GASabresIUFan

I meant starting safety. Oops! I agree with your post. Rapp, Hamlin and Lewis are the weakest group on the roster. We need another starting safety and quality depth from the draft.

Here is our roster as it stands right now at 44 plus on 15 Futures/Reserve contracts. Specialists (4) - Bass (PK), Ferguson (LS), Haack (P) & Martin (P) - one of Haack or Martin will not make the team Offense (21) QB (2) - Allen & Trubisky RB/FB (3) - Cook, Johnson & Gilliam WR (5) - Diggs, Shakir, Samuel, Hollins & Shorter TE (3) - Kincaid, Knox, Morris OL (8) - Dawkins, Brown, McGovern, Edwards, Torrence, Anderson, Van Denmark and Doyle Defense (19) DL (6) - Jones, Oliver, Miller, Rousseau, Epenesa, and Jonathan LB (5) - Milano, Bernard, Williams, Spector, & Morrow CB (5) - Douglas, Benford, Elam, and Johnson S/DB (3) - Rapp, Hamlin, Lewis Futures/Reserve contracts (15) - If I had to guess Hamler, Gouriage, Jarvis, Cline and Ankou have the best chance of making the team Offense (10): Evans (RB), Buechele (QB), Hamler (WR), Isabella (WR), Shavers (WR), Thompson (WR), McKitty (TE), Davidson (TE), Gouriage (OT), & Jarvis (OG) Defense (10): Williamson (S), Ankou (DT), Cline (DT), Ingram (CB), Brown (CB)

This was incorrect. It was a one year deal (@ 2.5) with a void year to lower the cap hit to 1.8. His dead cap for 2024 is 667K.

The Bills have cap space of 7.965 according to Spotrac. This is without the cap savings from Taron's extension. That extension should garner 4-5 in cap space. That puts us somewhere about 12-13 million in cap. Subtract about 2.2 for Johnson and the top 3 draft picks and we still have 10-11 million to spend plus White's 10 million in June. That's plenty of money for DT depth and a possible starting center.

The first $1 million of Ty cap hit is already covered by the bottom player currently listed in out top 51. Basically if Ty’s contract is 1.4, he replaces the bottom player out of the top 51. Those players are about 985K at this point. Therefore the impact of Ty’s contract on the cap in this example would be just over 400K.

Cook's catch rate last year jumped from 65.6% to 81.5% on a 67% increase in targets. He jumped from 21 catches in 2022 to 44 in 2023 for 445 yards. It's possible Samuel eats into come of those catch opportunities, but I watch Cook a great deal in college, and he steadily improved each season. In the final year, he was amazing at catching the ball out of the backfield. I suspect he'll be even better this coming season. He has that work ethic to get better.

The Bills were definitely more balanced between rush and pass that season (579 to 512). Cook's carries jumped to 237 from 89, while Josh's carries fell from 124 to 111. I think that is a trend that will likely continue and is one of the reasons Beane and the Bills is working hard to add more weapons.

Sorry, passing game coordinator.

I'm very happy Beane extended Taron Johnson. The guy has earned the extension. From a cap standpoint, Spotrac has the Bills 11.5 to the good before factoring in Ty Johnson, Samuel, Taron Johnson and about $2 million (or less) for the draft picks. I'm going to assume for arguments sake that Samuel's cap hit will be similar to DaQuan Jones' (4.5 to 5) and that the cap savings from Taron's extension will cover most of that cap hit. That probably leaves the Bills with 7-8 million in available cap after factoring in the draft picks, Taron, Ty and Samuel. Sounds like enough money to add another starting Safety.

Great move.

Brady as a coach has a couple of claims to fame. He was the Passing Game Coordinator at LSU that helped coach Burrow, Chase, Jefferson and Edwards-Helaire to a National Championship, and at Carolina, despite an injury to McCaffrey, the Panthers had 4 non-QBs players go over 1000 yards from scrimmage. The 4 were boundary receivers Moore and Anderson, RB Mike Davis and slot receiver Samuel. Samuel had 850 yards receiving and 200 rushing. That year the Panthers barely utilized the TE, Teddy Bridgewater rushed for 279 yards and 5 TDs, but today rushing attempts were about 100 less than the Bills last season (but also on 130 less snaps over the course of the season). At LSU, they relied on their big 3 playmakers, but also utilized a big No 3 receiver, 6-2 200 Marshall, in the red zone for 670 yards and 13 TDs. At Carolina, once McCaffrey went down, Brady pretty much relied only on the big 4 1000 yard guys. So what does this mean for the Bills and Allen next season? Less running by Josh & Cook? Will Knox be utilized at all as a receiver? If they add a speed WR in the draft, how big an impact will be have, especially if Shakir moves to the boundary as the Athletic speculated? Will Samuel see 90+ targets like he did in Carolina and Wash? How many targets will Diggs lose from his standard 160 the last 4 years? Since he’s never had a good TE until now, will that change how much he game plans to throw to the boundary? How much 11.5 & 12 personnel will we see? For reference the Bills have averaged 1111 O snaps per season the last 4 years, and taking out penalties, they have averaged 601 pass attempts and 468 rushes. Ultimately how do you breakdown the allocation of snaps and targets to our RBs, WRs and TEs next season?

