No_Matter_What

Willams and Wilson on the board, Dotson and Watson added to the poll for the next spot. I'll edit/comment more when I come home from the trip with kids.

Ok I will put it in title and will keep it updated. Not sure if I understand you but that is the plan. Choose top guy, put him on the board, and vote for the next guy.

The idea is to get "complete board" for the first round. As soon as some players are placed on board I will replace them with next. For now I chose 20 players who are in my opinion consensus top 20 available plus added some players/positions which were being discussed here. Watson and Dotson will be added as soon as some WRs are picked. Same for McCreary, he is next in line when CBs goes of the board. As for the bolded, thats one of the resons I started this. I would like to know where is the turning point when we as fans would start drafting gyus like Dean or Davis instead of next tier WRs or CBs who are considered as much bigger needs.

Thanks for all votes so far. I will shamelessly bump this from time to time to see if I can get it going.

This is very interesting. Yesterday is was slightly over $10M so I guess it went $150k or so down due to Bobby Hart signing, who I guess got that $1,047,500 min deal and it replaced one of $895,000 contracts. But there are two things I'd like to know. Sportrac has us at 66 players and $8,2M cap space. NFLPA says we have 68 players signed. Who are two players signed by Bills Sportrac doesn't know about? And more importantly, where are those extra $1,7M which we have more than Sportrac thinks coming from? Do they have some players wrong, or did we made some extra restructure not known so far?

Thanks man. You answered everything I asked. As for Star, what you say makes sense and it is actually most plausible explanation - frmo some reason his dead cap is in fact 5,2M despite being cut now. What makes it even more interesting are numbers from NFLPA public report, but there is separate thread about it going on right now so I will comment on it there. Maybe one more thing here - is there a way to see some old data somewhere? I mean Sportrac shows everything what they know right now, but can I somehow find data which were valid a year ago? I.e. who was on the roster, what their contract details were, how much we had cap space, etc?

EDIT: Since we have already chosen 12 players, I thought it was time to add new. However, since you can have only 20 options in one poll question, I had to completely restart the poll with new question. I also lowered number of required votes to 15. The goal of this thread is to create Bills fans draft big board, i.e. an order (board) from players who could be available for our first round pick. Rules are simple. As soon as a player gets 15 votes he gets on the big board below and is removed from the poll. People who voted for chosen player can vote again. I will add more players as we will proceed. I didn’t include top 10 players who have close to zero chance to get to our pick – Evan Neal, Ikem Ekwonu, Charles Cross, Aidan Hutchinson, Kayvon Thibodeaux, Travon Walker, Jermaine Johnson, Ahmad Gardner, Derek Stingley and Kyle Hamilton. We might not have a chance on couple more players but this is where I decided to draw a line. I also didn’t include any QBs from obvious reasons. Board - players already selected in our voting: 1. Jameson Williams, WR, Alabama 2. Garrett Wilson, WR, Ohio State 3. Andrew Booth, CB, Clemson 4. Trent McDuffie, CB, Washington 5. Chris Olave, WR, Ohio State 6. Trevor Penning, OT, Northern Iowa 7. Daxton Hill, S, Michigan 8. Devin Lloyd, LB, Utah 9. Kyler Gordon, CB, Washington 10. Zion Johnson, OG, Boston College 11. Jordan Davis, DL, Georgia 12. Drake London, WR, USC 13. Jahan Dotson, WR, Penn State 14. Treylon Burks, WR, Arkansas

Didn't see this posted. One less vet option.

Thanks for the comprehensive answer. QBs are very specific so thats easy to understand. The key to my question is then really how they treat guy like London/Samuel/Olujari you describe. I understand that they might not be fits or they don't have value for Bills, but I always thought that they are kept somewhere on the board just in case they slip too much and their talents just become too much to pass on. But in reality you are probably right and since something like that doesn't happen and guys just don't slip 2-3 full rounds, it is probably not worth to even think about them being included in the board. However, even with your reasoning, I still find it crazy if Belichick really has less than 100 players on his board When I think about it this could possibly be one of the reasons why Metcalf fell so far. I guess from some reason he just wasn't on many teams' board.

