GASabresIUFan

Group 1 (36) - Players certain or almost certain to return Offense (16) QB - Allen, Trubisky - (signed 3/6 - 2 years $5.25 million) RB - Cook, Johnson (re-signed 3/14) WR - Diggs, Shakir, Hollins (signed 3/13) TE - Knox, Kincaid & Morris (re-signed 1yr 985k) OT - Brown, Dawkins, Van Demark, OG - Torrence, Edwards (Re-signed 2yrs $6million) C - McGovern Defense (17) DL - Rousseau, Miller, Oliver, Jonathan, Epenesa & Jones (both re-signed for 2 years) LB - Milano, Benard, Williams, Spector, Morrow (signed 3/12) CB - Benford, Douglas, Elam, Johnson & Lewis (re-signs 2 yrs 4 million on 3/11) S - Rapp - reports have him re-signing (3 yrs $14.5) Specialist (3) - Bass (PK), Ferguson (LS), (P) Haack (re-signed on 3/6) Group 2 (4) - Players under contract likely to return, but could also end up as cap casualties if K's not restructured OL - Morse, Bates (traded to Chicago); Morse release 3/6 (signs with Jax) S - Poyer - Poyer released 3/6 P - Martin Group 3 (5) - Returning Developmental players WR- Shorter OL - Anderson, Doyle DL - Ankou, Cline Group 4 (6) - Potential (likely?) cap casualties RB - Hines Hines to be released (3/3) FB - Gilliam WR - Harty - Harty released 3/6 CB - Neal, White - Neal released 3/6, White released with a 6/1 designation S - Hamlin Group 5 (13) - Futures/Reserve players QB - Buechele WR - Isabella, Hamler, Shavers, Thompson RB - Evans TE - McKitty, Davidson OL - Gouriage, Jarvis CB - Ingram, Brown S - Williamson Assuming all of the players in groups 1-3 return, that's 35 of 53 roster spots already spoken for. Admittedly the group 3 players could all end up on the practice squad. Except for Hamlin, all the Group 4 players may return, but it will be at lower cap figures than they currently possess. Hamlin's cap figure is low (1.05 with a 40k dead cap) it's just a question of whether he can earn a job on the 53-man roster. Right now I don't see any of the Group 5 players making the team, but that's what camp is for. Group 6 (11) - FAs who could be re-signed (or who people here may want re-sign). (I only have an interest in Jones, Epenesa, Ty Johnson and Edwards) DT - Joseph, Jones - re-signed (2 years 16 million) Edge Epenesa - re-signed (2 years up to $20 million) - Floyd, Signed with 49ers RB - Johnson (re-signed 3/14) S - Rapp - reports have him re-signing (3 yrs $14.5) OL - Edwards - Re-signed (2 years $6 million) TE - Morris - Re-signed (1 yr 985K) CB -Jackson, Lewis - re-signed 3/11 (2 years 4 million) LB -Dodson Group 7 (12) - Other FAs DL - Phillips, Settle, Ford, Lawson QB - K Allen RB - Murray, Harris, Fournette WR - Sherfield, Davis (signs with Jax) LB - Matakevich, Klein Group 8 - FA's signed P - Haack (signed 3/6) QB - Trubisky (signed 3/6) LB - Morrow (signed 3/12) WR - Hollins (signed 3/13)

It is a choice. The choice is where is the best place to spend limited FA cap dollars. Do you spend on your 4/5 receiving option or do you spend it on starters at safety and D Line? Beane and McDermott will spend it on the D as they should, because that's where the biggest holes in the roster are. The math is pretty straightforward. The Bills need to cut another 71 million from the current cap figure to get cap compliant, have at least 10 million to sign their draft picks, and have money left over to acquire about 14 FAs to complete the 53-man roster. Currently, Spotrac.com has us at 41 million over the cap. Of the current guys under contract (regular and futures) you can probably estimate that about 33-35 will be on next year's team (cost about 225 million). Add the 6 draftees for $10 million and that leaves only 20 million to sign 12-14 players. That does not leave much room to spend $6 million on a 4th receiving option. Sorry! If we have $50 million in cap space, I'd say go for it, but someone once told me that math always wins. The math is saying we just don't have the cap space.

