BuffaloBob

Jay, what is it about the cap limitations that you don't understand? Or perhaps the question is, what about the cap do you understand? It doesn't matter if he has a monster year! Would you have rather had Peerless and not signed Takeo? Or how about Takeo instead of Sam Adams and Lawyer Milloy? The issue is tradeoffs. We went into the season last year with less than a $1Million in cap space. Price's cap hit last year alone was $2 Million, and you need some space in the case of an emergency. You can't just say, pay him the money. You also have to say who we would give up to pay him the money. So you tell me, who should we have given up. Not only that, but as PP's cap figure shoots to $8 Million per year in the next two years, what younger players are you willing to let walk because of that chunk of cap space he is taking up? Or should we have dumped Moulds and kept Peerless? Had Price been willing to accpet a Steve Smith contract, we might have been able to squeeze him in, otherwise you have to give up players elsewhere.

You want to know how Bruce and Holt play together? Look at the Rams defensive depth chart and that will give you your answer. DT 92 Damione Lewis 69 Bernard Holsey 73 Jimmy Kennedy NT 79 Ryan Pickett 98 Brian Howard 0 David Thompson RDE 94 Bryce Fisher 95 Anthony Hargrove 99 Sean Moran SLB 54 Brandon Chillar 51 Tony Newson 59 Brandon Spoon MLB 55 Robert Thomas 57 Trev Faulk WLB 50 Pisa Tinoisamoa 52 Tommy Polley LCB 23 Jerametrius Butler 20 Dwight Anderson 32 Tom Knight They're starting 4 rookies on defense this year. except for their safeties, their entire starting defense averages less than 3 years of experience! Steve Smith's deal is $27.5 Million for six years, Peerless signed for $40 Million over 7 years and a $10 Million signing bonus with other bonuses as well. Moreover, there were lot's of rumors that Muhammed might be released this year due to his high cap figure. Your "they lie to us to make us except their decisions" conspiracy theory is quite disturbing dude. The reality is, the cap limit is what it is. Player's cap values are what they are. Could Peerless have been signed by the Bills? Sure! But you would have had to forego some other vets like say Sam Adams, Laywer Milloy. Or perhaps we should have resigned Peerless instead of signing Takeo. It's all about tradeoffs.

Jay, you're missing the point. Would TD have liked to retain PP? Of course he would have. For anywhere near $40 Million? No. You cannot allocate that kind of cap space to two WR's. TD didn't let PP go knowing he could get McGahee. He gave up Peerless Price because he couldn't afford to allocate that kind of cap space to two WRs. The fact that he got a first round draft pick was merely a good move to get something for a guy who was going to leave anyway.

Jay, you can't just say we should pay a guy whatever he wants without looking at the ramifications on the cap for the future. There is only so much cap space to go around. So you have to make decisions about who to keep fopr huge bucks and who to let go if there is someone out there willing to pay beyond what he was worth. Yes he meant a lot to our offense. Yes his production was great his last season. But without Eric Moulds and even Josh Reed in the slot, he doesn't have that kind of year. He benefitted from lot's of single coverage. The bottom line is, you have to spread the cap space around to a lot of different players, and there are only so many players you can have taking up that kind of cap space. This isn't the NBA where you can exceed the cap space under certain conditions to retain your own players. It isn't just a matter of gee, we didn't want to pay him. It is about allocating a finite amount of cap space over 53 players.

Jay, I hate to say this, but you are clueless! I KNOW you are bashing him. I was using the sarcasm button to indicate 34-78-83's response was actually quite true and sensible. You know, the kind of sense that Kelly is making that you refuse to even address? Peerless wasn't pissed because he was tagged! He was going..... no ifs ands or buts abouit it. THEN, he was tagged so we could get something for his sorry ass on the way out. There was no way TD was going to give PP anywhere near what he signed for in Atlanta, nor should he have. PP and his agent knew it and they were ready to bolt. Franchising him was just the means to squeeze the pick out of Atlanta for him.

