Cash

Whaley's really good offseason improved the Bills from 6-10 in 2012 to... 6-10 in 2013. I have a feeling he'll have another really good offseason this year, and we'll wind up pretty close to 6-10 again. I think the 2 things that bother me the most about this Chris Williams signing are: 1.) He was at least a full-time starter last year, which is something. But while the Rams allegedly had some interest in bringing him back, they also allegedly wanted an upgrade. Does that sound like a guy who deserves a big raise? The Bills more than tripled his salary from last year, and gave him about 5x the value of his last contract in guaranteed money. Sure, sign Chris Williams, but sign him to a 1-year deal for $1.5 million or something. 2.) This goes hand-in-hand with the last point, and in fairness, could be invalidated if the Bills surprise me: At the money & length of deal Williams signed, he is 100% definitely our starter next year unless he's an absolute train wreck. And if he gets beat out in 2015 or beyond, he will be cut. Anyone talking about a "depth signing" in this thread is way off base. Geoff Hangartner, Langston Walker, and Cornell Green were all signed as starters, none for huge money. (Walker was the closest at about $5mil/year.) All of them got cut when they lost their starting jobs, 2 in training camp and 1 in mid-season. Williams' guarantees pretty much make him cut-proof this year, but it might be open season next year. I'm getting way off track, but my point is that I don't expect the Bills to do anything else to address the interior of their line this offseason, except maybe a mid or late round draft pick. I think we'll be fed a line about "competition", and the Bills will keep talking up their existing backups like 'Unga and Asper, but that's it. And if Williams turns out to be worse than the Bills think, we're headed for another season of garbage at LG.

Luckily the Patriots and Jets are both pretty weak at DT/NT, so we should be in solid shape there.

Oof. I hope PFF was wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy off on him. That's not a lot of money for a starter, but it's a huge raise over what he made last year, and by all accounts he was a mediocre to bad starter for the Rams. Legursky was a bad starter (Brown was a tire fire), so maybe that's still an upgrade? Doesn't sound like much of one. I hope the Bills know what they're doing, because it doesn't seem like they do. This really comes across as another Cornell Green type signing.

You know, we've been hearing this same song and dance every offseason for the last 10 years. I get that the Bills want to emulate the Packers and Steelers, and this is their plan. When is the plan going to work????????

Love it.

Oh come on. You're better than that, K-9. That's like taking out a massive loan and then bragging about how much cash you have. Q: "But what about all this debt?" A: "That's a different discussion entirely. All I'm talking about is how much cash I have on hand!" If you want to say that Aaron Williams appears to be a better FS than SS, or will be in Schwartz's system, that's one thing. But the bottom line is that we lost a starter, and a very good one to boot. If you insist, we can say that the starter we lost was Williams at SS, but we still have a hole in the lineup. I'm not saying the Bills have to run out and sign a replacement safety right away -- maybe Duke Williams could step up? -- but I do expect the Bills to use Byrd's money to upgrade somewhere else if they don't sign a replacement.

Not really. Williams was already a starter last year, so if you move him into Byrd's spot, it still opens up a hole in the starting lineup. Or are the Bills just gonna play 10 on D? I will also say that aside from Byrd and Whitner, pretty much every safety signed for less than I expected. Williams' extension doesn't look like a bargain right now.

Have no idea who this guy is, but if he's even half-decent, this could be a nice depth signing. Someone pointed out in another thread that while our 3 starters (Gilmore RCB, McLovin LCB, Robey nickel/slot) look solid, there's basically nothing behind them. And going the low-priced FA route for depth does strike me as wiser than the draft. Because we have bigger needs than CB to spend a high pick there - we want starters with those high picks. And a mid-to-low round rookie CB couldn't be expected to be an upgrade over anything we've already got, at least not in 2014.

I think our work here is done, folks. <books Super Bowl flight/hotel>

I wouldn't be surprised if Carrington stayed, probably on a 1-year deal. Only other team I could see pursuing him might be Cleveland, since Pettine raved about him in camp. But he got hurt early, and did nothing in the brief time he played last year, so I can't imagine teams are beating down his door.

Huh? http://mockdraftable.com/player/4432/ http://mockdraftable.com/player/1776/ Davis was over 0.2 seconds faster in the 40 (that's not slight), 10" higher vertical leap (huge difference), 8" farther broad jump (not huge but significantly better), and 9 more reps on the bench press. Ebron didn't do the 20-yard shuttle, but I doubt he'd be able to match Davis' 88th percentile time of 4.17 seconds. Ebron might be good, but as a pure athlete, he's not in Vernon Davis' class.

