Fake-Fat Sunny

I would. 1. Logistically in terms of the salary cap the Bills have an amortized payment of $400K + to Reed which will count against us whether we keep him or not. His base salary is another $400K + which is roughly the amount we would have to pay a WR anyway. Given that we are gonna pay him whether we keep him or not and there is little savings in cutting him, a player kept over Reed would have to show alot. 2. Reed's history is one very good year as a rookie slot receiver, 1 failed year due to a case of the droppsies and one failed year due to injuries. He will have to really suck in pre-season to eliminate any hope whatsoever that he will recover his first year production. 3. The cap issue and the hope issue are not enough in and of themself to keep a player on the roster over a better performer, but even in the last two bad seasons Reed actually had good camps which were followed by disappointing production when the real games started. Reed has a couple of logistical intangibles going for him in terms of the cap and draft position, and having his tyopical camp performance will easily make him part of the roster.

I think the major Teague problem at LT is that he has a strength of smarts and mobility, but that isn't the road grater/seal blocker that oue offense wants at LT for WM to stiff-arm his way to the outside. I assume that the docs report on the Shelton ankle was a big part of why the Bills braintrust didn't pull the trigger on this deal. From what I hear of our O scheme, a player who has trouble in space but strength as a road-grater and difficult to dislodge once he gets his arms on you is just what we can use at LT. The problems blocking outside speed rushes is tough since it is the QBs blindside byt JP is used to running for his life and if he has the radar out for the left side I'm less worried about the athleticism deficit. Teague has it reversed however in that his athleticism is good but he is not an immovable object.

This why the coaches who have had the most success with Bledsoe are those who have coached him to release the ball as quickly as he could. Parcells made the SB with Bledsoe leading the way by constantly harping on him in practice with NE to just throw the damn ball whenever he went into his trademark pat and held the ball. Last year one of the swift things TC and MM did was to have Bledsoe practice with an alarm clock on the field set to go off 4 seconds after the snap to remind him to throw the damn ball and the team improved to 9-7 from 6-10. My sense also is that Bledsoe filled in for Brady in a must-win game for the league championship in 2001 and threw the game winning TD running an O and practiced by the receivers for the quick passing of Brady. Bledsoe certainly failed to run the Brady O perfectly but did so well enough for them to make the SB. I suspect that Bledsoe will actually perform relatively well with Dallas in 2005. He will have a good running game with Jones and Parcells knows better than anyione that he will have to get Bledsoe to just throw the damn ball.

THE BILLS WILL NOT BE GIVEN A COMPENSATORY PICK FOR LOSING HENRY . Like other teams in the league their losses and gains for '06 due to free agency. Yje formula is a black box for the public which will be determined by a committee of NFL and NFLPA representatives as part of an agreement to cushion the transition caused by the creation of the collective bargaining agreement which did not exist when the contracts were originally signed. A decision was made to award teams compensation for this transition, but the system was set up so that though originally they gave teams 1st rounders for the best players lost the compensation has been ratcheted down so that a 3rd rounders are occaisionally the value given out. If a team benefits from signing FAs without having to give up compensation for those players (as we did receiving Spikes, Fletcher, Posey, Adams with no loss of players for us) this can cancel out the loss of players without compensation that year (Winfield and Jennings for example left us with no compensation received). At most Henry will be factored into a total picture of FAs lost and gained in 06 and we may get nothing or we may get awarded some draft pick based for the most part on the contract he signs with his new team to determine his value. This compensation will come from the NFL in terms of awarding additional second day picks and will not be from the team who gets him in direct payment for the level of value assigned to him by his new bosses.

Think back (I know its tough) a second before coming up with answer to this poll. There have been various posts which have described our OL situation as anything from troubled to horrendous. How does it compare to the situation regarding the OL as minicamp opened after last year's draft. The positions were: LT- Jonas Jennings (a good start though at that point he had yet to start all 16 games yet in his career) LG- Opem as Ruben had been cut but Mike Pucillo was the likely candidate to replace him at the time C- Teague was the definite center though he was coming off a 2003 season where complaints about whether he could handle the big bodies increasinly at DT were heard. RG- Chris Villarial had been signed but he had yet to take a snap as a Bill RT- MW's grandma who had raised him had passed away and he was about to begin a series of excused absences from minicamp which were part of a general meltdown. Clearly in 2005 our OL is unsettled but this group is coming off of posting wins in 8 of their ten outings. They lost Jennings to FA, but 16 players will be coming to camp to attempt to forge an OL unit. So what do you think? It is clearly unsettled, but are we in worse shape on the OL than we were last year when this unit was part of a team which fell just short of the playoffs and posted a winning record? You male the call.

