Dibs

Not that I disagree that the cap will be going up in large enough chunks over the next 2 years to help us easily re-sign our talent, but....40% has to be incorrect. That would be a $57M increase in 2 years...or two increases of $28.5M. That isn't going to happen.

I think the point the OP was making is that Cassel has shown that he can be very effective when in the right situation. His ceiling has been top 10 QB and pro bowl. Could he reproduce his good 2 years with this Bills team? Who knows? I think that with the weapons available, good coaching/play calling, and a heavy ground and pound approach where he hopefully wouldn't be expected to in any way carry the team, that he would have the best chance possible to hit that top 10 stat/pro bowl type ceiling. That being said, I really hope that either EJ or Tyrod step up to a level higher than that.

Is there any history to this post? It seems a bit out of chatacter.

If we manage to find a top shelf QB(and with an emense amount of luck we already have one on the roster), we can restructure the team by shedding some players when we need to pay said QB. The chances a top QB becomes a FA are slim....and then far slimmer that the Bills can land him over the 20 other interested teams. Therefore we will very most likely find said QB at a cheap price initially(via draft or cheap unproven FA), which will give amply time to adjust the roster. Again, no need to panic.

There is no need at all for this sort of panic. Though it is difficult to determine the current top 51 for 2016 at this point, I'll stick with your $1.5M of cap space next year. The cap will be going up by around $10M...bringing cap space to $11.5M. We will carry over the $7M from this year....... $18.5M. The Harvin contract has already been triggered so yrs 2&3 are void...adding $8M from your figures....... $26.5M The $10M lump payment for Clay will undoubtedly be reworked to a new SB adding $7.5M($8M?)....... $34M. On top of that we can save many millions by extending Mario(he has already stated that he will rework his contract if needed). The Bills have everything under control.

I went up to Sydney in 1999 with some mates to see the Chargers/Broncos pre-season game. Decent crowd turnout. Not great, but decent. Tickets were way overpriced which led to a vast majority of spectators being corporate non-fans. Seemed like my group were the only actual football fans there. Some games each year in Melbourne would be awesome!

Okay, lets start with the extremes and work back. If we traded EJ for Rodgers and 10 1st round picks would we not be able to say that we got the better of the trade? How about EJ straight up for Rodgers? How about Woods for Rodgers? Obviously one can. Things may happen to alter the assessment of the trade(like player injury etc) but one can clearly assess many trades prior to the players taking the field. A Shepherd for Hughes trade looks even initially. We can see that by determining that they were two guys who had not performed in the NFL to that point and looked like busts. Once they took the field after the trade, it became apparent that Hughes was the far better player and that the Bills actually won the trade. Unlike the Shepherd for Hughes trade, the Kko for McCoy trade does not seem even. McCoy is a multi all-pro in his prime, while Kiko is a potential talent coming off injury. That is not an even trade. Once they take the field we might get a different situation and adjust things. Kiko might be a HOFer while Shady might get injured etc and the Eagles could end up winning the trade. That concept does not mean that we cannot intellectually assess the initial trade and determine whether both teams gave roughly equal value in the trade.

The difference is that the argument is people saying that the McCoy trade is bad for us because we could have gotten Murray for nothing and kept Kiko. Even being extraordinarily generous and saying we had a 50/50 chance to land Murray, that still leaves a 50% chance that we don't land Murray. Regardless of just how better or worse Murray is compared to McCoy, this was a bird in the hand situation. Why risk not getting a first class RB when there is one on the table available for a relatively cheap trade? That 50% was being extraordinarily generous as I said. Likely the true percentage was closer to 15%. I am finding it difficult to understand how people are making a thing out of this.

The Eagles got a good RB in the trade in the same way that we got a good TE in Clay, a good FB in Felton and a good WR in Harvin. It didn't happen! It wasn't part of the trade. People forget that when the trade happened everybody was stunned. Couldn't believe Kelly made the trade. The only arguments brought forward were that the Eagles wanted to free up cap space(McCoy was going to be a $12M cap hit for them) and that maybe McCoy didn't "buy into" Kelly's system. They then went after and got Gore, who promptly pulled out of the deal.....so they signed Mathews(3 yrs, $11M... $5M guaranteed)....and only then(somewhat changing their minds on high cap hits for RB) signed Murray(5 yrs, $40M... $21M guaranteed). Their final cap expenditure went from $12M under keeping Shady to $11.2M($3.4M dead hit for Shady, $5M for Murray, $2M for Mathews, $0.8M for Kiko) after trading and replacing Shady. The Eagles traded one of the best players in the league for a young upcoming player coming off of injury, and all because the Coach wanted to put his stamp on the team. Nobody thought it was a good move for the Eagles at the time. That doesn't change just because the Eagles changed their minds on the RB cap situation and were lucky to get an angry Murray looking for payback on his old team.