Fields is better than Russell or Pickett. He is also an excellent athlete who could end up blossoming under the right OC. He therefore makes the Steelers better, but how much better is the question.

Beane has never drafted a receiver before the 4th round. He hit on Davis in the 4th and Shakir in the 5th. He did spend a 1st on Diggs who was a 5th rd pick in 2015. FYI Diggs and Shakir had nearly identical pre-draft combine and prospect scores their draft years. He broke the mold last year getting Kincaid in the first. Given the WR depth in this draft, will Beane step up and grab someone early? I truly hope so. I agree with an earlier poster about Hollins not impacting the draft decisions. He is going to be primarily a special teams ace. How they feel about Shorter may impact whether they draft a second receiver in the later rounds.

Falcons are much improved. Steelers got huge value stealing Fields for a 6th. He’ll beat out Wilson. Not sure this makes them a playoff team, but Pickens is probably happy.

I have updated the OP to reflect all the updates except Johnson and Samuel. They have us at 11.15 in cap as mentioned up thread. Great catch, by the way, on the change in Douglas’ contract. I was wonder where the extra $3 million came from.

What is the cap hit if he is traded? What is a 33 year old possibly declining WR with a huge contract even worth?

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/bills-stefon-diggs-gives-another-indication-he-wants-out-of-buffalo-with-cryptic-post/ Dear Stef, We made you one of the highest paid players in the NFL. We gave you an opportunity to play with one of the best QB's in the NFL who is on his way to a HOF career. Grow up jerk and play football. Stop whining already. Geez!

Updated to reflect the 5.1 cap savings from Dawkins.

Does the QB matter, but nearly as much as a player’s role in the offense. Last season, Shakir, as out 4th WR/TE option equalled Samuel’s production on 50% of the targets. Do you really think that Samuel will get 90+ targets in Buffalo like he did in Wash with Shakir, Kincaid and Diggs already in the offense? If you do I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn. Everyone keeps saying with Josh as his QB his number will explode. They won’t because his targets are likely to fall dramatically because he’s now at best the 4th best option instead of a top 2 or 3 option. So could his YAC/R improve? Maybe. Will his yards/r improve? Maybe, but probably not significantly. Even when playing with Brady as OC before his yards/r was 11.1 vs his career of 10.7. So how many targets can Samuel expect in our offense? As the 4th TE/WR option and during Josh’s tenure over the last 5 seasons, the 4th option averaged 54 catches a season. The 3rd option averaged 66. So let’s give Samuel the benefit of the doubt. In our offense, matching his career best in catch % (79) and yard/r (12.7), and getting 3rd option targets, we can hope for about 660 yards. What is more likely is he’ll have about 54 targets, convert at near his career rate of 65.4% and gain near his career yards/r of 10.7 for a total of 378 yards. Is that really worth $8 mill? The best case scenario for Samuel in this offense is that they move Shakir to the boundary, make Samuel the starting slot receiver and reduce Digg’s targets 30-40 from the 160 he’s averaged over the last 4 years. Samuel would still be the 4th option but have a better chance of giving the Bills 600 yards. However, Kincaid and Shakir will see more targets as well, especially when Brady begins to use Kincaid in a Kelce kind of role. I know people are excited about a big $ WR signing, but instead of whining at me for disagreeing with the group think that Samuel is the second coming, take some friggin time, research the stats, be honest about his potential role in the offense, and then do the math as I have.

Samuel stats have been similar to last year regardless if it was Cam Newton or Teddy Bridgewater or whomever played in Wash.

Shakir vs Samuel in 2023 Shakir 39/45, 611 yds, 2 TDs, 15.7 yds/r, Catch % 86.7, 17 catches of 20+, 282 yds YAC, 7.2 yds yac/r, 0 drops (The 7.2 tds yac/r was 3rd in the NFL for receivers with 20 or more receptions.) Samuel 62/91, 613 yds, 4 TDs, 9.9 yds/r, Catch % 68.1, 11 catches of 20+, 260 yds YAC, 4.2 yds yac/r, 2 drops

KC gets a speedster to stretch the field. Shocking!

I’m very happy in general with McD and Beane. I wrote that the calls here to fire McD foolish (to put it nicely). I also wrote that I was very happy with the work Beane did this offseason except the 2 WR signings. So your characterization of this thread is completely wrong. Not a surprise really.

The last two years 75% of his snaps were in the slot. He is no longer any type of threat from the outside. Sorry but that is the fact. I know you and others are desperate for this to be a great signing that makes this offense more dangerous. I get it, but his stats from the last two years say that isn’t what we are getting. We are getting a slot receiver who isn’t as good as what we already have. Will he get snaps when Shakir and Diggs are on the field? Sure, but he’ll be the 4th, 5th or 6th option on those downs. To me that’s a waste of cap resources.

No he’s not. Shakir is the slot receiver and is already a better player than Samuel. We don’t have the necessary boundary WR to replace Davis and that is the just one of the problems with signing Samuel.