jahnyc Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Why are people always talking about how TD won't overpay for a player? No gm wants to overpay for a player, but DeMulling seemed reasonably priced based on the contract he signed with Detroit and what other free agents were getting. We are paying more than $3 million a year for Villarail and he is older (I think 32). Is he the better player? I don't know, but clearly we pay market for our players, including free agents, just like every other team. How much we are willing to pay in any given year depends on our need, the supply and demand for that position for that particular year and our salary cap situation. It seems this year it is not about overpaying, but about how much flexibility we have under the salary cap. Last year, we had more room and one could argue that we overpaid for Vincent and Villarail. Overall, I think TD has done a good job with free agent acquisitions. I am sure he would have loved to sign more free agents to fill holes this year, but our salary cap situation does not allow for that. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwovince Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Because we didnt enjoy cap hell from Butler. Did you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coach Tuesday Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Because this franchise cannot survive without thinking long-term. We simply don't have the luxury of trying the Daniel Snyder "win now, get screwed for 3 years, then win now again" philosophy - we don't have the right kind of fan base for that. TD understands this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajzepp Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Same reason why the Eagles are in as good of shape they are right now......you exercise fiscal responsibility until you KNOW you are hitting your window. The Eagles have had more cap room over the past four years than just about anyone else. They knew they were in their window, so they go out and pick up a Jevon Kearse, Terrell Owens, etc. I'd rather TD be patient until we are clearly near the top of our game, and then go out and pick up a stud or two to put us over the top. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
coltrane34 Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Your right it is all relative, obviously TD and the front office has a plan and they are not going to deviate from it by jumping after players that are not worth their contracts. They must think that there will be other players that will be cut from there teams or players that can be dratfed to fill the o-line holes. Just because they don't tell us what their plan is dosn't mean they don't have one or wont pay top money for available players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahnyc Posted March 20, 2005 Author Share Posted March 20, 2005 But this is what I don't understand. We are up against the cap and we have not made the playoffs the last four years under TD. Does this make TD fiscally responsible? Will next year be any better? We are not significantly under the cap like the Eagles were and we have not been as successful on the field. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajzepp Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 But this is what I don't understand. We are up against the cap and we have not made the playoffs the last four years under TD. Does this make TD fiscally responsible? Will next year be any better? We are not significantly under the cap like the Eagles were and we have not been as successful on the field. 281393[/snapback] We are up against the cap, but we're not..........TD has the flexibility (from what I understand) of paying certain bonuses or whatever now, or deferring them in order to make more cap room. We're in better cap shape than it seems, I think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwovince Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 It will get better cap wise in future even more I imagine from not overpaying now. Our future looks bright with the youngsters we are drafting the last year or 2 and hopefully this year. It all depends on JP this year if we make playoffs because I think we would def make playoffs with a veteren QB for sure so hopefully JP gets us there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajzepp Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 It will get better cap wise in future even more I imagine from not overpaying now. Our future looks bright with the youngsters we are drafting the last year or 2 and hopefully this year. It all depends on JP this year if we make playoffs because I think we would def make playoffs with a veteren QB for sure so hopefully JP gets us there. 281403[/snapback] I agree....I think that's why JP will be on a shorter leash than a lot of people think......Holcomb was a great signing by TD......I really don't think MM will let JP waste the season if in fact he's not the Hall of Famer from the very beginning like Bill in NYC thinks he is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BuckeyeBill Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 It will get better cap wise in future even more I imagine from not overpaying now. Our future looks bright with the youngsters we are drafting the last year or 2 and hopefully this year. It all depends on JP this year if we make playoffs because I think we would def make playoffs with a veteren QB for sure so hopefully JP gets us there. 281403[/snapback] If our special teams, defense, and WM play the same way we played during the last part of the season... you can count on JP leading us to the playoffs. No question in my mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwovince Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 I hope so Buckeye. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahnyc Posted March 20, 2005 Author Share Posted March 20, 2005 I am not sure how it is going to get better cap wise in the future. M. Williams, Moulds, Spikes and others will take up significant cap space in future years. In addition, Clements is a free agent next year and I can assure you that McGahee will want a new deal before his contract expires. If players like Losman, Evans and McGahee become stars, than of course we will have pressures in the near future to extend their contracts and pay the market rate for such players. Although this is a good problem, it will further complicate our cap situation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwovince Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Every team has this problem. But there is always ways around that. Im sure we will ose star players downt he road but they will be replaced by youngsters that will be stars. That is how the NFL works. We are not the only team with stars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