I agree. Maybe it is just the way us Bills die-hards are, but sometimes folks seem to forget before we were beaten by a play-off qualifying Pittsburgh team (who granted we shoul have beaten playing their second-stringers at home) OUR Bills team peeled off 6victories in a row and won 8 of their last ten games. They return 10 of 11 starters on D, all the ST players we want and 9 of 11 starters on the O with one being an upgrade or likely the same level at worse and the other being Jonas Jennings who not only missed a couple of starts but had trouble finishing a couple of games down the stretch. The OL was obviously not where we want it to be, but returns this year unfortunately wuthout their starter at LT but bring 16 players into camp to man the 7 or 8 OL positions active each week. Should we be content with our current OL as fans? No. Should we be satisfied with where they are today particularly in comparison to where they were at this point last year? I say unequivocally YES! Last year in the first mini-camp we had huge question marks at LG (Ruben was gone and Pucillo of all people was the prime candidate for this spot). At RT we might not have known it then but MW's grandma had already passed and we were in the midst of a meltdown which left a hole at RT. RG had promise but Villarial had yet to take a snap as a Bill. C remained the site of complaints by Bills fans as Teague had not yet had his best play as a Bills and LT was our most stable position, but JJ was in his contract year and had yet to start all 16 games in a season during his career. This year the right side is stable and C ,ay be an issue if we move Teague, but Tucker who played well in relief last year and the newly drafted The Duke are the back-ups. LG has Anderson in place and he is not a Pro Bowler but comfortably seems an upfrade over our past uncertainty at LG. LT is a question but at least there are theoretcal options from moving Teague to coaching Gandy. The OL is unsettled but it is better than we had at this point last year and last year's crew produced a winning record. I hope folks get a grip.

By agreement between the NFL and NFLPA there is no compensation given specifically for an FA who is lost. Though the foundation of the agreement is one to restrain trade because a free market where everyone is free to buy and sale services results in a worse product. In general there does tend to be more of a free market regarding FAs. The owners insisted upon some restraint of trade so there is some general compesation given to teams in the form of additional draft picks from the league. This is determined by the NFL and NFLPA each year in a no-public forum. However, even this transitional compensation is slowly being pgased out and is capped at 3rd round picks being rewarded in general and not attached to a single market move.

My recollection is that his cap hit is split pretty evenly between 400K+ in amrtozed bonus and 400K+ in actual payments. If he were to be cut, I would guess it would be because a rookie made the roster and the cap impact would be that everyone below him would move up a notch on the Bills salary list and a player not counted against the cap would now move up to the to be counted list. Thus, i would guess that any savings from the cut to the cap or out of pocket would be marginal if anything.

Based on my reading of the cap hits numbers wonderfully provided by Clumpingplatelets, if Reed is cut it will create 400K in deadspace from his amortized bonus. I'mk pretty sure that the Bills braintrust will bite the bullet if necessary and take a cap hit for a player they have cut if they have to. However, I think they will be reluctan enough to do this that they will give a player they have already committed $ for every chance to make the roster. As we currently are carrying $5.3 million in deadspace in 2005, (a lot of this is Bledsoe) an extra half million for Reed is not make or break, but it is substantial enough he will likely get a second look in camp (if not a third and fourth look) even if he screws up. Reed was very impressive in past camps including the two that led to bad seasons for him. Folks have asked whether he will be cut and I really doubt this, and in fact I think he will get every chance to replicate his first year very good results as a slot WR for Evans/Moulds that he achieved with Moulds/PP

