John from Riverside Posted December 13, 2014 Share Posted December 13, 2014 So the only way to tell if a team is good at cap management is to have them right up against it all the time? I don't want to digress into a "Bills are cheap" argument here, but spending to the cap isn't in itself a recipe for success. In fact, far from it. There are teams far better than us with a more cap room than we have at the moment. Look at some of the teams here: http://www.spotrac.c...ap-tracker/nfl/ Teams, especially building teams with young star players, have to keep an eye towards future seasons and re-signing those players, while at the same time retaining some flexibility for other player acquisitions. That takes discipline, commitment, and planning. I'll let others argue we're just "cheap" but there's a method to the madness and I think we'll appreciate that in the very near future with so many key players coming up over the next few years at some high-dollar positions to boot. GO BILLS!!! To me its not so much the players.....but the money spent in the other areas.........hire the BEST in strength and conditioning personnel, scouts (and lots of them), coaches with a track record of success but are still young enough that they are not over the hill....... You biulld long term through the draft....... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 To me its not so much the players.....but the money spent in the other areas.........hire the BEST in strength and conditioning personnel, scouts (and lots of them), coaches with a track record of success but are still young enough that they are not over the hill....... You biulld long term through the draft....... Well, if we take his dedication to improving the Sabres in all those areas, we can look for him to do the same with the Bills. He won't spare any expense in those areas. GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dibs Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 My takeaway from this article is that the Saints are really aggressive and much more advanced than us at managing the cap. Same with a lot of other teams. What the Saints are doing with Byrd's salary-- whether you agree with it or not from a risk perspective--it's pretty clever, and probably something that didn't even cross the Bills' minds. It wouldn't have crossed the Bills' minds because we were not in the cap situation that needed to do it. Unlike the Saints who couldn't afford even a few more million hitting this years cap, the Bills could have simply given a bigger signing bonus in the first year, instead of switching up and forming it over two years as the Saints did. It was a clever strategy, but was one necessitated by situation......a situation the Bills were not in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Malazan Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 It's not often that signing the 'top' guy in free agency lives up to expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dibs Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 It's not often that signing the 'top' guy in free agency lives up to expectations. Not often, but it does happen. Personally I think that Mario has lived up to expectations. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyagi-Do Karate Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 It wouldn't have crossed the Bills' minds because we were not in the cap situation that needed to do it. Unlike the Saints who couldn't afford even a few more million hitting this years cap, the Bills could have simply given a bigger signing bonus in the first year, instead of switching up and forming it over two years as the Saints did. It was a clever strategy, but was one necessitated by situation......a situation the Bills were not in. You are right. But makes you wonder whether we ought to be more leveraged than we are, especially when some of the playoff contenders are, we had obvious holes to fill, and this was supposed to be the year we were "all in" too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dibs Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 (edited) You are right. But makes you wonder whether we ought to be more leveraged than we are, especially when some of the playoff contenders are, we had obvious holes to fill, and this was supposed to be the year we were "all in" too. The "all in" comment was strange to me. Being one who focuses a fair bit on the cap, we were clearly nowhere near being "all in". We were(and are) a young team who has not only nicely built a fine future roster, but had a few key bad contracts to clear before those future roster players needed to be paid. Interestingly we only have $2.7M of cap space left this season. In essence.....and solely for this season...we have been leveraged about as far as we could be in regards to the cap. But IMO this was cleverly done with obvious design behind it. In the next 3 years we have Hughes, Dareus, Glenn & Kiko looking to earn huge dollars......as well as Gilmore, Bradham, Woods, McKelvin, Robey and K.Williams needing to be replaced or see likely salary increases.....as well as the RB position. It would be suicide IMO to fully leverage a team's cap without having the players to justify it. One also IMO needs a legitimate chance to win the SB in order to justify leveraging future caps. Imagine if we actually were spending the money now(rather than paying for old bad contracts). We potentially could be looking at an overpaid Byrd, Fitz, SJ and Levitre eating up our ability to resign Hughes, Glenn, Dareus and Kiko......let alone if we ever find a legit QB to pay. Edited December 14, 2014 by Dibs Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