After the year PP had last season with Atlanta, I would have to go with Peerless, NOT! Actually, I'm sure Peerless will be good, but he is not worth the money he signed for with the Falcons, and there was no way we could have afforded two receivers making that kind of bank. And then of course, there was the 'TUDE.'

[sarcasm] Stop apologizing for TD, dude. The guy ran off poor Peerless because he never retains any of his young talent![/sarcasm]

Nobody!

Not only that, but the guy is tough. He's the only starting lineman who has played every snap in practice and in preseason. I don't know why this guy gets so dumped on all of the time. No doubt, he is not as physically stout as most centers, but he actually gave up very few sacks last year, had very few penalties, and even though people like to make blanket statments like "he can't shotgun snap," he hasn't muffed that many. Most centers will muff a snap now and then. Most of all, I love this guy's blue collar attitude. Notwithstanding his $2 Million bonus he got this season, the guy is playing for an average salary of only $2.5 Million over four years. Villarial is making more than that at RG. He came in wanting to play tackle, and got moved to center. Although he complained at a little at first, he has generally shut his mouth and worked his ass off. He's done everything the Bills have asked of him. As a fan, I have to tip my cap to him.

Sorry Steve, I don't know why I thought I was responding to you originally regarding the "how we could get all three signed" points. It was D-Wag all the way. Geesh, I really need to pay closer attention. The points made still stand though. It's always easy to say we should have done this or that, not so easy to actually back it up or justify it. I've never said I thought TD was perfect, but I like to see some real support for the claims that he should have done something he didn't, or he shouldn't have done something he did.

To be honest, while I understand the need for this, I sure wish Zolman would get more of a shot. I thought for a guy that had very few reps in training camp, the guy acquitted himself quite well. If not for a few dropped balls and a couple of turnovers that weren't his fault, he might have done even better. He certainly has a live arm, had pretty good accuracy with his throws. He seemed to have the offense down OK too for the #4 guy. He also seemed pretty mobile in the pocket with good pocket presence. I realize he was playing against Indy scrubs, but he was also playing with ours!

Actually, not just that he needs them (which is implied of course), but that he needs more of them and he is young enough that his mom needs to be the one to up the prescription. Frankly, I do hear where you are coming from S2J, but I also have to admit that the shrill cry from Rudy gets just a little, shall we say annoying? at times. Kind of like fingernails on a chalk board.

Yeah, and he made a nice pick and return of a Manning pass, too. Of course the INT doesn't count much because it was actually facilitated by pressure on Manning by whom of all people? Ryan Denny, another one of our busts! LOL!

Yes they do, and they don't support your position as I've easily demonstrated umpteen times now in umpteen different ways! Well, for as many examples of teams keeping some of their young talent around, I can find just as many where young talent had to be let go. But if you want to take a selective view of it, it can always support your point. Examples quickly off the top of my head: Justin MCcareins and Kearse from the Titans. Easy to do when guys are quoted in the media. Price was squawking about being paid like a number 1, and if he had to go aomewhere else to get #1 billing and money so be it. Perhaps you've already forgotten about those. Winflield was asked on numerous occasions about his future and he NEVER said I'd like to be back or I hope to be back. and alluded on numerous occasions to wanting to test free agency. But you're right, only speculation on my part. How about an offer that reflects the players's actual value to the team, not what he and his agent think they can get from the highest bidder? And good job once again deflecting the task of actually supporting your argument with facts and numbers. It would take lot of work to go back, look at the Bills cap situation and actually demonstrate how these "fair" contracts would have been absorbed. Oh, and this isn't speculation? Once again, why don't you quote numbers? Why don't you tell us what would have been fair and than demonstrate how that fair squeezes into the cap. Then do some long-term analysis to determine impact on this year's cap and the ability to sign any of the next three? Because it's much easier to criticize based on speculation, that's why! And like I said, if you want to keep on criticizing and bitching with nothing factual to back it up, go for it....and the good thing for you is that with that approach, you won't have to prepare at all if those other guys walk!

