that Kumerow + Hodgins/Stevenson make the team and we only keep 6 WRs? I think that it is extremely unlikely. Lawson should be blue. Last year we kept 6 DEs. This year he is 5th DE. I agree that he is not a lock, but he is definitely "probable". Hamlin also has to be blue. His only competition is Thomas (ok, maybe Benford) and he is not fighting for a spot; it is his spot to lose. Hence "probable" imo. As others said Araiza is also blue if not black. @Kirby Jackson said it best. I read all your responses from this thread regarding Araiza and I think he should be at least blue by your own words Cutting Matakevich saves almost §1,4M MORE than cutting Smith. Matakevich and Ford are actually only players who could be realistically cut and save some decent money. I'd love to cut him cap wise. But I doubt they will do it (and I obviously want them to keep him if it is necessary for ST play).

I agree with most of what you say but am very confused with the bolded. Putting 8 players you listed on the roster instead of other who are currently in top 51 doesn't save any money, it actually cost us more in cap space. For the sake of simplicity I draw the line at 53. You list 7 players who you expect to be on the roster, and if you check my prelilimary roster in OP I fully agree. In my roster they are replacing Haack, Duke Johnson, Mancz, Lee, Sweeney, Hart and Barkley, but it doesn't matter much - you can choose other players and results will be very similar. If you cut those 7 players I listed, it saves around $5,640,000. On the other hand, adding 7 players you listed adds around $6,000,000, so it gets even worse cap wise. This is caused by the fact that many of those cut players leave us with quite a lot dead money. The only players who can be realistically cut and save some money are Matakevich, Ford and to a lesser extent Quessenberry, Andre Smith and Kumerow.

I am no expert but the base logic is quite simple. A player starts at PS and 18 weeks PS salary is counted towards cap. Then after 5 weeks he gets promoted to regular roster. At that time his prorated minimum NFL salary counts towards cap - I think last year it was something like $700k, so 700/18*13 counts towards cap. And since such player is not a PS member anymore, all money he earned for the first 5 weeks at PS (last year $9,200*5) is accounted for as dead cap. If he gets demoted back to the PS couple weeks later, all money he earned on roster (e.g. for 2 games it is $700k/18*2) is added to the dead money and once again he is kept at PS and his cap hit is calculated for remaining weeks only.

I was joking, I guess it was quite obvious.

As for the last year, number you state is from the end of the season. At that time, most of PS players original cap hit is "converted" to dead money due to movement in PS/active roster. Let's take Quintin Morris as an example. As a PS member, he has listed cap hit of $82,800, which is PS cap hit for 9 games after Jags game where he was on an active roster. All PS money he earned from the start of the season until he was promoted to active roster (for one or two games, I am not sure), as well as money earned as an active player, are accounted for as dead money ($139,266). So, when the season starts, we will have 16 PS players with full cap hits. I didn't know that minimum PS salary goes up this year, thanks for noting that. If that is the case, minimum PS total cap hit will be 3,3M ($207,000 * 16 players). As for the next year, I agree that the cap situation will be worse than this year. I'll make a thread about next offseason later this week

Wow. Just wow. Super impressed. I love, love, love this guy. I think he is already my second favorite Bills player even before he stepped on the field. Very smart, well-spoken, humble, no cliches, motivated. I will root hard for him to pan out. I especially loved when he answered the question about being overlooked and chosen in the 5th round. No stupid talk about "the chip on the shoulder" which I really hate - just smart answer that he is grateful for the opportunity he got and that now it is up to him to show he's worth it. Also loved how he talked about meeting Diggs and other "big guys". He is very genuine and humble.

Ok, when I wrote "left" I meant to include all players who were on Bills 2021 roster and were FAs after the season. I'll edit OP. Also agreed on your other comment. WRs and LBs are question marks. DE, DT, RB and TE are clear upgrades. As for the bolded, who except of the ones I mentioned (Matakevich and Ford) you have in mind? I mean sure that maybe 6-8 players who are currently under top 53 will replace players who are on accounted for right now, but savings will be minimal, unless some UDFA or someone similar gets in. Maybe if Spector makes it in instead of Andre Smith, that could be about $400k (which is quite a lot). Or if Quessenbery is cut, that could amount to $600k, but that's fairly unlikely. Then Kumerow is the last one I can see who can be cut with more than $250k savings. But I guess you are right, this could possibly make around $1M in savings total. I surely hope that some guys like Wydermyer or Benford make the roster. That would be great news cap wise.