Because it’s a waste of money. It’s just another band-aid without solving the long-term need. We’d also get the same performance or better from a high draft pick for less money with more potential upside. This is Emmanuel Sanders all over again. He gave us one decent season as the 4th option and then was gone. The only way to get younger, cheaper and more talented is to draft well. In Beane’s tenure he has never drafted a WR in the first 3 rounds. Is it any wonder we haven’t developed a WR behind Diggs?

Here is the problem. We invested good cap into these 3 players; Brown had one good year of his 2 plus in Buffalo, Sanders was ok his one year, and Beasley was good to excellent all 3 years. Brown and Beasley were also Josh's No. 1 & No .2 targets in 2019. Beasley remained the slot target for the next 2 seasons, but Davis and Diggs became the outside threats from 2020 forward. Sanders was 4th in catches in his one season behind Diggs, Beasley, and Knox. I'd much rather have a long-term strategy to replace Diggs and Davis, and that can only be done through the draft. Like Sanders, an FA WR is probably going to be Josh's 4th or 5th most popular target behind Diggs, Kincaid, Shakir, and possibly Cook. If Beane drafts a WR in the 1st 2 rounds, an FA WR could end up being our 6th best option. Is that the place to invest 6 million of our limited cap?

I want Beane to draft a RB and re-sign Ty Johnson because he earned a new deal, but I do like this idea as well. He checks a ton of boxes for the Bills, plus he seems like a really good person. That story from the KC parade about him shows him as a person of excellent character and maybe his KC mojo rubs off on the Bills. Ultimately I want Beane to add starters on the Dline and S from free agency and then draft higher draft picks to step in and replace the FAs long-term by 2026. I like the Chinn idea and wouldn't mind seeing DaQuan Jones return. What I don't want is any serious money used on FA WRs. We have had a ton more success drafting guys for the skill positions; Allen, Cook, Shakir, and Kincaid to name 4. Now it's time to invest in WR help.

That's not true at all. How did John Brown or Emmanuel Sanders get here? What about Cole Beasley? The Bills signed Beasley to a 4 year $29 million deal with 14 million guaranteed. Sanders was given a 1-year $6 million deal and Brown's first contract with the Bills was 3 years 27 million with 111.7 guaranteed. If we are ever going to get younger and better at WR we need to invest (1st & 2nd rd picks) in WRs. We are never going to have a complete group until we stop signing other teams' castoffs and we can't afford another top-end receiver.

Do you really believe Beane is spending even decent $ on a WR? What happened to your get younger argument? Who do you believe we can actually afford? Mediocre players like Reynolds are projected to get 6-8 Million? Are we really going to waste that on a potential 4th WR when we need starters at DT and S? I will be shocked if Beane goes the decent $ WR route in free agency. We simply can't afford that.

Beane, McDermott and more importantly Josh Allen would disagree with you. Bates has yet to prove he is better than Morse and Anderson failed to earn a single snap last season. Dumping Morse would weaken the line which was one of the team’s great strength last season. There are much easier ways to lower his cap hit this season such as a restructure or a non-guaranteed extension with a void year or two. Odds favor him moving on after next season, but if continues to play well, why fix it if it ain’t broke?

What is your rationale for cutting Morse when he can be restructured capturing 2/3 of the savings for cutting him? Bates has yet to prove he is a better player, but he is a great insurance policy for the OG and C. Why weaken a line that player well last year as a group?

If he plays on passing downs and gets 5 sacks, that significantly more than the zero we received this past season. It’s not 25 mill value. It’s not even $5 mill in value, but considering we are stuck with him for this season, it’s at least a reasonable contribution for his roster spot.

