BillsFanForever19

Yes, it is a little surprising that Free Agency opens on Monday (officially on Wednesday) and it's basically Saturday now and no big restructures or cuts have happened as of yet and we're still over the cap. He's cutting it really close to the wire this year.

I think you can get Solomon more reps and keep Von for the betterment of the team this offseason. Cutting him now saves us 8.4m on the cap, but costs us 15.4m in Dead Cap. Cutting him with a Post June 1st designation saves us 17.4m on the cap and costs us 6.4m in Dead Cap - but we can't use that 17.4m until after June 1st, when the market has been picked to the bones. If he takes a massive pay cut, that could save us closer to the June 1st cap savings number that we can use right away - to turn that down would amount to biting off our nose to spite our face. That kind of pay cut to keep Von as opposed to cutting him very likely would be the difference between being able to add another difference maker or not.

If warm weather is important to him - the Patriots and Steelers would be out too.

My issue is that of the 5 contracts that were coming up (Shakir, Benford, Cook, Rousseau, and Bernard), Bernard was the lowest priority. With everything we have to do this year, which includes pushing money into later years - putting Bernard as a Middle Linebacker on a large number doesn't seem wise to me. And last year was a big step back for him from the year before and he's shown a penchant for injuries. However, if the number stays low and allows for us to get out from under it if we need be after 2 years and he looks more like he did in 2023 next season, I'll be okay with it.

The discussion you came into where I was using these points was one in which Mr. Weo argues Saquon Barkley's contract means nothing to James Cook. I adamantly disagree. Whatever number Cook signs for with whomever he signs with, will be higher than it would have been without that contract at the top. It takes his 15m number from "that's insane" to pretty spot on.

How do you figure that's by my logic? I'm not arguing Cook should top Barkley. The QB and WR market resets I pointed to were just to illustrate the point that a top contract at a position resets the market and raises contracts for other playmakers at the position relevant to that contract, going forward. If anything, the Bernard/Baun comparison furthers that point. Baun is coming off a 1st Team All Pro year and got 17m annually on paper. Bernard got 12.5m annually on paper, 26% less. Barkley is making 21m annually on paper. Cook's asking price is 15m. Which is even more than the Baun/Bernard conversation at 29% less.

Once again - you completely miss the point. Yes, Josh Allen is the best QB in the NFL... who is now being paid less than QB's such as Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, and Dak Prescott among others. Gabe Davis, coming off of a bad year for us last season got a 13m a year annual contract. Wanna know why that is? It's because of market resets based on new contracts at the top. And also a rise in salary cap league wide pushing the value up of everyone. No. But what you are do is downplaying him from what he is to just a decent every day RB. Without James Cook's abilities, which go beyond that of your average "good" RB - we would have been out of the Playoffs before we were and wouldn't have been in the position to have Dalton Kincaid cost us the game. He's a 2 Time Pro Bowlers who has become a star in this league. Yet you want to argue that if he hit the market, his value would be more than 30% less of Barkley's. And? That means nothing as far as what his value would be on an open market.

That's not how things work. The league and player's agents didn't look at Tyreek Hill's deal and say "Well, that's crazy. We'll just ignore it and stick to the numbers before it". The WR market exploded. For every WR at his level and under it. The Quarterback market keeps rising and rising based on recent contracts. At one point Josh was the 2nd highest QB in NFL History. Now he's the 6th highest QB contract in the league, below players like Trevor Lawrence and Justin Herbert. Any time a new top contract is made at a positional group, the contracts of everyone goes up. Again, James Cook isn't going to get 21m. But he isn't going to be a guy who gets only half of that anymore. 6m less, his asking price, seems about right now.

I think he's better than mediocre. But he's a Slot. We got that covered with Khalil Shakir, Curtis Samuel, and Dalton Kincaid. The two holes we have are at Perimeter with Amari Cooper and Mack Hollins (who i'd expect we'll re-sign) as FA's. Kirk is, at best, a 50/50 tweener and has been a pure slot the past few years. He'd have dont nothing to replace either Cooper or Hollins.

