Is the Bills window smaller than thought?

[TheElectricCompany]

21 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

You misperceive what I'm saying.   I'm not saying the Bills will lowball Josh and try to force it down his throat.   I think Josh will volunteer the discount.   I'm guessing, and it's only a guess, that Josh already has bought the total team concept, and that Josh already understands the impact Brady had on his old team by taking $5 million (or more) less than he could have gotten elsewhere.  

 

Josh has surprised people throughout his career, and I think he's going to surprise people when the time comes to extend his contract.  

 

After what happened with Dak, I don't think any agent will have his young star QB give up salary voluntarily. When you have your opportunity to cash in, you take it. "Not For Long", right? 

 

There are tons of "total team concept" guys who get market setting contracts.  It's not like QBs like Mahomes, Watson or Wilson are selfish, nor are great players like Aaron Donald, Khalil Mack or Joey Bosa. 

 

When Josh does resign, barring a severe regression in play, it will age extremely well. His contract will look like a steal in 2-3 years. 

 

Edited November 9, 2020 by TheElectricCompany

[Shaw66]

1 minute ago, TheElectricCompany said:

 

After what happened with Dak, I don't think any agent will have his young star QB give up salary voluntarily. When you have your opportunity to cash in, you take it. "Not For Long", right? 

 

There are tons of "total team concept" guys who get massive contracts It's not like QBs like Mahomes, Watson or Wilson are selfish, nor are great players like Aaron Donald, Khalil Mack or Joey Bosa. 

 

When Josh does resign, barring a severe regression in play, it will age extremely well. His contract will look like a steal in 2-3 years. 

 

I'm thinking Josh might take a longer-than-usual contract, guaranteed.   I don't know if dead cap money is roughly equivalent to guaranteed money, but I think it is.  Mahomes looks like he has $160 of dead cap money.  I could imagine Allen taking $5-10 million less in annual salary, $25-35 per year, but getting a 10-year guaranty.  That would be a $300 million guaranteed deal.   

 

I'm telling you, don't expect Allen's agent to drive this deal.  Allen is a different dude.  

[NoSaint]

1 hour ago, matter2003 said:

No team with a QB making more than $20 million has ever won a SB...

 

If you look back that is true...QBs taking up huge chunks of the cap hurt the teams ability to get talent at other positions...

 

Ultimately they will make lots of championship games and might make it to the SB and lose but it seems the window of opportunity is to find a great QB and win on their rookie contract...

 

Eventually this will not be true because there are simply too many very good young QBs in the league that will be getting paid but I found this pretty interesting and how teams with long time great QBs don't win championships after paying them big money.

once you are in the super bowl it’s not like the qb pay makes it suddenly impossible to win.

 

that said, I keep banging the drum that it’ll never be easier for them than it is now and I’d put everything on the table. 

[corta765]

In general I hate how we view windows for sports teams now. So much of sports is designed now that once you are ascending you will have a ton of hurdles to bring you back down and even the playing field. In football the only two ways to really keep your window open are 1. top QB and 2. crazy good head coach. The amount of those are pretty limited and even if you have Rodgers you need some lucky and things to go well to make SBs. I swore when GB won their first SB with Rodgers he would get at least 1 more and another appearance. Instead he has zero despite getting really close, same with Drew Brees. 

 

Salary will not be the barrier it has in the past as the league keeps prioritizing offense and passing as your best chance to win. But if you do pay your QB you better hope you know he is the dude for the next decade otherwise your toast. "Cue the Indiana Jones reference of the old dude saying "you chose poorly" to the Bears mgmt and Mitch T with Mahomes & Watson standing next to them watching them dissolve"

[Rigotz]

The "$20 Million" thing is really ridiculous and misleading. $20 Million is 10% of the current cap. 

10 years ago the salary cap was $120 Million. 10% of that is $12M.

20 years ago the salary cap was $60 Million. 10% of that is $6M.

 

Peyton Manning made $15M in 2015. He won the super bowl. The cap was $143M that year.

Do the math.

 

The only reason your skewed statistic is even close to correct is that Tom Brady won so many times and he had a team friendly contract.

Can we close this thread? 

[TheElectricCompany]

36 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I'm thinking Josh might take a longer-than-usual contract, guaranteed.   I don't know if dead cap money is roughly equivalent to guaranteed money, but I think it is.  Mahomes looks like he has $160 of dead cap money.  I could imagine Allen taking $5-10 million less in annual salary, $25-35 per year, but getting a 10-year guaranty.  That would be a $300 million guaranteed deal.   

 

I'm telling you, don't expect Allen's agent to drive this deal.  Allen is a different dude.  