I think we are going to see a great competition for the slot WR position between Parrish, Aiken and Reed and all three have a shot at winning this battle with the prize being that the winner gets to feast on LBs and 5th WRs as both Moulds athleticism) and Evans (speed) deserve double-teams. Moulds and Evans are gimmes as #1 and #2. The Bills have kept 6 WRs before keeping a return guy Antonio Brown who was listed as a receiver, so his PR TD last year probably keeps Fast Freedy Smith as the 6th WR (though the return chops Parrish has shown in college and Clements PR TD ad even McGee's KR prowess mean that Smith is going to have to show something in terms of PR this pre-season and being credibly used as a WR will not hurt at all). Parrish will be a keeper as his second round selection will earn him a slotted contract that only hard prison time will kick him off the team. Thus, it will be: Reed. Aiken, Haddad, Hill, Wilson and Vann dueling for two slots. The later three are almost certainly pre-season fodder. Haddad is an NFL vet now, but the extra he has to offer is return ability and now the Bills have that to beat the band so he is a likely goner. Reed and Aiken are the odds on favorites to do one more year on the Bills roster. They are probably both keepers because there is a cap hit allocated to both of them regardless of whether they make the roster or not. In fact, Aiken may have moved ahead of Reed in the estimation of Bills coaches and certainly in the hearts of Bills fans, but the Bills will be allocating 400K to Reed in '05 whether we keep him or not and I suspect that he will get another chance anyway due to the cap hit. All this is really going to be subject to performance in camp and in the exhibition games. I believe that Reed has had impressive camps even in his last two bad seasons I expect he will show enough to keep him around even if he develops another case of the droppsies during regular season. The wrinkle in this equation actually will come if the Bills need a roster spot for another position and that holds them down to 5 WRs. I think the logjam at TE may actually cause that as Everett, Euhus and Campbell are the odds on favorites for the 3 slots, but we made contractual promises to Neufeld (which probably will not be kept now), Trafford caught a pass last year, Gomez has an NFLE roster exemption (which will only delay the inevitable cut) and Peters is on the roster as an LT but he impressed enough to get on the PS and eventually on the roster as a TE. The logjam at TE might cause us to go with 5 WRs and Reed has a leg-up due to the cap, but the luck of exhibition game performance may tell the tale if we keep 5 WRs.

I can see him doing it if JP is a stumblebum who just sucks so bad (which I dod not expect to happen because I think JP is a talent). In fact, if JP were to be horrendous I certainly hope that MM does bench him as it would send a very bad message to the players that it doesn't matter how bad some "chosen ones" are they can play even if they do not perform. Its a difficult balance because showing confidence in a player is criticial to good development and for the good of the team. JP shouldn't have to play looking over his shoulder all the time because as soon as he makes the least little error he might get benched. However, the balance is struck by being forgiving of any bad play by JP in most cases but certainly not in all cases. Just as MM made a decision to throw JP in over his head in a very bad situation to mop up in the NE game last year, he should not fear to challenge JP by benching him if he thinks it is the right thing to do for the team and ultimately for JP.

The thing which gives me some hope that the chances are better than 50/50 that JP will be adequate (not perfect but a QB can make errors and even stink up the joint a few times and still be adequate) is that the standard for adequacy will be made much lower if the D and ST perform as well as they did last year. If WM runs the ball and runs it again (as the Bills failed to do against Pitts because they did not use WM enough afte an impressive first drive), the D steps it up a notch and does not give up over a 100 to a 4rd string rusher (as they did against Pitts, and the ST chips in with a TD here and there (as they did not do against Pitts as Clements laid the ball on the carpet and Lindell missed a chip shot FG) then JP will be fine even if he plays badly. One of the oddities of last year is that Bledsoe ended up taking the blame for us missing the playoffs with our stupid loss at home to Pitts, but it really was a total team failure in addition to Bledsoe failing to pull a Joe Montana that was the cause of our demise, I was actually quite impressed with how TC and the gang coached Bledsoe to a far better (though still inadequate) performance in 2004 than in 2003. Thetrick is that if they avoid the power outages of the other parts of the team, it does not matter if JP goes through the learning period he is likely to go through.

If Peters is such a phenomenal athlete (I think he is) with soft hands and a nose for the ball (witness the blocked punt and recovery for a TD) then why o why would you take the ball out of the hands of a guy who earned a PS spot and forced his way onto the roster because of his work at TE? Peters did not make the roster allegedly because his blocking was not sufficient for a TE even of his predigious pass catching skill. If he has in fact shown so much as a blocker we are willing to allow him to protect the QBs blindside, it sounds to me far more logical to simply put him at TE where his new found blocking ability allows you now to take advantage of this pass catching and route running which won him notice in the first place.

