Dibs

From what I understand, only a fraction of the playbook was used last season(due to QBs & injuries). With a QB that has a better understanding of the plays, two healthy RBs & the additions of both SW & MW, I wouldn't be surprised if all but a handful of plays that we use this season resemble those of last season. I could be totally wrong though. I guess we'll find out in a couple of weeks.

I understand why many would react to the OP(and similar posts) by calling the posters appologists. Rookie/injured QBs, constantly injured RBs, poor/inconsistent OL play, injured/rookie WRs......all combining to limit the plays etc, etc. These are all excuses. I think however that many people are misinterpreting what the excuses are for. They are not excuses to show why Hackett's offense wasn't good last season......they are excuses as to why one can't assume at this point that he is bad. I think that there is some irony to the concept that many of the same posters that are espousing EJ to be a bust are also happy to throw Hackett under the same bus.

He's probably right though.... An increase to Tannehill's 2013 stats would be... Completion%: +1.6% YPA: +0.22 TD%: +0.49% INT%: -0.05% QBR: +4.0 Seems to me that Tannehill's 2nd year stats were only marginally better than EJ's rookie stats.

What did the electron say to the proton?

He was once a solid RT. You don't think it possible that he can perhaps become a solid guard?

Those were the base numbers for Kolb's contract. There were also escalators in the contract based upon his number of starts. IIRC he would have earned in excess of $8M had he started most of the season last year.

He said that Pears & Henderson are locked now at RG & RT respectively.....and was pleased with their performances. The rest of the OL wasn't mentioned.

I really don't think you want people to remember how you butchered the English language that way.

Maybe we should, but apparently he is a hard man to find sometimes.

It seems to me that a lot of the argument in this thread is due to the poorly written title(sorry PTR). It instantly gives the impression that the OP is saying that our QB situation is fine......which I don't think PTR was intending it to come across that way. Perhaps a better title would have been "We have an OL problem." .....and then explain how it can make an admittedly poor performing EJ look to be horrible(rather than poor/inconsistent/whatever).

One cannot simply look at dead money and say "We could have done X or Y with that money" as dead money has no relevance on its own. Dead money is created by cutting/trading players. The monies left owing then becomes dead money. The monies however that would have been paid to the cut/traded players in the form of salary/bonuses etc are removed from cap spending......thus giving more cap space to work with. The dead money reduces the cap space.....the removal of players adds to the cap space. Both sides need to be looked at in order to determine if there were to be "extra" cap space that one could then spend on players(re-signing, FAs etc). Now that we are in the rollover era of cap management, bad contracts can no longer be looked at as being easily absorbed. What I mean by that is that prior to rollover, if a team was overpaying a poorly performing player, and plenty of cap room, they could simply keep the contract and it would not impact future years(apart from each year's actual cap hit for the player). In the rollover cap era however, where every dollar unspent in year A can be moved to year B then C etc.....keeping an overpaid player can drastically effect future caps. In real terms....taking out his dead money....had we not cut Fitz(which would have created the dead money)...it would have been roughly as follows: 2013: We had $18M left for rollover into 2014....add $3M for Fitz dead hit.....minus $10M for Fitz salary....making the rollover amount into the 2014 year $11M(or $7M less). 2014: We have a $7M dead hit for Fitz.....minus $10M salary.....comes to $3M worse off....add the $7M....comes to $10M worse off. That is $10M that we cannot roll into 2015. 2015: We are now down by $10M of cap space.....minus off another $10M for Fitz's 2015 cap hit.....and we are worse off in 2015 by $20M 2016: Same logic.....becomes $30M less cap space had we not created a $10M dead cap hit earlier on(as we have done). The dead money may appear to be costing money under the cap, but when looked at in combination with the actual cap it is the converse. It is helping to create actual room under the cap. The question really isn't about having dead money, as the creation of the dead money was a wise move(cap-wise). The question really is whether the FO should be blamed for the initial contract restructuring of Fitz/SJ......and whether the current FO should take some of the blame.

There are two sites that I find very good.... http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/ http://overthecap.com/salary-cap/buffalo-bills/ The second one(over the cap) has an actual cash spending list(top right in red on linked page)......though I must admit that I still don't fully understand the "cash spending" page they provide.