John from Riverside Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Where this is interesting is we might have some free agent options (like OG Evans) who they are not going to be able to resign. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miyagi-Do Karate Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 The "all in" comment was strange to me. Being one who focuses a fair bit on the cap, we were clearly nowhere near being "all in". We were(and are) a young team who has not only nicely built a fine future roster, but had a few key bad contracts to clear before those future roster players needed to be paid. Interestingly we only have $2.7M of cap space left this season. In essence.....and solely for this season...we have been leveraged about as far as we could be in regards to the cap. But IMO this was cleverly done with obvious design behind it. In the next 3 years we have Hughes, Dareus, Glenn & Kiko looking to earn huge dollars......as well as Gilmore, Bradham, Woods, McKelvin, Robey and K.Williams needing to be replaced or see likely salary increases.....as well as the RB position. It would be suicide IMO to fully leverage a team's cap without having the players to justify it. One also IMO needs a legitimate chance to win the SB in order to justify leveraging future caps. Imagine if we actually were spending the money now(rather than paying for old bad contracts). We potentially could be looking at an overpaid Byrd, Fitz, SJ and Levitre eating up our ability to resign Hughes, Glenn, Dareus and Kiko......let alone if we ever find a legit QB to pay. I hope that this is the plan, and the deal for Watkins was viewed as more of a "in another 2 years, we will really be all in." I have never been an advocate of being foolish or risky with money (eg, allocating too many dollars to a single position)-- but then you see playoff teams doing this and you wonder whether we have been too conservative. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Saint Doug Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 My takeaway from this article is that the Saints are really aggressive and much more advanced than us at managing the cap. Same with a lot of other teams. What the Saints are doing with Byrd's salary-- whether you agree with it or not from a risk perspective--it's pretty clever, and probably something that didn't even cross the Bills' minds. That's exactly what I took away from this article. Sure, it's clever cutting homegrown talent to stay comfortably 10 million below the cap, but there's a reason why we have the longest playoff drought in the NFL. I would almost want to get into "salary cap jail" if it meant enjoying the success the Saints have had in the last 5 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Augie Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 All I can say is thank you to Whaley for signing AW and letting Byrd walk. Amen! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dibs Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 .......but there's a reason why we have the longest playoff drought in the NFL. I would almost want to get into "salary cap jail" if it meant enjoying the success the Saints have had in the last 5 years. I would say the reason is the continual lack of minimally decent QB play.......though since the Saints aquired Brees as a FA, there is perhaps a decent arguement that the Bills could have done more(risked more) in trying to obtain him at the time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wing Man Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Schwartz has done such a tremendous job with the defense this year, it's hard to notice that we lost Byrd at all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bills Fan since '64 Posted December 14, 2014 Author Share Posted December 14, 2014 That's exactly what I took away from this article. Sure, it's clever cutting homegrown talent to stay comfortably 10 million below the cap, but there's a reason why we have the longest playoff drought in the NFL. I would almost want to get into "salary cap jail" if it meant enjoying the success the Saints have had in the last 5 years. I agree. You can argue all you want about who should be playing this position or that, or who should be HC or whatever. But amid all of the worst-to-first turnarounds we've seen in the NFL, the Bills have languished because they've been run so poorly. That is the one constant over 15 miserable years (and, really, ever since the Bills were founded except for a 3 year period in the 60s, a 5 year period in the late 80s/early 90s and a decent run when OJ was at the top of his game in the mid-70s). I'd swap Saints blues for Bills heartache any day. Let's hope that new ownership can change this franchise down to its core. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 That's exactly what I took away from this article. Sure, it's clever cutting homegrown talent to stay comfortably 10 million below the cap, but there's a reason why we have the longest playoff drought in the NFL. I would almost want to get into "salary cap jail" if it meant enjoying the success the Saints have had in the last 5 years. Get a QB like Brees and you enjoy that kind of success. Our long drought isn't because we've ever been below the cap in that time. It's because we haven't had a QB more than any other single factor. GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
benderbender Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 I was astounded that we were able to resign SJ13 given our horrible record of retaining our drafted players. But everyone knew Byrd was gone because of his agent and his demeanor. It would be great to keep the defense intact for next year knowing Kiko will be back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragonborn10 Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Show me a team with a franchise QB and they will have cap issues. The Bills have no cap issues because they don't have enough great players to pay. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 I would say the reason is the continual lack of minimally decent QB play.......though since the Saints aquired Brees as a FA, there is perhaps a decent arguement that the Bills could have done more(risked more) in trying to obtain him at the time. Bills were in the first full year of the Losman experiment. There was no interest in another QB at that time. Zero chance. None. Nada. Zip. GO BILLS!!! Show me a team with a franchise QB and they will have cap issues. The Bills have no cap issues because they don't have enough great players to pay. Great point. I posted a link to the sportrac cap numbers for all teams. The disparity between the cap allotted to our defense vs. our offense is huge; $62.2m vs. $38.9m. That screams "No franchise QB." GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dibs Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 Bills were in the first full year of the Losman experiment. There was no interest in another QB at that time. Zero chance. None. Nada. Zip. GO BILLS!!! You aren't wrong. I was doing a bit of revisionist wishing.... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
K-9 Posted December 14, 2014 Share Posted December 14, 2014 You aren't wrong. I was doing a bit of revisionist wishing.... Hell, I do that all the time. Not sure if it's healthy though. GO BILLS!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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