 

Mahomes deal was very unique with a rolling guarantee schedule, and we should look at it as a strange outlier.  His current guarantees are $141M.  The other big QB deals are Watson (4 years @ $177M, $111M Guaranteed) and Wilson's the year prior (4 years @ $140M, $111M Guaranteed). Salaries continue to rise, but hundreds of millions in guarantees aren't happening yet.

 

The Bills don't have to anything cute here, and neither does Josh. His agent can walk into Beane's office in February (after a SB win of course) and ask for 5 years @ $200M, $135M Guaranteed and be completely reasonable.

 

I don't know Allen personally, and I don't think you do either. Let's not assume we know anything about his psyche. Athlete personas are a very strange thing. He might be humble, team first and wise beyond his years, but that doesn't mean he's going to sign a below market deal. The NFL is not a charity, let's not treat it as such. Players don't tag #helptheteam, it's #getthebag for a reason!

Edited November 9, 2020 by TheElectricCompany

[djp14150]

2 hours ago, matter2003 said:

No team with a QB making more than $20 million has ever won a SB...

 

If you look back that is true...QBs taking up huge chunks of the cap hurt the teams ability to get talent at other positions...

 

Ultimately they will make lots of championship games and might make it to the SB and lose but it seems the window of opportunity is to find a great QB and win on their rookie contract...

 

Eventually this will not be true because there are simply too many very good young QBs in the league that will be getting paid but I found this pretty interesting and how teams with long time great QBs don't win championships after paying them big money.

 

The team has a short window thu next season before they need to retool.

 

you hope Davis and a few other prospect receivers move up and the team drops some veterans.

 

with some players they need to do a salary restructure.

 

then you might take a step back for 2-2 yrs before going at it again for about a 3 yr period.

[Shaw66]

13 minutes ago, TheElectricCompany said:

 

I don't know Allen personally, and I don't think you do either. Let's not assume we know anything about his psyche. Athlete personas are a very strange thing. He might be humble, team first and wise beyond his years, but that doesn't mean he's going to sign a below market deal. The NFL is not a charity, let's not treat it as such. Players don't tag #helptheteam, it's #getthebag for a reason!

I can speculate all I want about his psyche.   Players sign below-market deals - that's a fact.   Brady took historically below-market deals for years - that's a fact.   I'm just saying I won't be surprised if Allen surprises the market.  

[TheElectricCompany]

7 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I can speculate all I want about his psyche.   Players sign below-market deals - that's a fact.   Brady took historically below-market deals for years - that's a fact.   I'm just saying I won't be surprised if Allen surprises the market.  

 

Brady also had multiple Super Bowl rings when he did, and I don't recall him doing that at 25.

The second contract is critical and your best time to earn big. I can't think of any recent QBs who took below market rates at that point in their career.

 

[Ralonzo]

2 hours ago, Jobot said:

This salary argument is flawed for two reasons..

 

1- Brady

2- The salary cap continues to increase year over year... so it's foolish to look at it like this.

 

If you're truly worried, you do what KC did with the Mahommes contract.

 

Brady is a bad example because he had all sorts of shady side-income deals with Kraft to get around the cap because of course they're gonna cheat.

 

Edit: Before this gets flagged as fake news https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/report-patriots-pay-a-brady-owned-company-run-by-suspect-partner/

Edited November 9, 2020 by Ralonzo

[TheCockSportif]

To the OP: inflation.  You are normally very insightful, but this time around I think that you are overthinking this one.

[Alphadawg7]

3 hours ago, matter2003 said:

No team with a QB making more than $20 million has ever won a SB...

 

If you look back that is true...QBs taking up huge chunks of the cap hurt the teams ability to get talent at other positions...

 

Ultimately they will make lots of championship games and might make it to the SB and lose but it seems the window of opportunity is to find a great QB and win on their rookie contract...

 

Eventually this will not be true because there are simply too many very good young QBs in the league that will be getting paid but I found this pretty interesting and how teams with long time great QBs don't win championships after paying them big money.

 

No disrespect, but this is wrong.  The $20M mark is irrelevant in the first place, but I mean just going back 2 years to Tom Brady, he had a cap hit over $20M that SB victory, so its not accurate either to say no one over $20M has won it.  The case you are really trying to make is a cap chocking contract by a top paid QB.  But that is not accurate either.

 

Steve Young has the record as his contract ate up 13.1% of his teams cap in 1994 when he led the Niners to the SB.  Guys like Manning, Farve, etc all also won the SB while being among the highest, if not the highest, paid at their position too.  

 

I don't disagree with the point that winning a SB once you have already paid a QB as one of the top 3 paid players in the league makes winning a SB much harder moving forward due to the cap restrictions of that contract.  Means your team needs to be excellent at drafting and replenishing talent through the draft on cheaper rookie deals because you wont be able to afford both buying them in FA and resigning your own.  

