Dibs

Surely that is a "Too soon to say" vote?

I thought that Robey was playing outstanding football by the second half of the season. He seems pretty suited to the nickel. Scheme might changes things somewhat but IMO he would be the smart choice there at the moment.

Hi. My name is Dibs and I'm a realist who is also a positive person. Nice to meet you.

It keeps going on because there is two ways of looking at it and it seems many people can only see one way. We spent 2 firsts & a 4th, and gained a first in the trade. We spent 2 firsts & a 4th on the player.

It's actually only 3 O line players drafted in the first two rounds over the last decade(11 years actually....Williams was 2002, which was 12 drafts ago). It can also be said that they have drafted 3 O line players in the first two rounds in the last 6 years.......which is actually pretty good considering that most teams don't stack their O line with 5 guys from the first two rounds.

Shouldn't there be an if in that sentence somewhere? At this point I'd say that it is fairly indeterminable just how much value the current Bills FO puts on O line players. We did sign Wood to an early extension......and we are looking pretty happy with Glenn at the highest value OL position. Perhaps give the new FO a full year before you make judgements.

I agree with the OP. You draft an OT in the top 10 in hopes that he will become a multi pro bowl LT. As we already have Glenn(running under the assumption that he will become that multi pro bowl LT)........selecting a second player of similar potential is a guarantee that one of those players will not stay in Buffalo past their rookie contract(as no team pays top 10 LT money to their RT). This is extremely poor long term team building planning.

The draft won't cost $6m in cap. What is often forgotten(I forgot it myself earlier, hence my edit) is that the cap number is determined upon the top 51 contracts. Our 46th to 51st highest contracts are around $0.5m(give or take). 4th round rookies onward will get contracts below that figure (therefore not adding to the cap number at all), and the 1st, 2nd & 3rd(only just) rounders will and to the cap minus the $0.5m of the player they replace. Likely the rookies will only effect our cap by around $2.5m. After all that.......I agree with you. I too would love to see us roll over the money from this point. It seems we have finally started to draft impact players at positions of importance. A bit of extra money saved for the future will help us retain Glenn, Dareus, Spiller etc.

According to spotrac, that $18.3m ($18.2m according to them) doesn't include Chandler, Spikes or Dixon. That likely drops our cap space down to $11+ mil.......which would have us roughly 19th in cap space now. I personally don't think it will make much difference. Either way we can sign more players without too much ramification....but I thought I should point it out. http://www.spotrac.c...-bills/cap-hit/ http://www.overtheca...e.php?Year=2014 EDIT: I forgot that 3 players would be bumped off of the top 51 contracts. This would make it around $12.5+ mil.....roughly 16th in cap space.

With the rollover cap rules, this is no longer the case. It used to be that if you had extra cap dollars you either spent it or you ended up making more profit. Today however any unspent monies will be rolled over into the next cap year. Not spending it does not show that a team is cheap anymore.......it perhaps shows that a team is planning for the future. For what it's worth, the Bills have already spent over the 2014 actual cap.

Trading SJ wouldn't save that much(compared to simply cutting him). Assuming that he hasn't already been paid his $1.75m 2014 roster bonus.......he would save us $6.8m on this cap, but would incur a $3.4m hit on next years cap. Considering the new(ish) rollover rules, this would mean that we would only save $3.4m(or only $1.65m if we have paid him the 2014 roster bonus).

A good thing about Dareus & Spiller is that they already command large salaries($6.5m & $5.9m respectively). To factor them into future caps, one might only be looking at an additional $5m-$6m cap dollars(give or take depending on their performances this year etc). My main concern will be Glenn. Though his deal will be a year later, I tend to think he will require the most money......and more importantly will likely require a cap increase hit of around $10m.

Only the first 3 rounds will likely add to our cap number. This is due to the cap being calculated on the top 51 contracts......with our lowest contracts atm being $0.5m. The 3rd round pick will probably be paid $0.7m costing only $0.2m cap dollars. I figure our rookie cap hit will be around $3.5m. Considering that we are carrying $12.5m in dead money this season.......and at this point we have zero dead money due next season.......we could very well spend another $10m in FA(if we want to). Certainly a $6m-$7m FA would be easily accommodated under this years cap(and next years cap too).