@Tuco You seem to have some understanding of salary cap issues, so maybe you will be able to answer following questions (anybody else feel free to help me out): 1. How do void years work if there is more of them? I mean Hyde was restructured so his salary/bonus was spread over 5 years, 3 of them being void. He has 1,13M dead cap each year. In reality this means: a) dead cap will be spread over those 3 years in any case and Bills cannot affect it; or b) dead cap will be accounted for in full amount of 3,4M in 2024 (first void year) and Bills cannot affect it; or c) at some point (when?) Bills can decide which way to go? https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/micah-hyde-12440/ Sportrac shows it in very confusing manner, showing 3,4M in 2024 but also 1,13M in both 2025 and 2026 (which is mutually exclusive imo). 2. Right now cap is calculated as top51. However, when season starts it will be for full roster, which is 53 players. If I understand it correctly cap stays the same, which means that we our cap situation is actually worse and we need to have in fact 1,8M more cap space just to facilitate two new (roughly 900M each) contracts? 3. PS players - same question. Do they count against the same cap (208,2M), so we need to create additional space for them? If yes, how much is that? 4. Star Lotulelei issue. To me it doesn't make sense how it is shown on Sportrac. He was supposed to have 5,2M dead cap if cut post June 1 and 7,8M if cut outright. Sportrac shows his dead cap as 5,2M. However, if this was the case, and he was really designated as post June 1 cut, then he needs to be in the books right now, doesn't he? Or does it mean that he actually is kept in the books right now, but Sportrac shows him as cut already for some reason?

This sounds really strange to me. I can understand that some teams take some players completely out of their boards due to off-field issues or injury concerns. But that has to be some small number of players. How it is then possible to have less than 150 or even less than 100 players on the board? What are the reasons for taking a player completely of a teams board? I understand that there are scheme issues for example, so if a CB excels in man defense team like Bills may downgrade him a round or two. But it doesn't make sense to delete him off the board completely. To be more specific - can you look at last years draft at tell me which players selected in first 2 rounds possibly weren't on Bills board at all? Or on Patriots board for that matter? Or make the same thing with this year's top 60 players. For example, I remember you saying that Lindenbaum is very scheme specific guy. But do you think it really means he is not on some teams board? Like a team does not take him even in 4th round if he is somehow available? I always thought that all teams have draft boards consisting of 200+ players.

Yeah these rumors make me feel that Bills are doing their homework

Well he certainly is given how much he just got paid I think he is very good. He is not worth that much probably but I think if you have QB like him it is still better to overpay him then let him ho and hope that you will find a better one.

First of all thanks for the work and good discussion topic. My two general comments: 1. Sample size is too small to draw any conclusions. 2. Most of things you listed are only relevant if we know league-wide numbers. This conference thing is really interesting. To put it into perspective, there were 1277 players selected in last 5 years, 185 of which were from ACC and 298 from SEC - that is 14,5% ACC and 23,3% SEC. As you noted, Bills have drafted 32,4% ACC and only 10,8% SEC. That's extreme difference (vs league total numbers), even for such small sample size. I'd say this is really a tendency. Anybody has a clue what is the reason? These numbers need some comparison with whole NFL. How many of all drafted players were in the Senoir Bowl? What percentage of draftees participate at the combine? Anybody knows? For example, if 95% of players drafted were at the combine and participants constitute 97% of players we drafted, then it is not much of a tendency. I see that usually over 320 players are invited to combine and about 255 players are drafted, so I assume almost everybody who is drafted was actually at the combine. As for the pre draft visits, I guess it is the same (similar) for all teams. I am confused how you counted this one. Who are those 6 players? Did you count WR as premier position? I have no idea who did you include. Last 5 years there were 9 players drafted by the Bills in the first 2 rounds: DE Rousseau, DE Basham, DE Epenesa, DT Oliver, OT Ford, QB Allen, LB Edmunds, CB White, WR Jones, OT Dawkins (listed as OG on wiki - I don't remember what he was on college). But in orded to consider this we need to be clear what is "premier position" and then compare it to league wide numbers. Well, this is certainly true

Rousseau was never a healthy scratch. He also started every game we player and never fell below 38% of snaps.