Douglas isn’t being released. If he isn’t going to return, he is going to be traded. He is under contract for next year and we should get at least the 3rd we traded for him back. That said, I think he’ll be back. You don’t trade for a guy with term, who then played very well for you, then just dump him on the side of the road. Odds favor an extension, but maybe both sides are having trouble getting to a meeting of the minds on $ and term. People are reading to much into Beane usage of past tense. He was describing how Douglas played last season. He was also describing meeting him last year. Both of those events are in the past. Should have said he was looking forward to having him next season? Maybe, but since when does Beane care about the niceties? This could drag on for a while. Beane doesn’t have do anything with Douglas. Rasul is under contract. There is no cap cost to release or trade him. With the higher cap Beane may not have the urgency to extend Douglas as we all originally thought. Beane may now have the luxury of waiting to see how White recovers and/or how Elam progresses in the off-season workouts.

Bernard is just learning the things that Edmunds did well, but as someone else pointed out earlier, Bernard has the added ability to make the big play. I'll take a few mistakes here and there for a guy who can make a drive-stopping play. Last season Bernard had 143 tackles (84 solo), 6.5 sacks, 3 Fumble recoveries, 3 Ints, and 10 tackles for loss. That's an amazing season for anyone, much less a 2nd-year pro and 1st year starter. Edmunds has never had a stat line close to this good. Edmunds only has 6.5 sacks for his career. his best solo tackle season was his rookie year with 80, and he only has 1 FR for his career. When this kid learns more about O schemes and how to shed blocks faster, he'll be a great LB. He also needs to possibly get a little bigger. Pro-football-reference lists Bernard as 6'1 224. Edmunds is 6'5 250.

I guess I read that as a "whatever." When they let Edmunds walk, I wasn't that worried about replacing him. One of the big highlights of last season was watching all the kids thrive; Kincaid, Torrence, Cook, Shakir, Benford, and Benard. They are a huge reason that I'm perfectly ok with letting Davis walk and replacing him and the depth receivers with kids. This team desperately needs a youth movement and we have enough veteran leaders in the clubhouse to help more kids succeed. Truthfully, the vast majority of the FA signings throughout the lineup under-performed. Just look at the grades for Sherfield, Phillips, Rapp, Lawson, Murray, Miller and Settle. PFF also gave sub-par grades to Harty and Ford. Outside of Jones, Dodson, Floyd, and Edwards in limited usage, the FAs haven't excelled.

Actually, I didn’t really disagree with Joe’s assessment. Benard had huge peeks and was clearly learning on the job. However, he was a good tackler and will continue to improve. I expect him to make a huge leap in year 2 as a starter. I also am looking forward to Dorian Williams improvement in year 2. Benford is on his way to being the best 6th rd pick by the Bills in the last 30 years.

The Athletic did a ten-part series discussing a broad off-season game plan by position (except QB). https://theathletic.com/tag/bills-in-review-2024/ I thought the most instructive part was the grades for the season per player with 200+ snaps. Their point scale is on a 4.0 grade scale. I also looked up the grade on PFF (scale 0-100) for each player as a comparison. The Athletic's grade is based on film study and I'm not sure of the criteria for PFF. Most of the grades were relatively similar, except for a couple. The difference between Dodson's Athletic grade and PFF grade really stands out. What stands out to me was just how good Kincaid was as a rookie and how solid the entire O Line was. On Defense, Jones, Floyd, and maybe Epenesa look like the only FAs who should be brought back. Epenesa would have to be on a very reasonable contract. Of the depth FAs on Offense, PFF gave very good grades to Ty Johnson (82), Edwards (82.7), and Bates (78.7). Gabe Davis received a higher relative grade from the Athletic (2.96) than PFF (67.9).

It was predicted (The athletic) that we could save 3.12 on a McGovern restructure. 3.74 is better. https://theathletic.com/5238669/2024/02/02/buffalo-bills-offseason-salary-cap/

I think we all forget that Taron Johnson is also a CB. I wonder if Benford will eventually move to Johnson's role (Hybrid LB/Nickel CB) in the next few years. I like Douglas just where he is, but if Elam has a good camp and Douglas wants to take Hyde role, that's up to the coaching staff.

Apparently, my new unpopular opinion is that we don't need to waste 5-7 million on a FA veteran WR. That's a luxury we simply can't afford next season.