I think that MM and the Bills tend to look at this they other way around than many posters and the drive behind this question. In the dynamic between developing for he future or making the playoffs, they hope that the answer they choose does both things, but if they have to choose between the two, the question starts with the priority of making the playoffs now and it is to be hoped also develop for the future, rather than a plan to develop for the future and it is to be hoped also make the playoffs. The distiction of which comes first is all important in terms of two statements which pursue the same goals. MM and the gang seem to desperately want to develop for the future last year and seem to have made the decision to go with JP very early in the process, (probably at a point when we were 0-4). However, they could not do this at first because JP was hurt and then later because of the winning streak. In retrospect, I think they were done with Bledsoe early on, but darn if the team kept winning and that simply put making a real QB move or forcing Bledsoe into a 2nd string salary a deal to wait until the end of the season. Likewise, I think it will be the case this year. JP will get every chance to make it work, but if he is not doing the immediate job (even if he is learning valuable lessons) and the braintrust perceives that Holcomb provides a better opportunity to win a critical game that must be won to gain the playoffs, JP is sitting down.

It hurts TH's interest so much if he only shows up for the last 6 games (or shows up from the start but simply punches the clock and mails in his performance) tha I do not seeing him doing it if he is in this for himself as people portray him to be. There are some parallels which some draw with the Corey Dillon situation (there are SOME paralells but they are different cases and not the same so you can learn things but not say they are the same), but one big thing is that Dillon was not helpful at all to the Cincy team in terms of his chatter. but he always kept faith with his teammates and watched their backs. If Henry were to only show up for 8 games to qualify as an FA or developed a rep among his fellow players as not being a good teammate who watches his brothers backs it will definitely lessen the size of the contract he can command. There are exceptions and a team will aggressively pursue a player that it thinks can make the difference on the field even if he is a jerk off the field (ex. TO ragging on McNabb). However, TO was clearly one of the most productive WRs in the game who would join a team which had fallen short of the SB 3 tmes in a row in part because their WRs were not good enough. Henry is a former Pro Bowl RB, but he is coming off a non-productive year on the field and two seasons lessened by injuries. It would be so counter to signing a big contract for Travis to hold his breath because he is under contract and coming off a non-productive season that it will take a Wickey Williams like move for Henry to be a distraction. Henry has shown that he is far too pliable (mismanging his money, translating the mismangement into a year's extra Bills ownership, keeping his mouth shut until after the season ended) that he cannot be made to understand or accept the high road course on this one. If not, move on. let him sit, and if he muddles around to achieve FA watch him get few offers as the Bills, fellow players and the media bad mouth him. He likely will get the advice to suck it up and cash in by doing so.

Well being HC has its perks and one of those for Mularkey seems to be you get to be a kid in the candy store shopping for talent which had his old role in the NFL of Tight End. For all the whining among Bills' partisans (goshblessus) about this team having to spend two early picks on DEs in a row (a quite silly observation actually as the GW led move to a 4-3 after we ran a 3-4 but loss Wiley, Big Ted, Hansen and even Bruce in shirt order basically guranteed we would need to spend heavily on the DL) we actually are devoting quite a bit of time and resources to the TE position. My guess is that there are few teams which used: 1. A third choice this year on a TE 2. Which came after using a 4th on a TE last year 3. Which comes in conjunction with us adding a UDFA who was a college TE to our roster last year. All this comes on top of having our starting TE be a fellow we traded to get. I am quite excited actually about the good things his college OC says about the athleticism of Everett and MM certainly has shown that he can add to the games of our TEs though his understanding and focus on the position. However, among the 6 TE tools we now have (we also resigned Neufeld and Trafford caught a pass last year and still on the roster. This does not even include TE Gomez who is on the roster and in NFLE and Banta who is on the roster as a TE but I believe retired) MM needs to find the next Ben Coates from among them. Is there any other NFL team with roster connections to 8 players to fill this one role?

I see Gandy making this team, because I think that even if he does not have the quality to be our starting LT (my guess is that Teague is better and than even a flipped MW would be a better choice than Gandy) he actually is quite capable of filling a number of other roles on the OL. I see Gandy as being this year's version of Marcus Price who though i think there is a better candidate to start at LT (Teague in the Jennings role), Gandy has played LT, RT and even some G in this league and he will make the team as a swing guy if JMac can not train him up to the starter level.