Agreed. We are really lucky to have him and kudos to Beane for the trade that brought him in. I didn't notice your opinion on his extension though, esp. now since the contract details are out and he has $21.5M signing bonus. What is interesting is that Sportrac already shows his 2023 option bonus prorated five years*. As a result, Diggs has dead cap of $18M in 2025, which essentially ties him to Buffalo for at least 4 seasons (and even after that he has $10M dead cap). I do think/hope that it is a good deal and I love Diggs but this requires him to produce at high level for 4 years at least. What do you think? https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/stefon-diggs-16872/ *I have no idea what is option bonus, but I thought that it worked like base salary and thus right now it would be a lump sum counted towards 2023 cap hit, and we will have an option to convert it and prorate it before 2023 season. To my surprise Sportrac shows it already prorated. However, it doesn't matter much I guess since we would have done it anyway. God I hate using conditionals in English

Yeah but half of the fans wouldn't be alive to witness it Some would broke their monitors after we passed on him at 57, and the rest would have heart attack after we passed on him at 80.

Irrelevant to the topic, but what's the point of starting every other tweet with "breaking"? Russian invasion was breaking news, not that one guy joins another guys lawsuit (even moreso when this was hinted long time ago).

I find it really interesting how for Edmunds you count also 2nd rounder we spent to move up but for Diggs you refuse to consider it as using a first round for offense

Agreed. Now we just need to make sure that guy we take at 25 is better than whoever they pick couple spots later. I wouldn't be surprised if they jumped us either.

Exactly. At this point I'll be stunned if we don't draft WR in first two rounds. But it seems that either we take on in first, or we need to trade up in second.

I think he really needs to keep $3M or so for the season for any players who replace IR players. Also, I think this is top51 cap space, but full roster is 53 so there's another $1,8M for two players needed (unless I am misunderstanding something). Also, I still think that Sportrac has Star wrong. They count him as 5,2M dead cap, but it should be 7,8M. So in my opinion this creates space for some cheap CB FA only. If we want someone more expensive then another restructure is required, and I guess that Beane will be reluctant to do so since you only can kick the can so far. But there are obviously other options, like trading Edmunds

I think that when @Virgil comes back from high level meeting he will appreciate some input on who should be included in the poll. I'll leave it to smarter guys but expect to see some OL, WR, TE, LB and S.

Not sure why people often say this. I think its completely irrelevant. Dead money this year contributes to our tight cap this year. Next year our cap will be even tighter. We will not have current dead money weight, but there will be a lot of new dead money, and a lot of high cap hits. Once we sign this year's rookies we will be probably already over the cap with maybe 42 players, and 10 of them PS quality players. Lol. You can't be serious with "start", can you? I think you mentioned in your later posts but is is actually less than $2 mil for the rookies. Top 2 require almost exactly additional $2mil, 3rd adds some change, but if we keep some rookies from lower rounds (which we will), they will actually lower our cap hit. So it will be $2 mil (unless Beans moves a lot in the draft). Diggs' old cap hit was around $17M. New numbers are not known yet, but I guess his 2022 cap hit will be something between $5-8M, max $10M (Von Miller had $5M despite his contract). So this creates cap space for rookies, $3M needed for some in season changes and maybe some cheap FA CB.

In general I agree but its very unlikely/almost impossible that 2nd year will be so low from the beginning. It will be more like 10,22,26,26,28,28. But it is also very likely that next year we will need to kick some more can down the road, so we restructure him and it will in fact end up like you said (and last year or two he will not be here and we will eat som dead cap). Anyway with this extension I think we are already nicely over the 2023 cap