Dibs

I think the best way to change the losing culture of this team is by winning more games.

......or they cut EJ .

They got in one of(if not the) highest ranked FA QBs in Kolb. I think there is a legitimate point to be made in this off-season, but not last year.

I agree. I was responding to a post stating that we should clean house because of the decisions that caused the dead money. In regards to the wasting money/owner comment.....it has become moot. With the cap rollover rules, any money left under the cap will be rolled over onto the following year's cap(and so on). Though this doesn't mean that the money will have to be spent, I can't see a situation where a team has $50M+ in cap room that is growing each year won't eventually be pressured by fans/media to spend it. Effectively the new CBA......though strictly only enforcing a 90%(rough) spend of cap, is ensuring that pretty much close to 100% will eventually be spent.

Just on the SJ situation..... Had it been a few years ago(in relation to cap rules) I would have agreed with you. It used to be that if you had extra cap room you might as well keep the overpaid player who you know is not in the medium/long term plans for the club. With the new rollover rules however, keeping an overpaid player like SJ drastically effects what you can do in the future. It may be a few million extra cap dollars this season to not have him on the roster, but it is also an extra $8M-$9M every year for the next 3 that we will have.....and if we don't spend it, it gets rolled over. This means that cutting SJ now could mean that we can pay top dollar for Kiko in 3 years time.

Of course he does. What we want/need is a true Franchise QB. You don't really expect that to happen over night though do you?(turn from a raw rookie to a Franchise calibre QB).

Who decides how much a player is worth? The GM is gone......and I am pretty sure that Gailey pushed heavily for Fitz. For all we know Whaley advised against the Fitz contract extension. Essentially you argue to fire everyone because they were there. Have a good look at the personnel and cap decisions made over the last 2 years. Surely you can see a world of difference in how this organization has been run since Nix/Gailey left.

I don't disagree....but I think the value it does give is that it showed that EJ was not horrendous(as many would have it), but was indeed serviceable showing that he needs to continue to improve.

You are not taking into account the money that SJ & Fitz would have cost us under the cap. Had we kept Fitz our cap situation would be roughly $10M worse than it is now. He was on roughly $10M/year.....that's $20M for 2013+2014.....minus his $10M dead cap hit(added the $3M dead hit from last year).....making $10M worse off. Add to that the concept that he would cost another $10M/year for several years in the future and the numbers to keep him grossly outweigh the dead cap hit. Putting just the Fitz money in perspective.....we currently have $8.5M of cap left. Having kept Fitz we would be over the cap at the moment. Similar can be said for SJ but the Mike Williams contract pretty much cancels that out. It becomes a wash with those two. Signing Levitre would also have killed our cap. Even after removing the Chris Williams money from the equation.....using the Titans contract....Levitre would have us being $10.8M worse under the cap this year(again making us over the cap).....and a further $5M/year worse in each future year. In regards to Byrd......signing him most likely meant not signing A.Williams, or at least letting him hit FA next year where he would then likely have left. There is a lot more depth to analyzing the cap and the future ramifications of player contracts than most fans consider. I guess that is why they pay experts a lot of money to do the job. Do you realize that those responsible for signing them in the first place are no longer with the organization?

When a player is traded, the new team is responsible for their salary and future bonuses. The old team has to account for any previous monies paid. In SJ's case(and most cases) the monies remaining unaccounted from the signing bonus fall immediately into the dead money category(usually SB money is spread evenly throughout each year of a player's contract). From memory, SJ had 3 years of around $3M/year in signing bonuses due to be accounted for over the next three years.....and there was a bonus he recieved from us(around $1M?) before he was traded......hence the $10M dead hit.

Run defense?

Next year.....as in this is the final dead money year for all three. What all of this dead money means is that we will have a larger amount of money under the cap next year(and following years).....just in time to re-sign our budding young stars. I personally would rather see the Bills pay top dollar to probowl level players(overpaying if necessary a la Mario) than to overpay mediocre/decent/good players(which is what we have consistently done in the past, hence the dead money now). Though the large dead money amount can be looked at as mistakes made in the past....it is a good thing for the present and future.