Yes, Hargrave is a 3-Tech. He isn't a fit for us. Something i've noticed is most fans can't recognize the distinction of positional groups inside of position groups. They see a DT and think "we need a DT" without knowing that we specifically need a 1-Tech DT and not a 3-Tech DT. A WR but not realizing a Slot WR isn't what we need. A CB but not realizing a Nickel CB is not what we need. Then there's the idea that you can just make a 3T a 1T or a Slot WR a Perimeter WR or a Nickel CB a Perimeter CB. A Middle Linebacker an Outside Linebacker. A Guard can play Tackle, etc. Or the people who are just like "slide that DE inside to DT". The specific position a player plays within that position is extremely important. You don't take guys who are put into specific positions bc that's where they fit best and switch them. That's not something that is done very often and most can't do it. EDIT: I should specify - this is no shot on you @Magox. I actually quoted the wrong post and was more or less just riffing about all of the posts of players that are simultaneously the right position and not the right position.

McCaffrey is a special case. He's technically a RB, but he's just as much a WR. So I don't even factor him. But like I said to your Original Post - whether you think Saquon's deal is "crazy" or not is beside the point. The point is, the top RB just got paid 21m annually. Which means going forward, RB deals will be done relevant to that deal. James Cook isn't Saquon Barkley. But if Saquon is 21m annually, that would put James Cook's market value at around exactly what he's looking for. Which I agree with you, is more than i'm willing to pay. But to say Saquon's deal exists in a vacuum and it has no relevancy on what big time RB's like Cook will be paid going forward is simply incorrect. The RB market HAS been reset.

Not neccessarily. The cost was just a 7th Round Pick. And they need to replace not only Stefon Diggs, but Tank Dell as well. This move replaces Tank Dell in the Slot. But they're still in the market to replace Stef Diggs on the Outside.

Josina Anderson's reply to Jeremy White yesterday raised my eyebrow a bit: Replying to Jeremy with "Remember folks, DK also has to have interest in whatever teams want him too" unprompted made me wonder if it was a message warning he may not want to come to Buffalo. Now with the news that he doesn't want to play in a cold weather climate, i'm pretty sure that's what she was getting at. He also said this when asked recently about going to New England: I wanted to take that as more of an all ecompassing answer about the state of that team or maybe disliking the Boston area in general. But i'm thinking it has just as much to do with it being a cold Northern area. Here's hoping the pull of playing with MVP Josh and a perennial contender makes him re-think this. Or that the price tag drops to a point where even acquiring him without knowing if you'll have him for more than 1 season is still worth it. But yeah, this is a real sobering realization that takes me from thinking it's a real possibility to unlikely

Yeah, I know how you like to read things... I'm just saying, it makes no sense to say it means something for the Bills that Josina Anderson is replying to a Bills reporter - but at the same time, Josina Anderson's actual message to said Bills reporter doesn't mean anything to the Bills. I prefer to think her replying to Jeremy didn't mean anything more than she saw a post she made Quote Tweeted by a media member with a lot of responses and just decided to reply to it - with no other meaning than that. If the former, then she's warning Jeremy that he may not want to come to Buffalo, NY. If the latter, then it's just a generalized statement that has no negative barring on us possibly acquiring him.

I'd rather not read into anything that. Bc if I were, I'd be taking her saying "Remember folks, DK has to have interest in whatever team wants him too. 2 way street.", unprompted to the conversation to a Bills reporter as not a good thing.

That 49% in 2021 came from Arizona. Even in his last year there, he was a 50/50 tweener. It wasn't just Jacksonville moving him there. He's at best, a tweener. And at this point in his career, it's a gamble to try and move him back. A guy who's only years as a primarily Outside guy were in the range of 640 yards a season, 5-8 years ago before injuries doesn't exactly instill "proven" and "good" to me as a perimeter guy. Maybe 43% of his snaps over the length of his entire career. That's not what you typed. And that is heavily swayed by the snaps he took 5-7 years ago, when he wasn't wowing anyone. The last 4 seasons are not that and the last two are REALLY not that. I go by the stats guys and not some random reporter from Penn Live - https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/christian-kirk/ Like I said - this is the Curtis Samuel situation to a T. Don't take Slot guys for Perimeter positions or Perimeter guys for Slot positions. I don't care what they did a half decade ago to a half decade plus. There's a reason those guys are there. And in Kirk's case, he wasn't a stud from the Perimeter at any point. Our Slot is more than covered with Shakir, Kincaid, and Samuel. If we're moving on from one of them, okay, look into a tweener. But right now we need primarily Outside guys to replace Cooper and/or Hollins. Kirk is not that.