Byrd now a Saint!!! How can they afford it??? http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap2000000333219/article/jairus-byrd-saints-agree-on-sixyear-contract

With the rollover(and re-rollover) rules combined with the 4 year cap floor rule........there is no negative to pushing the dead money into the next year(if able). Considering that there are no negatives & any unspent money in the first year is moved into the second year......why wouldn't a team spread dead cap hits over 2 years as opposed to 1(if possible)? It provides more available money to spend(if needed for some unforeseen reason) in year 1 while having the exact same financial situation either way in year 2. I agree with that(unless the dead money comes from an injured and/or retired player). I tend to think however that the initial bad decision(long term Fitz signing) was likely influenced by HC Gailey at the time. Though one will never know, the concept that the FO puts faith in their HC is not IMO a bad thing. Of course, this then moves the discussion to the hiring of the HC in the first place(another bad decision). Regardless of the mistakes made to wind up with a pricey and unproductive player on the roster.......the decision to cut them and incur short term pain(dead money) for better long term production is a good decision.

This isn't correct any more. The cap floor is calculated over a 4 year period......and any individual year is allowed to be under the cap floor(for that year) as long as the overall cap spending(over the 4 year period) is over the overall cap floor. On top of that, the cap floor is calculated on the unadjusted cap....not the adjusted cap with rollover. This means that assuming the 2014 cap will be around $130m......the cap floor for this year will be around $117m. Our top 51 contracts at this point(doesn't include kicker, Byrd, FAs & rookies) is $113m. As one can see, we will easily cover the 2014 cap floor regardless of the $12m dead money hit. To me the large dead money hit we have is indicative that we are finally endeavoring to win. Instead of keeping players(mainly Fitz) who were not going to help us win games(and save some money), we elected to waste the dollars and cut them instead.

No reason to be annoyed or upset over that. Due to the new(ish) rollover rules, putting the $7m dead Fitz money into the 2014 year rather than into the 2013 year made no difference to our 2014 cap space. The math is really very simple in this. Using actual numbers(rounded to the nearest million).... Having the $7m Fitz dead money in 2014: $18m rollover. $12m dead $6m left over ($18m - $12m = $6m) Having the $7m Fitz dead money in 2013: (This reduces the dead money by $7m but also reduces the rollover money by $7m due to it being spent in 2013) $11m rollover $5m dead $6m left over ($11m - $5m = $6m) I hope this removes your doubts on the issue.

Interestingly, Pettine's sack numbers as Jets DC prior to last year were 32, 40, 35, 30.......and the Jets had 41 after he left. Player personnel likely has a decent impact in the equation.

Yeah.....I was never meaning to disagree with your base point. IMO we have a good(future great) LT in Glenn, so paying for another one is not logical. I was just pointing out that tackles who only play RT typically can be found for much lower dollar figures than LTs.

Cherilus is the highest paid RT in the league.....Vollmer the 8th highest. I would be surprised if Strief cracks above $3m/year.......but who knows?

Your numbers are way too high for RT. Strief was on a $1.9m/year deal($2.6m in 2013) and Collins a $1.3m/year deal($2.1m in 2013). Only 13 RTs were on $3m+/year in 2013.....Pears being the 13th. We literally should be able to replace Pears for less than the money saved from cutting him($2.9m).

I'll take your word for him being not that good.....but the price for virtually any RT(who can't play LT) is going to be much cheaper than a LT. Yep.

I'm sure you are right and it happens quite a bit. Hard to say how often as middling player contract renegotiations tend to go unnoticed around the league(at least by me). I was under the assumption that Pears couldn't play the LT position.....or at least play above a poor level(I'll leave that to the OL experts to determine). If he indeed can't play the swing position, he would need to take a very hefty pay cut to be of value as a backup RT. If cut, the savings would likely cover the cost of the new FA RT.

Second last?

....or, one could look at it that Schwartz doing well could see him leave in a year or two for another HC position & we would then have a potentially good DC in PJ to promote.