In your first post, you allude to TD being cheap, that this is why Schobel (and other Bills talent) hasn't been locked up. You allude to him having wasted time, but I don't see anything in terms of numbers to back up the "how to" nature of my question. SteveMD chimes in to tell me exactly how this space could have been made for all three of them. I simply point out how this is not so, by a damnsight. You then try to argue with me over how bad these three particular transactions are, and you NOW say that they are examples of how things could have been done differently which would have apparently resulted in an extension for Schobel and other BIlls talent long ago. None of those transactions support this point, whether now or long ago. And I have already demonstrated this a number of times. By your own admission, a vet center who was better than TT would be at least as much of a cap liability as Teague is, and I suspect more, as TT is only being paid an average of $2.5 Million per year, even with his bonus this year. Obviously, a wash at center on the cap makes no additional room for re-signing Schobel, now or long ago. Moreover, it is not clear to me that any of the centers available in the draft the past few years would be better than TT right now, or whether we should have given up the draft choice we made instead of the center. And even if you could make a dramatic case along these lines, a $2 Million savings is not going to get Schobel signed. As for PP, if not him, then who? At the time, he was our starting safety. Was there anyone else out there at the time who was better for the same money? For less? And now that he has been surpassed by Reese, if the Bills wanted a cheaper replacement, they could have one. But whether you had dumped him or if you had paid him less, how much cap space savings is that? At most $800,000. Still not enough. Once again, avoiding these "bad transactions" doesn't get Schobel extended even last year. As for Ruben, again any amount of salary reduction is speculative, but no matter what amount he took, it would not have been less than how we ended up, and again for a guy who can't start for the Bears this year without an injury to the first string guard. You claim that I am hell bent on apologizing for TD. I have supported these transations easily except for the personnel aspect. We could argue all day about personnel, and it would be nothin short of mental masturbation because neither of us has a job with an NFL team scouting players (and even if we did, it is still subjective at some level). My point for each of them is simply to say that they certainly don't support your original point. Defending the Ruben Brown cut is easy. We saved $1.8 Million this year with no future dead cap space. The alternative is to keep a second string guard for one more year, have $1.8 Million in dead cap space next year, and assuming the guy gives up his entire bonus, he STILL ADDS $900,000 to the cap rather than saviing us $1.8 Million! Even if he takes a $3.6 Million cut of his schediuled $4.5 Million to the Vet min), his impact on the cap is greater than Larry Smith's, and we STILL have to eat $1.8 Million the next year. And this DOES NOT help get Schobel extended once again. But oh yeah, I am apologizing for TD! Even if you're a Ruben Brown sentimentalist, you have to admit that what TD was completely justifiable if not the right thing to do in hindsight given Ruben's ;evel of play for the Bears. The fact of the matter is, you are so hell bent on raking TD, you are grasping at straws to justify your original positon. You don't even know if Schobel or Jennings would have been open to extensions last offseason, or even that they weren't approached and turned down reasonable and much cheaper extension offers! They were not hard up like Travis Henry was and thus were not in a position to be taken to the cleaners. The Price and Winfield references are laughable. Winfield had wanted out for at least two years. Price wanted to be his own man. They were both offered the chance to extend for MUCH cheaper, and they blew us off! Price was not worth what he got, and he was not worth what we would have had to pay him to make him stay. Nor was Winfield for that matter. And just the same as these other guys, you fail to even begin to suggest how the Bills should have spent cap dollars differently to afford Price and Winfield, let alone the three amigos coming up. In fact, the very mention of Price and Winfield fails to take into account the effect that such huge contracts (even if signed the year before) would have further restricted our ability to resign the next three. It's always easy to hand wave and criticize, but quite another to back it up. Apologize for TD? Hardly. I just like to see people who criticize back up their bitchin'. You still have not done this, not that you don't have a right to B word anyway, mind you.