This is my view as well. The only countering aspect in my mind is the 14 year playoff drought. Assuming the rest of the team is strong, a competent backup type QB could theoretically see us limp into the playoffs. Normally I would think "So what? I want a team built to win the SB, not limp into the playoffs." but that 14 year stretch has me desperate for even a playoff limping scenario this season.

There's a little bit of irony there me thinks.

For various reasons I was unsure if I should respond to this post......but have decided that it is so extraordinary(for the board) and praiseworthy that I simply couldn't let it pass without making comment. I honestly cannot recall a previous time where I(or anybody) have responded in a somewhat contradictory manner to a post which contains minimally a reasonably firm conviction on a subject........to which the poster has not only read and understood what was written, but has taken it on board and adjusted their own views on the subject. Your response is something that I personally aspire to.....and if more people on the board(and the world in general) would act in a similar manner, there would be far less acrimony and perhaps a far wiser general population. Kudos to you sir.

Fans see bad QB play(in a QBs first 2/3 seasons) and they react. They state that said QB will never be good and should be removed. In most cases they are going to be correct. This does not mean that they know more than the team's FO.....just that they are playing the odds(most won't pan out). I'd be fairly confident that fans were calling for the dumping of Brees, Favre and Young in their first few seasons.....probably Aikman and Kelly as well. Dumping a QB early is going to be the correct decission most of the time.......but it will give one a much smaller chance of being able to eventually find a Franchise QB overall.

Yet he did against the backups....and did so periodically against starters last season. Will he ever do it consistently enough to become legit? I have no idea. What I do know is that blanket generalizations are never good for constructive conversations(apart from the one I just typed of course ).

17 points.....but still not good.

There have been 4. Marshall Faulk was the one you missed.

I was basing both sets of numbers on the final results of last season. I did it that way because people are not saying that we have a harder schedule this year than the one we thought we were going to have last year......they are saying it is a harder schedule than the one we actually had last year. You are definitely correct though. The previous year's assumed strength of schedule looks to be harder than this year's assumed strength of schedule......which pretty much highlights my view that one cannot reliably predict how good/bad a team is going to be based upon the previous season(in most cases).....therefore looking at strength of schedule prior to a season is a rather futile activity. I really only listed the numbers because.....well.....if one is going to make a claim about something(harder strength of schedule for example), then one should really have some sort of evidence that can back up that claim.

My base point was to question the veracity of the premise that this year's schedule is much harder than last year's schedule. As to my point about apearing potentially easier......that was pretty much a throw away line. I don't personally believe that one can assess the strength of a schedule till after the season(when the teams have shown just how tough/easy they were that year). That said however....I do actually believe that a scedule with a lot of games against tough opponents makes for a harder schedule than one with fewer tough oponents, fewer slightly weaker oponent, and more mediocre oponents.

I don't understand why people keep saying that we have a much harder schedule this season compared to last season. Based upon the number of wins teams had last year, our shedule is exactly thd same overall. Last seasons oponents wins(127): 12 12 12 11 11 11 8 8 7 7 6 6 4 4 4 4 This seasons oponents wins(127): 13 12 12 11 9 8 8 8 8 8 8 7 5 4 4 2 Based upon last seasons results, this year actually looks easier as there are less strong teams(11+ wins) we have to play.

....and we have added a huge amount of depth at many positions so injury likely won't be as devastating as last season(aside from maybe QB). If our RBs get hurt like last season....we now have reliable alternatives. Lose our top WR for a bunch of games....no worries, we have quality to replace him. CB goes down....again we have a decent replacement. OL? Far deeper than last year. If one assumes that injury issues cost us a few games last season....and that EJ has improved somewhat.....I see no reason at all to think we can't improve upon 6 wins.

Raiders had a string of 5 finishing in 76. Vikings a string of 6 finishing in 78. Steelers a string of 6 finishing in 79. Rams a string of 7 finishing in 79.

If you can see it as fair that the NFL can get in entertainers for the SB and not pay them their full going rate for a private function, then you must be acknowledging that there is some inherent value to the performer for doing the gig. It then just comes down to how much that value is. If the value to the performer is greater than what yhey would normally charge(which appears to be the case), then it makes sense that the performer would need to pay for the priviledge.