Absolutely. Case in point, the subject of this thread. If Williams winds up being just an average starter, then the Bills have seriously overpaid him. The risk-mitigator from the team's perspective is that they can cut the player before the contract ends (or ask the player to take a pay cut), but depending on how the guaranteed money is structured, that might take a couple years.

Yes and no. The NFL is technically a soft cap, but it's pretty close to hard. (Get your mind out of the gutter.) The total "cap figure" of everyone on the roster can't exceed the salary cap, but cap figures don't equal payroll, at least not in the short term. Bonus money is amortized over the length of a contract, yada yada yada. The short version is that it's easy to spend WAY over the cap in actual cash payouts in any given year, but eventually the accounting will catch up to you and you'll have to cut guys or restructure contracts. And the window in which you can get away with it is usually fairly short -- maybe 2-3 years at the most.

If we'd drafted Johnny Manziel in 2013 I think we might have a shot at signing Chandler Jones this year.

Fun game! I'm totally cheating, because since players are coming off the board exactly per the rankings, I know if I can safely trade down or wait a full round. Still trying to keep it at least fairly realistic. See below for boring explanation of each pick. Pick 9: TRADED to NY Giants, who select Taylor Lewan, OT Michigan Pick 12: Mike Evans, WR Texas A&M Pick 41: Troy Niklas, TE Notre Dame Pick 73: Billy Turner, OT/G North Dakota State Pick 74: Pierre Desir, CB Lindenwood Pick 137: Aaron Murray, QB Georgia Pick 169: Storm Johnson, RB UCF Pick 201: Russell Bodine, OG UNC 9/12: Bills trade picks 9 (1,350 pts) and 105 (84 pts) for picks 12 (1,200 pts) and 74 (220 pts). If the Giants had a 7th-rounder, I'd try to get them to throw it in. As it is, I'll ask for a future 6th or 7th, and probably get rejected on both counts. Neither is a dealbreaker, as I'm still getting my guy and vastly upgrading my 4th-round pick. The flaw in this plan is that the Giants almost never trade up, but they had huge problems protecting Eli last year, and maybe they see a huge dropoff between Lewan and the 2nd-tier OTs? 41: Tempting to trade down again, but #41 in the rankings is Tre Mason, and who's trading up for a 5'8" running back? Also very tempting to go with ASJ or Gabe Jackson here, particularly Jackson. I guess I'm just hoping that we've already signed a competent LG starter and will be drafting more for depth. Plus, I think Niklas would help the run game right away, and (eventually) upgrade the passing game by stepping in for Chandler. 73: Best OL on the board. Dakota Dozier was also in the mix here -- both played OT in college but might project to OG in the NFL -- but I decided to just go chalk. I'm well past the point of knowing anything about the guys left on the board. The hope here would be that Turner can make it at OT and compete for the starting RT job. If not, then maybe he gets moved inside to G, or maybe serves as a versatile backup who's not great at anything, but won't kill you at any of the 4 G/T spots. 74: 6'1", 200 lb. cornerback with good athleticism, apparently needs work on his technique. Luckily, we already have starters at both outside CBs and Nickell CB, so we can teach him technique while he plays special teams. 137: Why not? I liked him a lot in his junior year, and this late in the draft, he wouldn't be seen as a threat to EJ. 169: His name is Storm Johnson. 201: No one's still reading, right?

My first question is, is this a true extension, or did they rip up the last (ultra-cheap) year of his rookie deal? I.e., is Williams now signed through 2017 or 2018? If the 4yr/$26mil figures are true, then I think it's a reasonable signing for the Bills either way, but it's especially good in the latter case. To my untrained eyes, Williams played better last year without Byrd, because it seemed like he was used more as a deep/center field FS type before Byrd came back. Even if I'm wrong, he still played pretty well all last year, and it's pretty likely that he'll get better with more experience. The Bills aren't paying a super-cheap price, but Williams would have to be an idiot to accept a super-cheap contract extension right now. The Bills are gambling that he becomes an above-average starter or Pro Bowl-level player, in which case his extension will be an absolute steal in 2-3 years. The current pay scale for safeties is probably about to change drastically. The cap just went up a lot, it's projected to keep going up for the next 2 years, Earl Thomas got a TON of attention for his role in Seattle's Super Bowl run, and Byrd and Thomas are up for new contracts in the next year. Williams' average $/year would put him 10th right now, but by 2016, he might be out of the top 20. Will he be a top 10 safety by then? If so, he'll be seriously underpaid.

Sorry, still haven't gotten past the first paragraph or two of the article. Too busy wrapping my head around the idea that WBAL sports director and broadcaster Gerry Sandusky, a man who works in sports, particularly American football, hasn't changed his named to avoid confusion with Gerald "Jerry" Sandusky, the convicted child molester who's associated with Penn State football.