The exact same thing was said to a T about Curtis Samuel last season. He was even listed as starting on the perimeter on the Depth Chart. And guess what? He still played nearly half (42%) from the Slot for us last season. Nope - https://www.playerprofiler.com/nfl/christian-kirk/ 2024 - 76.8% from the Slot 2023 - 67.4% from the Slot 2022 - 52.0 % from the Slot 2021 - 49.0% from the Slot That's 38.7% on the Perimeter for the last 4 years, including his last year in Arizona. You don't take a guy who's been on the Outside 28% over the past two seasons and 38.7 % over the past 4 and make them a full time Outside guy. As we learned with Samuel, most players who move to the Slot - do so for a reason. Unless you're moving on from Kincaid, I don't see the need for another Samuel tweener. And saying "well, he did it 5-8 seasons ago" is a gamble. Especially when he didn't blow up until he moved to the Slot. His average over those 3 years on the perimiter was 640 yards a season. With his highest yardage total being 709 yards. He was moved to the Slot bc, like Samuel, that's where he's most effective. And it's not like Jacksonville moved him to the Slot. Arizona moved him there before he left too. He hasn't exactly "proven" the perimeter is where he belongs.

He has a 12m Dead Cap Hit this season. We're stuck with him.

This is missing the point and absolutely incorrect. Will James Cook get Saquon Barkley's 21m annual contract? Absolutely not. But what it does do is take the 15m he was asking for from 'out to lunch' to 'justified'. Saquon Barkley is clearly the better player. But James Cook is not 9-11m less of a player. Saquon Barkley's contract set fire to any hopes that a middle ground could be reached between Cook's asking price and the Bills brass. That 10-12 number that represented a lot of Bills fans tippy top price they'd be willing to pay has gone from a tough pill to swallow to an underpay he definitely wouldn't agree to now. That's where the "reset" comes into play.

And now we just have to find a starting CB, a starting 1T DT (to replace Daquan Jones), and a starting Safety (if they aren't comfortbale with Bishop), amongst other important rotational and depth pieces - while having little to no cap space and no pick before basically Round 3. Not to mention the hits both those players will be in Year 2 of their deals when the bigger money starts, greatly compounding our cap space while Christian Benford, Greg Rousseau, Terrel Bernard, James Cook, Connor McGovern, and David Edwards all become Free Agents. And again, we would have no pick before Round 3 to replace anyone with. I could see DK Metcalf happening. I could see Myles Garrett happening. But I cannot see DK Metcalf and Myles Garrett happening.

No one that anyone should pay attention to or post about. His source, like most Twitter nobodies that aren't a legitimate NFL media person: "Trust me bro". Twitter is filled with nobidies who predict moves they think will happen ahead of time and post that it's happening, in hopes that it actually happens, so that people think they're actual sources. If it isn't from an actual reporter, it's bullsh-t.

No one is offering a 2nd for a Running Back on a 1 year deal who they'll have to pay $15m a year for. Running Backs don't get much in terms of trade value. Players on the last year of their contract don't get much in terms of trade value. And players who will cost a substantial amount for their position to retain take a hit in trade value, as well. With Cook checking the box for all of those things, I don't see us getting much more than a 4th for him. A 3rd if we're really lucky.

That's a fair theory. But it goes beyond just not extending players like Singletary and Moss. We've also never signed a Running Back in Free Agency to anything substantial. And he's constantly Drafting guys in mid Rounds to be a potential successor. My take on Cook has gone like this: after seeing him the past couple years, I changed my viewpoint from never pay a Running Back to give Cook a 2nd contract in an 8-10m range. Then he came out and said he wanted 15m. I said to myself "no way - but maybe if they can get him to come down to 10-12m, i'd be okay with it but conflicted". Then Barkley signed his deal at 21m annually, effectively destroying any hope that he'd come down from 15m. And with everything we have to do this year, which will include "kicking the can" into other years, we simply cannot take 15m out of that cookie jar in the following years for a Running Back.

This was obviously coming ever since Pete Carroll took over as Head Coach and Crosby started praising the Raiders organization. People kept talking about him as a Trade option and I kept saying that ship has sailed.