Shaud Williams comments about being a UDFA were interesting to me. From his perspective (as I understand it) once you are not picked on the 1st day, if you believe in your talents as an athlete, you are better off not being drafted. Teams make a commitment to 1st day selections that they are going to get a big enough bonus that through pro-ration they are going to be on the team for the length of their original contract rather than have the team cut them and absorb an accelerated cap hit. Its a reasonable risk for a team because these players are judged by you to be good and you picked them from among a number of choices to occupy a particular starting role. However, as the second day moves on, players are still chosen with a starting need in mind, but with general athleticism acquired cheaply to play ST as a major motivator. He felt that by not being selected in the draft, as a UDFA he got to shop his talents for the best place for him to make the team rather than trade being restrained and him going to a city or team by force rather than by choice. He actually felt good (and it worked out) not getting drafted because he then got to make choices about where he would stick. This sounds the same for Muniz (particularly if Cincy was talking about giving him an offer) as his retirement after not being drafted sounds like he has actually chosen to pursue his own life rather than his Dad's life. In a perfect world he would get selected on the first day, but the world ain't perfect and he actually has more options to succeed at being his Dad by not being drafted if he is good enough.

A lot of this from a philosophical standpoint is a question ofhow much do you believe in a free market or not as producing a good result. The NFL actually has adopted a system which has substantially abandoned the free market because it would be pretty much impossible to produce a good football product if things operated based on free market tenets. There was a market battle between the players and the owners in the mid-80s where the NFLPA demanded 52% of the gross revenues go to the workers and the NFL beat the players silly by hiring replacement players and producing an acceptable (to the customers) product for a long enough period of time that the NFLPA caved under the push from its members who were not getting paychecks during the replacement player interlude. The NFLPA armed with the best lawyers and labor experts money can buy (the players being rich and all) and under the leadership of players like Gene Upshaw dealt with this setback by moving to decertify the NFLPA as a bargaining agent and this force the NFL owners into operating in a free market. Amusingly to me, the NFL owners actually caved rather quickly rather than operating in a free market where captial holders of the type of Jerry Jones would as quickly as they could buy up talent and run the Rooneys (and likely the Ralph Wilsons) out of the league. Instead, the NFL and NFLPA agreed to a partnership which is reflected in the CBA which takes the more non-free market approach of restraining trade (there is a draft so talented players cannot market their services to the highest bidder, rules are set so players like Clarrett and Williams cannot enter the market until they reach an arbitrarily set age, the NFL/NFLPA agree to ban the use of legal substances like steroids even under a doctor's guidance). Fans are actually demanding that the NFL/NFLPA go even further from a free markety approach and compensate teams when they lose free agents. Such compensation can happen in unique cases if you do a good job and manage risks (TD and the Peerless situation) but is not the norm and in many ways is against a free market approach. The rules are that many players will walk without compensation when they reach FA status under the rules. Sometimes its hurts you (if Clements walks without compensation to the Bills) but sometimes it helps you big time (we got Spikes, Fletcher, and Posey giving up no players). I tend to be a free market kind of guy, but I certainly that the more communistic restraints of trade inherent in the current NFL/NFLPA partnership produces a better football product than if we simply adopted a free market.

He certainly is far from a proven back-up as he says he does not want the role. However, he has proved in the past (as validated by him rusghing twice for over 1300 and third-parties picking him for the Pro Bowl) that he is a starting RB who can produce. Henry has a choice if the Bills do not move him (which seems unlikely now) of throwing a hissy fit, screwing the Bills, and also screwing up his ability to get a big contract or sucking it up and taking the back-up role and if he is fortunate earning a big contract. Some folks see him as such a fool that they are sure he will screw himself simply to screw the Bills. Some do not. We'll see.

My guess is that the hard thing here may actually be that it is hard for a kid to live their own lives than to have their parents live vicariously through them. I'm sure I'm wrong in big ways because I don't know them, but from the outside it looks like both the Munoz daughter who is quitting due to reccurring injury and the Munoz son who is taking the "oportunity" of not getting drafted to go his own way are both getting the positive of moving forward outside of the lengthy shadow cast by Dad's athletic career. It's a tough thing for a kid because they have both gotten the benefits of the big bucks earned by Dad, seen the worship and the validation of society and family for Dad because of his athletic achievement, and we all (well mostly all) want to please our parents. However, there is the odd coincidence of both kids having moved toward or achieved the end of their college careers and gave it the good try but saw their sports dreams not realized due to injury and because of the draft. They fulfilled their contract with the parents and here is wishing them well in moving forward with fun and aggression in their new lives as adults.