Once again, you continue to deflect the original point, which you have not supported, by trying to make a different point which I did not raise. No, I wasn't pointing out how we could get more cap money, I was pointing out how Steve's solution to getting enough to sign the three FA2B would not get anywhere near the amount needed. And then you try to tell me that I'm missing the point! LOL! If you want to change your original point from "TD is a cheap bastard for not getting Schobel signed," to a "TD had made some questionable personnel decisions in my opinion and oh yeah, he's not perfect," go ahead. I can't say I blame you because the original point of this thread is impossible to support. But please don't tell me I'm missing the point. So, now you want to argue that Teague shouldn't be on the roster at all, fine. I guess that's perhaps more supportable than he was signed to LT money, which isn't close to being true. If you now want to argue that PP shouldn't be on the roster at all, fine. Again, not the original point and begs the question of who we should have in his place. But again, the deal TD signed him to permits complete flexibility in this regard and so the issue is really a matter of personnel choices. As for Ruben, I never said I didn't believe he would take a pay cut (now did I?), I only said you have no idea what that amount would have been. I even gave you the benefit of your speculation that he might have foregone the entire $1.8 Million bonus, and yet demonstrated how even with this 40% reduction in his compensation, that it still would not have been the overwhelming no-brainer you make it out to be, especially in view of his play. And the bottom line once again? None of these points you are arguing over lends one damn bit of support to your original post in this thread. It is you who are missing the point, but the funny thing is that it is your own point that you are missing.

Yes, I think I said this very same thing regarding the cap effects of replacing him. Replacing him with someone at equal cap charge does nothing to get Schobel signed, which was I believe your original point to this thread, not that Teague is overpaid. Secondly, he was NOT signed to LT money! 4 Years; $10 Million isn't even RT money! Hell, that isn't even RG money LOL! But as I mentioned above, that is beside your original point. Again, this is beside your original point. But if you insist on talking about current personnel now and whether they should be replaced by someone else, clearly if the Bills thought his pay was too high, they could dump him with virtually no repercussions. I think they have tried to bring in other safeties to compete and he remains on the roster. My point is that if the Bills thought he was paid too much, they could do something about it. They are not forced to keep him at his salary because the deal was bad. Must be they are happy to have him, otherwise they would cut him. Again, you suggested he might be willing to forego the entire bonus. Is that not speculation? You have no idea what "significant" was by his definition and you have no idea whether they had discussions as to what each side thought would be significant. Even if Ruben had agreed to forego the entire bonus, he still would have made $2.7 Million and would have been a $3.6 Million cap hit with $1.8 Million of dead cap space pushed to the following season. This for a guy who couldn't even start for the Bears until an injury occurred? It may make sense to you, but I can at least see how reasonable minds could differ. And once again, totally beside your original "TD is a cheap bastard" point. Still doesn't get us money for signing Schobel.

First of all, I am not missing any points, key or otherwise. Stevo stated that we could have saved a lot of cap space by cutting Ruben after June 1 rather than before. This was completely incorrect, and those numbers I was "throwing around" are accurate. As for whether Ruben would have taken a significant pay cut, that is mere speculation. Moreover, how do you know that some reduction numbers weren't tossed around and TD did not find them to be sufficient? The fact that Ruben wasn't even starting for the Bears until an injury says a lot about his play. I prefer Larry Smith at his salary to Ruben and his possibly reduced but still high salary any day. And even if Ruben had been willing to blow off the entire $1.8 Million, which I do not recall him doing publicly before being released, he still would have counted $3.5 Million toward the cap, which doesn't do anything toward signing Schobel to a long-term deal. No, I assumed that he was cut before his bonus came due. Before the bonus, I don't think he was overpaid. He signed a very friendly deal with a bonus that would kick in and make up for that this year. Moreover, once again this was in the context of how Steve was going to make enough room for signing the three free agents to be. I was merely pointing out that had TD been able to replace Teague BEFORE the roster bonus was paid with someone better, the best we could hope for was to save perhaps $1 Million on the cap. I don't get this one. It actually was a very good extension because the bonus money was low. They paid him only $850,000 in bonus money, amortized over 4 years is about $210,000. That means that his cap hit for this year, if cut from the roster, would only be about $200,000, with $200,000 in dead cap space next year. If he shouldn't be on the roster, he's someone who is very easy to get rid of. That makes it a very good extension in my book. As I said, PP is a very good contract. They can get rid of him anytime and it will be a very low impact on the cap. As for Teague, I never said I thought it was a good contract, but I did point out that had we gotten rid of him and replaced with someone better, the savings would STILL not be enough to sign Schobel or Phat Pat for that matter. Bottom line is, TD saved money getting rid of Ruben, and I doubt he would have lowered his salary enough to make it worth keeping him anyway. TD can cut PP anytime he wants, or even leverage him for less salary if he wants to stay, and still save $800,000 to $1 Million cap space. He made the decision to stay with Teague, and while you can make the case he is overpaid, even had TT been cut and replaced for someone better, the best you could have hoped for saving this year is about $1 Million, mainly because a better candidate would not have been cheap. And even if you want to argue that he should never have been signed at all, he would have had to be replaced by a better player costing the same anyway. So where's the beef? Still nowhere near enough to get Schobel signed, let alone the other two guys, too! That was my point. It still stands.