San-O Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Why are people always talking about how TD won't overpay for a player? No gm wants to overpay for a player, but DeMulling seemed reasonably priced based on the contract he signed with Detroit and what other free agents were getting. We are paying more than $3 million a year for Villarail and he is older (I think 32). Is he the better player? I don't know, but clearly we pay market for our players, including free agents, just like every other team. How much we are willing to pay in any given year depends on our need, the supply and demand for that position for that particular year and our salary cap situation. It seems this year it is not about overpaying, but about how much flexibility we have under the salary cap. Last year, we had more room and one could argue that we overpaid for Vincent and Villarail. Overall, I think TD has done a good job with free agent acquisitions. I am sure he would have loved to sign more free agents to fill holes this year, but our salary cap situation does not allow for that. 281380[/snapback] So we forget the Bills are overpaying MW, about $9 mil/year. So much for managing the cap. We are about up against in now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NavyBillsFan Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Its not that we wont pay for players, look at MW contract.... It TD's fight to show Pittsburgh that they were just so wrong for canning his butt. Its a fight thats been going on for 5 years now with NOTHING to show..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jahnyc Posted March 20, 2005 Author Share Posted March 20, 2005 I didn't forget about M. Williams when I wrote my post. Clearly, we are overpaying for the guy, particularly when Ogden, Pace and Jones are signing contracts that average about $7 million per year. The problem I have is that some posters are suggesting that Williams' contract was "slotted" and that is what would have been paid for any #4 pick in that draft. I would love to get confirmation of that by understanding what draft picks were paid around the same pick the year prior, the year of and the year after MW was picked. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Campy Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 But this is what I don't understand. We are up against the cap and we have not made the playoffs the last four years under TD. Does this make TD fiscally responsible? Will next year be any better? We are not significantly under the cap like the Eagles were and we have not been as successful on the field. 281393[/snapback] There are few people beyond Bills message boards who don't believe that TD has brought in a very good group of players. There were a couple of major needs, and he pursued and signed some of the best in the league in at their respective positions (Adams, TKO, Milloy). All that being said, the guys on the field are the people to blame for not making the playoffs. Fumbles, trips and stumbles, INTs, dropped balls, dumb holding penalties when we have a chance to put Jax away, et al, are the player's fault, not the GMs, aren't they? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 How much we are willing to pay in any given year depends on our need, the supply and demand for that position for that particular year and our salary cap situation. 281380[/snapback] You answer your own question with line above from your post. Need- Our OL need (particularly for vets) was severe (particularly at G) because of the cut of Ruben who was operating under a too generous Butler contract which made RB the only G in the top 10 OL cap hits. He made the overpayment for Brown at the time because we were desperate after Dusty had reneged on a verbal agreement with Butler to take a job with NYG which guranteed him a shot at center and we reversed field on Ruben after saying goodbye to him to test the market. Ruben actually played a key role for the Bills as he was the only OL player on the 2002 squad who had started as his position as a pro. However, the fact they even felt it was necessary to call out his boss (Kevin Killdrive) publicly when the mismanagement of the the players and the O got so bad. The huge overpayment had finally gotten to the point where the cap hit for cutting Brown was a wash and cutting a guy who had challenged the boss (even if RB was correct in the challenge) was a necessary thing to do. Overpaying Villarial was made necessary by the market as G salaries were in the process of going way up because teams were switching to bigger more aggressive DTs putting a premium on this position. In addition, the years of poor development of our huge investment in MW (who had to learn from Sullivan and Pucillo at RG) needed to be recitfied. In addition, Teague is a smart player, but JMac was not sold on him being the vet leader of the OL (and still isn't as best I can tell though he has more hope for Teague's leadership now it appears). The Bills made an overpayment to this long-term vet who seemed to be a good enough replacement as a player for RB, and who could put out investment in MW into the best position for it to work out. This year is a different situation and a different matket and comparing DeMulling's offer to Villarial's salary is an important indicator but it is way inconclusive to establishing what level of contract DeMulling is worth or should be offered. In fact, the largish contract given Villarial speaks against offering a largish contract to DeMulling as well since the largish contract given to Villarial means that we cannot have a winning budget for the team if we spend in an untoward way on the OL. I am of the mind that it all begins with the line play and at team should reasonably expect to spend way more than 1/51st (the number of salaries which count against the cap) of it's cap on OL players. In fact they should exoect to spend more than 1/22 of the money they allocate to starters on OL players. However, it you start with an average of the appx. $85 million cap across 51 players this is a cap hit of $1.66 million annually. Right now, the Bills have: 1. RT/MW at a $5.896 million hit 2. C/Teague at a 2.625 million hit 3. RG/Villarial at a 2.993 million hit above this level. Already this made it quite unlikely they would be able to sign Jennings if anyone (SF turned out to be the one to overpay him) offered him what fairly pedestrian LTs like Pettigout and Clifton had gottten. I doubted the Bills could spend much more than $4 million for Jennings and make any kind of reasonable winning budget for building the team. Given that I suspect the Bills will want to have the ability to spend for an LT (a $3 million hit if they can trade for Shelton, cap casualty releases which like Seattle's Terry do happen at LT), I doubted they would devote much to DeMulling unless his prescence allowed him to play C letting us move Teague to LT solving the budget problem for LT. The question is not simply what is DeMulling worth (I think he was the best player available on the FA market but not good enough for us to blow our budget on) but how does he fit into our plans for paying for and building an OL. DeMulling did not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fake-Fat Sunny Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 Why are people always talking about how TD won't overpay for a player? No gm wants to overpay for a player, but DeMulling seemed reasonably priced based on the contract he signed with Detroit and what other free agents were getting. We are paying more than $3 million a year for Villarail and he is older (I think 32). Is he the better player? I don't know, but clearly we pay market for our players, including free agents, just like every other team. How much we are willing to pay in any given year depends on our need, the supply and demand for that position for that particular year and our salary cap situation. It seems this year it is not about overpaying, but about how much flexibility we have under the salary cap. Last year, we had more room and one could argue that we overpaid for Vincent and Villarail. Overall, I think TD has done a good job with free agent acquisitions. I am sure he would have loved to sign more free agents to fill holes this year, but our salary cap situation does not allow for that. 281380[/snapback] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobblehead Posted March 20, 2005 Share Posted March 20, 2005 So much for managing the cap. We are about up against in now. 281418[/snapback] I have yet to see someone prove this here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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