That isn't the case. Firstly, C2C is a guideline teams try to follow. They do not always do so. For instance, the Bills spent over C2C in 2012 when signing Mario....and this season we are just under. Cash to cap literally means that a team will try to have their cash outlays in any given year match that of the actual cap that year. Most of the time this has little effect on how they do things. The only time it can become limiting is when endeavoring to sign multiple large contracts in the one season. This is due to large signing bonuses as SBs are cash that is paid out in the first year. This has actually become a lot easier for teams to manage as more creative contracts have become more commonplace. A lot of large contracts now have lower SBs, but also have guaranteed 1st(& 2nd/3rd) years salaries.....or sizable roster bonuses in the 2nd year to compensate. Essentially C2C is a way for the lower cash flow teams(vast majority) to manage said cash flow......and has nothing to do with cap management. I don't know why it ever got a bad rep but it certainly doesn't inhibit teams from competing with the Cowboys/Redskins etc(who have large cash flow). Please read through the thread. Due to the rollover rules, taking some of the hit in 2014 instead of taking it all in 2013 made no difference to the 2014 cap numbers.

....and being lumbered with bad contracts, the Bills have done the most efficient thing they could with that money over the long term.

In theory there can be some juggling that can occur in regards to this going from one 4 year period to another(though with rollover I can't foresee any team doing this)......but in the case of Fitz, the 2013 & 2014 years are in the same 4 year period(both years were over the floor irrelevant to the Fitz money btw....and yes, dead money counts). As having the money split....or having it all in the first year has the exact same effect on the second year's cap space, I figure they did it the way they did to provide extra cap room in 2013(just in case). It seems to come down to "Why wouldn't you give yourself more cap room in year one when it will make no difference to the cap room in year two?". Hahaha.....wrong. They would be complaining that we have a bad GM because we have no cap space.

Sorry The Dean, I am going to harp on about this because people are arguing a moot issue. The argument can't be about the dead money. The only way for this argument to work is for it to be about the restructuring of Fitzpatrick. We have the dead money from Fitz($10M...$3M from 2013, $7M from 2014....rollover effects 2014 by $10M). Had we not cut him we would have had roughly a $10M cap hit for him in 2013 and a $10M cap hit in 2014......coming to $20M less in 2014 due to rollover. Our dead hit is $23M.....$26M including Fitz's $3M from 2013. Had we not cut him we would have spent $20M on him under the cap(s) leaving a massive difference of $6M. Even ignoring the SJ situation, a $6M difference in cap space is not the sort of level worth arguing about. Personally I think it a bit futile to go back and argue about whether we should/shouldn't have restructured Fitz.

I did a quick google on it and only found that of July 23rd that he wasn't intending to retire. Do you have a link or something on it?

Do you know what C2C is? Are you aware that it is a guideline that a vast majority of teams follow?

We wouldn't have had the money. Not unless we are talking of not signing SJ & Fitz to those contracts in the first place. Had we not cut/traded them(thus causing the dead cap hit), their salaries etc(with rollover) would have pretty much covered the dead hit. There would be no extra money. I don't think you do exactly. Similar to my previous post to BigC above.......unless you are talking about not signing Fitz/SJ to the contracts in the first place, there would have been no extra money due to their contract costs......and furthermore, less money in each of the next bunch of years.

Yes, it is a fact. But what is the point that people are making on it? Mistakes were made.......dead cap is what you get when you rectify those mistakes. The saying crying over spilled milk perhaps applies here. IMO yes......and since we have a young team moving into contract renegotiation with several future stars, I'd say that having the high dead cap numbers now rather than later show that the GM has been good this year(and last year also).

Leaving out the collective snark that seems to have entered into certain posts......I don't think anybody is arguing that the initial decisions in signing the contracts that ended up causing the dead cap hit were not mistakes. I think the point being made is that the dead money has not had an obvious detrimental effect on the team......with a secondary point that the mistakes were made some years back(under a different regime) and it is better for long term cap management to suffer a smaller dead cap hit now rather than a much larger salary hit in the years to follow(if the cut players were retained).

I think the best way to turn around the negativity on this board is by winning more games.

Rollover rules. It made no difference whatsoever putting $7M in 2014 and not taking the full $10M hit last season. Taking only a $3M cap hit last season for Fitz(instead of $10M) meant that we could carry over(and did carry over) an extra $7M(countering the $7M dead money this season).

Just to quibble..... The signing bonus portion for the current year is added to this years cap.....but apart from that you are correct in that most contract re-signings don't add anything on to this season's cap.

Has anybody really mentioned that pass yet? As I recall, he was terrible last season throwing on the run(he wasn't looking up field for the pass). To me, that play showed great improvement for him in that area.