The biggest problem I have with this analysis is that it is based upon a preseason game. The Bills are not gameplanning and they are running very little of there brand new offense. That we will suffer some from not being totally second-nature with the offense is inevitable. That is the downside to switching coaches. New systems must be learned and honed. Moreover, we haven't had our best O-line in any game playing together yet. As for the defense, yes they are over-pursuing in certain cases, but with that they have also become much more aggressive and have shown the ability to create turnovers. If you look at defenses generally, the ones who create the most turnovers are not often the ones ranked in the top three or so in yardage allowed. They give up more yardage but in exchange for more turnovers. No question that a ball-control offense must be efficient and mistake free to score a lot. BUT, if an offense is flexible and disciplined enough to loosen a defense with the short stuff and pounding the ball, the opportunities to go down field will present themselves. Drew needs to get comfortable with switching from one to the other as appropriate. All of this will take time to come together. The question is, can the Bills get it down quickly enough.

Oh, and one mroe thing. That $1 Million we have now that I gratuitiously added is an amount that TD likes to keep around for, oh, little things like replacement QBs we need to sign in case say our #2 and #3 both go down. Or if a player gets cut who we can really use. So, given that we'll need to use a chunk of that $1 Million to bring in a back-up, I'd say you need to show me how to get at least $8 Million in additonal cap space so we could sign the three free agents to be. Hell, I'd like D-wag to show me where we get the $4 Million in space we'd need to just to sign Schobel to contract similar to the one those other two recently got. Or even the $3.5 Million to offer him a home team discount type contract! That is, aside from converting some other players' salary to bonus money for one year of it, and creating the potential for dead money again down the road.