It's never occurred to you that someone who's happier at his workplace might be more motivated and perform better at his job? Or that if management forces a highly unpleasant and unwelcome change in his role on him, that might result in a drop in performance? If that happens at McDonald's, they just fire the disgruntled employee and just hire someone from the vast pool of candidates. If that happens on an NFL team, they don't really have the option to replace Glenn with an equivalent player.

Bumpety bump bump: http://bills.buffalo...itment-winning/ Obviously the Toronto hiatus is being discussed in other threads, but what's relevant here is Graham's take on what this means for the behind-the-scenes power struggle: We know that the Bills won't want to air their dirty laundry, so we in the hoi polloi won't see many outward signs of who's "winning". This is one of the few winning over profit victories that is actually visible to the fans. Theoretically, Jim Carpenter being replaced as head trainer would be another one, but I have to think that at this point, replacing him would be tantamount to publicly confirming Graham's anonymous sources, so he's safe for at least another year. (And if he does go, I'm guessing he'll be convinced to retire rather than be outright fired.) I continue to think that Brandon is ostensibly the CEO with 100% control of all operations, but that certain high-level personnel feel that they are accountable only to Wilson. I also continue to think that Brandon couldn't threaten any serious repercussions (firing, e.g.) to any of the "lifers" without first getting Wilson's approval, which reinforces the lifers' feelings that they're not subordinate to Brandon. I continue to hope that Brandon is primarily on the side of Whaley/Marrone in most or all of these conflicts, and that he's capable of winning these battles with Littman/Overdorf/etc. I'm a little more confident now that that's the case.

I noticed that as well. In fairness to Whaley, he listed Urbik 3rd or 4th, but still... We lose an All-Pro safety and we're supposed to feel better because we kept Kraig Urbik? KRAIG URBIK, YOU GUYS! FEEL THE HEAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank you.

The only question is, what was in the rest of that offer? There's probably a reason that the Bills only leaked the part about $10mil/year for the first 3 years. Maybe it was a 6-year, $45 million deal? Maybe it was 4 years, $36 million, but with no guaranteed money? If the Bills are really misrepresenting the nature of their offer, then this situation changes. I don't really think they are, though. Don't get me wrong -- if the full offer was as good as the part they leaked, they would've leaked the whole thing. But I get the impression that they really want(ed) to keep Byrd and made a legitimately reasonable offer. Byrd might be sick of losing and having a new DC every year, and maybe it means more to him to go to a more stable situation where he's got a better chance of making the playoffs. Or maybe he just really wants to see what his true market value is, and once he does, he'll consider the Bills' offer. I don't expect that, but I wouldn't 100% rule it out at this point. Anyway, I don't have any anger or outrage over this, at least not yet. I do think the Bills made a legit attempt to keep him, and I also think that there has to be a limit where the price tag is too high, no matter how good the player is. I knock management a lot, but I honestly do think that if there was likely to be a decent trade market, the Bills would've tagged him. This is at least a little similar to Levitre last year so far. The problem there wasn't necessarily letting him walk -- even at the time, you could easily argue the Titans overpaid. The problem was the plan to replace him was basically, "sit on a pile of money." I hope that the Bills have learned their lesson, and have a much better plan to replace Byrd. That doesn't necessarily mean spending a ton on his immediate replacement, but it does mean taking the money budgeted towards Byrd and spending it to help the team.

If Lawson gets cut, that's a bad sign. My hopes for the Schwartz Era are not high, but we'll see. Hopefully he's smart enough to adapt his D to the guys who are here.

Addition by subtraction. SUPER BOWL, BABY!

I like that both past and present/future are represented here, because the other thread showed that people will answer the "past" question whether it's asked or not. As for me: 1. Rolando McClain. I could've gone with a guy the Bills actually drafted, but I don't want to sidetrack this thread with an "is he a bust?" flame war. 2. Tough one for me. Maybe Anthony Barr or CJ Mosely? Barr is a kind of obvious "could bust" pick, and I'm always wary of back 7 defenders on stacked college teams. Add Clinton-Dix to the list as well, although my list isn't so much "I think he'll be a bust" as "I wouldn't be surprised if he was a bust."

I think he would take Mike Evans, since that's who he compared Ebron to. I know I would. But let's say those 4 you mentioned AND Evans are gone by 9 -- which is possible if the QBs all drop. At that point, Ebron would have to be a consideration, along with Lewan and the ever-popular trade down. Out of those 3, I'd probably favor the trade down, although you never know what kind of offers will be there.