My sense is that one of the big parts of the 2005 WM life is going to be the "father-figure" experienced old hand role he is going to take on as a past UM player (I'd call him a grad but I wouldn't be surprised if none of these three has actually graduated) for Roscoe Parrish abnd Kevin Everett. UM players have a rep as athletes first and people second so I must admit to having some concern without knowing anything about them to see the Bills take 2 UM players with their top two picks. However, upon further thought, I will be surprised if one of the side-effects (it is a sideshow because the main show is going to be how they produce on the field) of this pick isn't that it puts WM into a mentor role where he is given a set-up that encourages him to pass on the same work ethic that saw him desperately commit to being a workout warrior with Drew Rosenfool to get a 1st round selection. WM continued this workout ethic to rehab to pull off last season and the payoff could be seen in a huge increase in his muscle mass and development of the stiff-arm as a weapon. Various pollyannas on TSW are going to get their panties all up in a wad out of fear of a WM/Rosenblowbag holdout. This may happen and if it does you deal with it. However, by far the lead ethic which seems to be set up by our two UM draft picks is for seeing WM reinforced in taking a positive role.

Its interesting watch TSW posters seemingly fixate on the importance of getting some type of compensation for the loss of an FA by trading him. Folks seem to me to have been fooled into an expectation by the great job TD did of tagging Peerless and getting a 1st rounder who became WM. Such compensation for losing an FA has been a rare thing in this league (sometimes a team will move a player in antiticpation of him leaving if they already have a replacement in place, but it is even rarer to pull off the coup TD pulled off by tagging and then trading PP). Getting some compensation for losing a valued player is nice, but this is the exception rather than the rule with most players. Yet given the rediculous moves folks were proposing because Clements was an FA and the virtual demand that we get something for Henry right now simply does not comport with the reality of the league. Consider this and think about it. Who have been our major FA acquisitions over the past few years? What compensation did we have to give up or even worry about giving up to get| Takeo Spikes? Jeff Posey? London Fletcher? Bennie Anderson? even Sam Adams? Nada. nothing, zippo. Get a clue. The way the system is designed is to create a partially free market. There is some restraint of trade due to the tags, but in general when a player qualifies he becomes a free agent and is free to negotiate. Teams deal with the potential loss, but do so by getting replacements so they can comfortably lose players or by making a deal with them to keep them in place. it is simply the rare case where a player is traded for compensation. We have Arthur Blank, owner of the Falcs primarily to thank for the Peerless deal. He publicly promised his customers (and more important Michael Vick) that he was going to spend whatever was necessary that he was allowed to spend to get the best WR in FA for Vick. As it happened with the other top flight WRs getting locked up PP was clearly the best performer on the market and the only WR available with anywhere near 100 catches. More ironically he was from AT and on record wanting to go home. TD merely had to take the unusual step of transition tagging PP and then reel in the deal. The general rule is that if Winfield or Jennings wants to test the free market, they have a right to do so and the system is set up for them to do so unless the Bills choose to pay through the nose. The notion of trading Clements now (and thus losing out on a year of performance from him which we would still have to pay for in part with the cap allocation of his last year of bonus) was not only unlikely but actually pretty silly from a football point of view. It makes far more sense to let him play out his contract (unless he foolishly will take some lowball offer) and then to potentially resign him under the greatly expanded cap of the next TV contract or to get him for a song if he has the bad luck with the timing of injury that Andre Reed had.

The whple compensation piece for lost FAs is a black box that no one (even the professionals who are paid to concentrate on this stuff and are supposed to know it) has figured out yet. Compensation is agreed to by a committee with NFL and NFLPA representation. Factors like when a player was drafted are factored in as folks say, but there is no hard and fast formula so teams or players can second guess these determinations. In addition to individual player evaluation, the compensation goes to a team based upon the overall probable impact of pluses and minuses from the FA process. Thus, you can lose a few high grade FAs, but if the FAs you pick up perform well, your team will be compensated based on the total loss/gain and not simply based on your loss. The other factor is that this was viewed by the NFL and NFLPA as a temporary measure and the compensation has gone down drastically (and may one day disappear if folks ever get generally used to the cap). In the first year teams got a 1st round choice to compensate for the loss of a player a team agreed to a contract with based on an assumption they would have him virtually forever if they want. I think the highest compesation has dropped down to a 3rd or 4th at the highest and the Bills can count on no compensation for Henry for losing him.

Goid point and I can buy this.