Dude, you need to go back to cap school! First, Ruben was due a $1.8 Million roster bonus had he not been released. According to Bills Daily and other reports, the Bills saved a total of $1.8 Million on the cap by releasing him before the bonus was due. That means that his $2.7 Million salary, which we also saved, was a wash with accelerated bonus. If that is true, then your suggested course of action would have us pay him $1.8 Million to release him after June 1, to reduce the acclerlated bonus impact to $900,000 in spreading out the remaining unamortized bonus over two years instead of taking the entire hit this year. Do you see where the error of your logic comes in. I know that you and lot of other people on this board think you are a better GM than TD, but if you can't see the problem here (i.e. pay $1.8 Million to defer $1.8 Million in accelerated bonus), you are definitely not GM material. So TD's move = save $1.8 Million and have no dead cap space next year or thereafter. Your way equals save $900,000 in cap space this year and eat $1.8 Million in dead cap space next year. So far, not so good! Oh, and if we'd kept Ruben another year, that would have meant a cap figure for him of about $5 Million for this year rather than $2.7 Million, so now we're going backwards by nearly $3 Million! WRT to Teague, regardless of whether you like him or not, there is no one else on the team who could take over for him and play as well (I like Tucker but there is no way he is ready to supplant Teague as the starter). So that means you would have to replace him with somebody. Now, there may have been a few centers out there who are better, but they would not likely be cheaper. But let's say you could have gotten a better replacement for cheaper. Best case you might have saved $1 Million and that would have been a brilliant coup to say the least. As for PP, he was extended back in 2002 for Chrisakes! If he hadn't been, we wouldn't have him now. So once again, you have to ask whether there is someone better out there we could have in his place who would also actually be cheaper. So once again, without proposing such a person (and by the way, PP may still be cut for someone cheaper), let's assume the best case, that you find a guy who makes the rookie min to replace him and you save $800,000 on PP. So far, best case scenario assumed, we've replaced Teague (hypothetically back before the bonus was due and paid) and he cuts PP in favor of say Jabari Greer. So we've saved $1.8 Million. And we'll put aside your first suggestion for saving money, because as you see, we would have actually lost $900,000 of that $1.8 Million in cap space we otherwise gained. OK, so now according to you we should have enough to sign all three of those guys right? OK so if we add the $1 Million in space we have now, that gives us a cap space savings of almost $3 Million based on you second and third suggestions. Now, the contract that was being discussed earlier in this thread for Schobel that includes a $15 Million signing bonus for four years, the cap hit for the bonus alone is $3.75 Million per year, without even considering salary. Even if Schobel gives us a hometown discount of say $12 Million in signing bonus, that leaves nothing for the other two guys. Look, we would need a minimum of $3 Million in cap space to re-sign Schobel or Jennings, and those would be well-below market kinds of deals (It will probably be closer to $4 Million a piece). Probably another $2 Million for Pregnant Pat. When you can show me how we can get another $7 Million in cap space (and I mean realistic scenarios now) then let me know. The only way it could have been done this year was to cut Bledsoe and try to go with some cheap back-up type guy until Losman was ready. Of course, back then we didn't have Losman, but that's beside the point.

There isn't a DE in the league who can PUSH Mike Williams back anywhere. If Big Mike is in the backfield it is because he is riding his guy back or because they ran around him and Big Mike is trying torecover from being beat by speed. And on the play to which you refer, Mike had his man contriolled, but Bledsoe was forced outside by the guys charging in from the left side. IN watching the game last night on NFL Network, I did not see one pass play where Mike was beaten by his man that he was not able to get back and recover in time. The guy looks pretty good for a big fat slob who doesn't care about football or his team and who has a sore arch (oh yeah, and who is a bust, too).

Funny, but with all this blustering on about TD lacking in forsight in not signing Schobel to this deal he so richly deserves, I haven't seen you actually explain how it is that he do this with about $1 Million left in cap space and a back-up QB to sign. Please, before calling TD cheap, why don't you propose how it is that he make this happen. Should he start back down the road of converting salaries to bonuses and creating dead cap space for the future? Or are there some expensive vets that he needs to release right now before the season starts, the savings from which he can sign Schobel? Inquiring minds want to know.

As a Red Sox fan, I prefer to see how this next ten days goes before calling out the Yankmee fans. The Sox have a much tougher row to hoe over the next 9 games than do the Stanks. Even if the Sox do well and go say 7-2 or 6-3, the Stanks could still easily extend the lead back to 5.5 or 6.5 games. The Sox need to worry about the AL West, all teams (except for Seattle) that have been hot as they have been and all of which are right on their heals in the WC race. As for Pedro joining the Stanks, don't count on it. Now that Nomar and his salary are gone, the Sox can much more easily afford to re-sign both Varitek and Pete. Pete likes it in Boston now with the Dominican connection.

I am in no way advocating an RJ return, but I sure would have liked to see him start out in Buffalo with an offense like we have now and a QB coach like Wyche giving him alram clock therapy. It would not have been easy to cure him of his hanging on too long, but I sure would have liked to see Wyche try.