Yeah there were some assumptions in my comments, but not helluva lot imo We upgraded DE, DT, RB and TE based on the performances of respective players last year. That it a fact imo. WR and LB remains to be seen, those are certainly question marks. Nah, cmon Majority of OP content are facts. I wanted to summarize what happened, mostly for my own future reference, and also for anybody here who was interested. Didn't want to imply that we won an offseason I might be wrong, but as far as I know PS players count towards the cap. So they don't need to bump anybody of 53 to count. You need to count 53 roster players + all PS players (+ all dead cap and other things, but that's beyond the point). And all PS players with two or fewer accrued NFL seasons earn at least $166k, which means at least $2,65M total (16 players). If a player has more than 2 seasons, then he has to ear at least $252k, i.e. $86k more. So it will be something between $2,65M and $3M for whole PS.

Didn't see this posted so I'd like to make a recap. Please let me know if I omitted something / someone. I am not listing players who we re-signed but who were mostly PS players so far. FAs not re-signed: QB Trubisky, WR Sanders, RB Breida DE Hughes, DE Addison, DE Obada, DT H. Phillips, DT Butler, DT Zimmer, CB Wallace Cut: OG Feliciano, OT Williams, WR Beasley DT Lotulelei, LB Klein Re-signed: OG Bates - $17M/4y (matched RFA tender) CB/S Neal - $9M/3y WR McKenzie - $4,4M/2y One year deals: OG Boettger, RB T.Jones, WR Kumerow, LB Dodson FA acquisitions: DE Von Miller - $120M/6y (potential out after 3 seasons with $7,4M dead cap) DT D. Jones - $14/2y (+void year) DT Settle - $9M/2y (+void year) One year deals: QB Keenum, QB Barkley, OG Saffold, OT Quessenberry, OG Mancz, RB Johnson, TE Howard, WR Crowder DE Lawson, DT J. Phillips, LB Lee Draft: CB Elam, RB Cook, LB Bernard, WR Shakir, P Araiza, CB Benford, OT Tenuta, LB Spector UDFA: TE Wydermyer, RB Blackshear, OT Anderson, OG Kerstetter, OG Owen, WR M.Williams, WR Pau'u, DE Jonathan, CB T.Fuller Restructures: WR Diggs - $96M/4y, under contract 6 seasons total C Morse - $19,5M/2y, under contract 3 seasons total LB Milano - conversion of $6,5M salary into signing bonus (3years under contract + added 2 void years) S Hyde - conversion of $5,7M salary into signing bonus (2years under contract + added 3 void years) P Haack - pay cut Cap situation: $5M cap space according to Sportrac. However, its only top51 right now and real season is 53 players, which means additional $1,8M. Practice squad players also count, so that's roughly $3M extra. All in all, we are about zero right now and need to make some space for in season moves. Possible cut candidates: LB Matakevich ($2,5M), OG Ford ($1,5M) - actual cap savings will be less since we need to replace them on the roster (that is why cutting Haack does not save cap space). Possible restructures: CB White, LT Dawkins Possible extensions: S Poyer, LB Edmunds My comments: Great offseason on paper. With tight cap space Beane managed to upgrade the roster. On defense, we got better at DE, better at DT, better and faster at CB (Elam over Wallace), at least faster and hopefully better (?) with more upside (?) at LB (Bernard over Klein). On offense, we got better at RB (Cook over Breida), hopefully much better at TE (Howard) and if not better then younger at WR (Crowder and Shakir over Beasley and Sanders). We added competition to return game (Shakir) and potentially massively upgraded punting game. From core players we kept all but maybe 4 (Diggs, Morse, Hyde and Poyer) are young or relatively young and should be trending upwards. My only gripe is OL. I don't feel competent to judge OL play, but from your comments guys it seems Saffold and Quesenberry are either a wash or maybe minor upgrade over Williams and Feliciano. I was hoping for more. Something like better FAs or drafting a guard in 2nd or 3rd round, or at least some project with huge upside in 5th. But you can't have everything I guess, and we upgraded other units much more than I hoped for. I am also sure that we wanted to draft OL, it just didn't go that way. There is also a solid chance that Brown gets better, Bates will be consistent upgrade and OL as whole will be better with new OL coach. I am also not sure if Diggs contract isn't for one year too many, but it is also a minor thing. I love that we extended him. Current roster: Go Bills!