We just re-signed Easley to a 4 year deal. I think you underestimate how important he is perceived for ST. We have a bigger cap hit if we cut him than keep him.

Nobody circles the wagons like the Buffalo Bills. - Chris Berman

Yep. Bills were up for just under $8.5M/year for 3 years. Eagles had to eat $3.4M of dead cap.

It was a 1 yr, $1.05M deal with no SB or guarantees. The Bears lose nothing by cutting him.

If we do it undoubtedly means the inability to sign at least one of our other expected future signings.

As the conversation has understandably moved to Goodwin/Hogan speculation....and considering the thread topic....I think the fact that Harvin will most likely only see one season with the Bills could perhaps influence how we look at how both Goodwin and Hogan might fit with the team in future seasons, not just this season playing behind Harvin.

And then it was I think initially only brought up due to the Bills extending his contract. I am quite accepting of people who question the extention as they have reasonable points. The trade however did not involve extending his contract. If anything, the concept that the Eagĺes had to eat several millions in dead money due to the trade should be factored in.

If we traded EJ for Rodgers would you be saying a similar thing? At some point I think we are allowed to look at a player who has been a multiple all-pro and say that he is better than a young unproven talent.

Does UFO also stand for Unidentified Floored Object?

There is little doubt that the Eagles ended up fine regarding their RB position through FA......but that wasn't part of the trade. The trade was Kiko for McCoy, straight up. The fact that the Eagles managed to find a replacement for McCoy(which they were very lucky to do after trying two other lesser FA RBs), or the concept that the Bills chose to give McCoy an extension are totally irrelevant to the trade. A superstar RB who has some mileage on his legs and who supposedly didn't fit with Eagles system, for a potenial star LB who has some injury concerns and didn't fit with the Bills system. As the trade wasn't Kiko and Murray for McCoy, the Bills easily won the trade.

That doesn't sound very sane to me.

I think that you are perhaps over rating it somewhat. There would be many factors as to who you can get and why they would come. Luck plays an important role. Unless one brings their assistants with them, the right coordinator needs to be available. We couldn't have aquired Pettine, Schwartz, or Roman for that matter if they were not looking for a job. Rex had a strong relationship with Roman. I think that there is little doubt that that relationship is the reason that Roman is with the Bills now. I don't think the same can be said about Marrone in regards to him obtaining Pettine and Schwartz. It seems to me that the reasons for Marrone's DCs taking the job had little to do with Marrone.

It looks like you are right, Punisher, Blade and Ghost Rider are back with Marvel. No mention of any future plans for them yet.

Yes to both questions. At the risk of allay any doubts to me being a nerd I will fill in some details(with some of my own nerd opinion thrown in). The characters chosen for the netflicks shows are all more street level characters(Iron Fist by virtue of his regular association with Cage), and they will all cross into each other's shows. Cage will be appearing in Jessica Jones, and if the comics are anything to go by, likely Daredevil will as well. Also JJ and DD, plus Iron Fist are bound to be appearing in the Cage show etc. The character that will likely be missing from Marvel's stable of street heroes will be The Punisher(due to screen ownership issues). I believe that the gritty versions of the characters that are portrayed come from the time when writer Brian Michael Bendis was writing Daredevil. At the same time as his Daredevil work he also wrote a new book entitled Alias. The mature story of a self loathing, powered, ex-one time supersuit private investigator with PTSD, Jessica Jones. In this book he crossed into the Daredevil world and reintroduced Luke Cage. Though the comic only ran for 28 issues it was IMO one of the best mainstream(part of a major superhero universe) comicbooks ever writen. As the A.K.A Jessica Jones show will draw largely from the original source material, and considering the quality of the DD production, the show could be really something special. In terms of overall MCU(Marvel Cinematic Universe) tie-ins, that is of course speculative. Considering however that the SHIELD show has introduced Inhumans, and we know that last Marvel movie planned to date will be called "Inhumans"; coupled with the knowledge that the Netflicks series's are slated to run through 2019(Defenders), the same time that the second Infinity War movie will hit the screens; and that all of the netflick shows will be tightly intertwined, it would be a decent bet that the Marvel TV shows enter the big screen for the big finale.

Haha, awesome. Don't forget those webellious Stawk children Wob, Bwandon, Awya and Wickon.

I very much agree with you. It seems to me that the writer's strength is in the dialog, and when getting to write with a preexisting plot they did a great job. Now that the show is going away from the books' plotting, the writers are showing severe weaknesses in their abilities. For me the show has quickly moved from fantastic to simply meh. ....and that Dorne scene reminded me of The Life of Brian when the People's Judean Front snuck into the palace at the comically coincidental time as the People's Front of Judea.....then fought. "Drop your weapons" was what was said by the guard in GOT....what I heard was "Thwow him to the fwoor!".