The Bills only have 30-35 players under contract that you can project to next year's roster. That leaves about 20 jobs available for rookies and FAs. The estimated cap cost for the draftees is about 10 million for the top 6-7 guys. So that leaves about 20 million for 13-14 players using your estimate of available cap space or about 1.6 to 1.7 per FA. Last season we signed McGovern for 3 years 22.5. We also gave Floyd 1 year at 7 million with some void years to lower his cap hit. Those were the two biggest deals last year and I'd be surprised if this FA season isn't similar. Most of the rest of the FAs last year were the parade of 2 million or less guys like Sherfield, Dodson, Lawson, Martin, Rapp, Joseph, and Edwards. We need 4-5 players along the D Line, 2-3 safeties, at least 2 RBs, a backup QB, and more depth on the Oline. 30 million just doesn't go as far as it used to.

I think Chinn is a very reasonable risk. When healthy he is a very good player. We need the help we can get at S.

No, we don't. We have vets at WR. Their names are Diggs and Shakir. When was Kincaid "caught up" last season as a rookie starter at TE? When was Torrence "caught up" as a rookie starter in the Oline? Both are much harder spots for a rookie to succeed than as a deep-threat boundary WR. Last season alone the NFL had 8 rookie WRs and 2 rookie TEs haul in 600 or more receiving yards. Do you expect a veteran WR we can afford to do better than that? People keep mentioning guys like Noah Brown (567 yards last season), Bourne (406 yards), Mooney (414 yards) and Reynolds (608 yards). Do you think any of those guys want to come here to be the 4? Is Beane going to pay 5-7 million to one of those guys as rookie failure insurance? I doubt it when he has other areas to spend his limited cap dollars on like D Line and safety. This is one of the those times where we are going to have to go young and see what happens. The Bills are still $41.3 million over the new cap. Even if they shave 70 million off the current cap figure, that doesn't leave much money to sign the draft picks (approx 10 million), rebuild the D Line, and get a starting safety, and a good backup QB, while also filling out the depth at RB, CB, O Line etc...

Saying the GM built the young group because they had a 1st year QB doesn't make any sense. You would think a GM would want some vets in his WR/TE groups to help a 1st year QB. GB had lousy WR/TE groups and they needed to be rebuilt for whomever. Unlike Beane, their GM invested significant draft assets in the position. Over the last two years used 8 draft picks to build a good receiving and TE group, including a 1st (Musgrove), 2 2nds (Reed and Watson), a 3rd (Kraft), a 4th (Doubs), a 5th (Wicks) and 2 7ths (Toure and Dubose). They also used a 3rd on Amari Rodgers in 2021. Most of these picks were drafted before Love was the starter. Also saying Championship caliber teams don't start rookies or young players is BS. Our starters last season included Torrence (Rookie), Kincaid (Rookie), Shakir (2nd year), Benford (2nd year), Benard (2nd year), and Cook (2nd year). All the 2nd year players received significant PT as rookies. The only way you stay competitive once you reach the top in a cap league is to draft well and have your kids play well. You have to keep turning over your roster to get younger and cheaper. This is where the Bills are.

Probably Miller in 2025, unless he has a great year this coming season.

It was a stupid Super Bowl or bust type contract and we are paying for that stupidity now. The Knox contract was pretty stupid as well.

I don't understand how you and others think there is $6 million floating around to pay a Reynolds or Brown to be our 4th receiver. They aren't going anywhere to be a 4 and it's a waste for Buffalo with so many other needs and limited cap space. Diggs and Shakir are the 1 & 3. We will be using a high pick at WR. That player is the 2 replacing Davis. The Bills only carry 5 WRs, thus after those 3 you are not investing $6 million or more in a 4th string wideout. The Bills already have Shorter in development, plus Isabella and Hamler as futures/reserve contracts. Is it possible that Beane finds a veteran for a $2 Million prove-it contract to come in and compete with Shorter, Hamler, and a later draft pick for a job? Sure it's possible, but don't expect that player that player to be on Reynolds' level. Spotrac projects Reynolds contract at $7 million and Brown at 5.6. I will give you one name that could come cheap, has talent, is young, and produced decently before last season and that is Chase Claypool. GMs, even good ones, go with inexperienced WR groups. GB's top 4 WRs and top 2 TEs last year were all 1st and 2nd-year players and they out-performed the Bills' group.