Answer is zero. I locked the voting one day before the draft started. But it is not surprising that Elam got most votes at that stage. If you read OP, there were already top 24 players elected, so we were voting for 25th player on TSW Bills big board. No offense taken You're mostly right, I was trying to much to spin it in an optimistic way I don't think your first statement is that relevant - he probably would end up as 15th on that board, which is 25th overall (counting top 10 players excluded from the poll). We chose him at 23 with one QB taken. I'd say that's pretty close. It doesn't say much he didn't made it to top 14, since it was clear from the beginning that most of those guys will be taken in teens. What I find relevant that there were 4 players available who we didn't take before Elam and could. I agree it is not that close, he was 5th option from TSW view (based on voting of members who wanted to vote). I'd probably put an asterix next to Andrew Booth, since there seems to be more to his medical issues than it was known to fans before draft. But even if we take him out people here still preferred Lloyd, Hill and Gordon more. Gordon is a crucial name here since it say that in this voting, since he plays very same position and people preferred him to Elam in this voting. That applies also to Hill to some extent. On a side note, one of the 10 players I excluded from the poll due to presumed unavailability was surprisingly available - Jermaine Johnson.

Is this guy credible?

I almost forgot to close this thing. When we were on the clock, following players from our big board (listed in OP) were still available: 3. Andrew Booth, CB, Clemson 7. Daxton Hill, S, Michigan 8. Devin Lloyd, LB, Utah 9. Kyler Gordon, CB, Washington Kaiir Elam had most votes when I closed the poll, so I consider him next on the board. Booth's medical concerns were apparently bigger than we expected, and I don't think Bills were interested in the first round LB at all. So all in all we were pretty close to the Bills choice.

Beane asleep at the wheel. He is also not signing our draft picks. I say fire him until it's too late!

Wow. I am coming from Europe this year no matter what. I planned week 2 since I expected Bills to be home and it fits me the best work wise as well as weather wise. Now I am happy its Titans but surpised it is MNF 😲 Does it mean tickets will be more expensive? Does it change tailgaiting experience for better or worse?

Sportrac already has Wydermyer and RB Blackshear accounted for. What I find interesting is that Blackshear got 15k signing bonus, while Wydermyer got nothing. Do I understand it correctly that this is something what depends only on the agreement between the specific player and the team? Anyway, it would be great if Wydermyer could stick. Talented depth players with 700k cap hit this year and 870k-980k next two years is exactly what we need.

Jets? Are you kidding? I just read on jetnation that if Denzel Mims becomes what he was drafted to be their offense could become truly unstoppable!

Why do you keep on repeating "undersized LB"? We already have one "undersized LB" and he is one of the best player in the team.

You're right about Beane and I am not a skeptic, I have no problem believing he would've taken Shakir in the 4th. And I am completely fine with still wanting Elam+Cook. I would do the same. But unless I am missing something your math is wrong. It is fifth and sixth in such case. We take Hall, Emerson and Shakir, and we still have both picks we used to trade up for Shakir (our original 5th and 6th).

All of this plus DTs are also an upgrade, at least on the paper.

You need to include that 4th rounder we gave up for Elam in the equation. That might change things a little.

Quality of his play is a big deal. Why would we let go somebody who is like 100% top 5 WR on our roster? Makes absolutely no sense to me. And the fact that he is on a cheap contract makes it even less likely.