 

Chiefs for example are a team that will be a major contender, and likely favorite, this year and next couple.  But at some point, if Chiefs dont consistently hit on their draft picks the next few years, Mahommes could become Aaron Rodgers where he always plays excellent himself but his team roster is always just missing just enough to keep them from getting more SB births and titles.  

 

 

2 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

That's rather misleading as likely could also say something like ""No QB before 2015ish ever made $20 million.  So a rather small window to look at.

 

Am a bit surprised Brady wasn't making $20 mil, but that's part of the reason he's no longer in NE too.

 

Brady was making $22M in his last year they won the SB.

[billsfan89]

We will see where the cap lands in 2021, but if the cap is 175 million and no rollback then the Bills will be just under with a few cuts they could make to the roster and a few contracts they could restructure.

 

But the window to win is in 2020-22 Josh's rookie deal. Worry about the rest later. 

[Hebert19]

Should merge this with the thread about spending on a QB from a week or so ago.  

 

In spite of some of the answers here you are right. Outside of mahomes paying 35 to 40M for a QB is detrimental to your teams success.  Patriots had Brady taking home town discount so they kept a dynasty going...but if you look at the mistakes like paying Cousins Stafford Ryan etc it hasn't worked out so well.  

 

If you pay a QB...he better be top 3 in league. Josh may be just that when it is time for him to get paid. Having said that we can always hope we are able to get him cheaper than market by him getting more side endorsements. 

27 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

No disrespect, but this is wrong.  The $20M mark is irrelevant in the first place, but I mean just going back 2 years to Tom Brady, he had a cap hit over $20M that SB victory, so its not accurate either to say no one over $20M has won it.  The case you are really trying to make is a cap chocking contract by a top paid QB.  But that is not accurate either.

 

Steve Young has the record as his contract ate up 13.1% of his teams cap in 1994 when he led the Niners to the SB.  Guys like Manning, Farve, etc all also won the SB while being among the highest, if not the highest, paid at their position too.  

 

I don't disagree with the point that winning a SB once you have already paid a QB as one of the top 3 paid players in the league makes winning a SB much harder moving forward due to the cap restrictions of that contract.  Means your team needs to be excellent at drafting and replenishing talent through the draft on cheaper rookie deals because you wont be able to afford both buying them in FA and resigning your own.  

 

Chiefs for example are a team that will be a major contender, and likely favorite, this year and next couple.  But at some point, if Chiefs dont consistently hit on their draft picks the next few years, Mahommes could become Aaron Rodgers where he always plays excellent himself but his team roster is always just missing just enough to keep them from getting more SB births and titles.  

 

 

 

Brady was making $22M in his last year they won the SB.

Still 10M under market.  So point is still the same. 

[machine gun kelly]

3 hours ago, Shaw66 said:

I've said for a year that I think Josh will give the Bills a discount.   Josh is smart and a team guy, and he recognizes the impact of the mega-deals on the ability of the GM to put together a winner.  I

 

I think Josh will leave money on the table. 

I agree Shaw.  KC did it right as on paper from people that don’t understand the cap just see the $450 mil. for Mahomes, but Mahomes doesn’t even make what Russel Wilson makes now until year 8.  No one does a 10 year deal.  He’s projected to be the 14th highest QB in five years or so.  After next year with the Covid cap, it will go back up and by a lot given additional tv contracts.

 

Mahomes won, and so did KC.

[GunnerBill]

3 hours ago, Bangarang said:

Right. In 2016, Manning’s salary was 13% of the Broncos salary.

 

And he sucked. This idea that there are only 1 or 2 QBs you can pay and win with is nonsense.

[mjt328]

I believe the first $20 million QB only came around 5-7 years ago.  

 

Amidst that time period, we've had a handful of New England wins... while Tom Brady was giving them a massive discount.  So the recent "trend" has only really applied to Patrick Mahomes (win), Jared Goff (loss) and Carson Wentz (won from the bench).  Not really a big sample.

 

Looking at the current Super Bowl favorites, there is very high chance this trend is broken this year.  

[GunnerBill]

39 minutes ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

No disrespect, but this is wrong.  The $20M mark is irrelevant in the first place, but I mean just going back 2 years to Tom Brady, he had a cap hit over $20M that SB victory, so its not accurate either to say no one over $20M has won it.  The case you are really trying to make is a cap chocking contract by a top paid QB.  But that is not accurate either.

 

Steve Young has the record as his contract ate up 13.1% of his teams cap in 1994 when he led the Niners to the SB.  Guys like Manning, Farve, etc all also won the SB while being among the highest, if not the highest, paid at their position too.  

 

I don't disagree with the point that winning a SB once you have already paid a QB as one of the top 3 paid players in the league makes winning a SB much harder moving forward due to the cap restrictions of that contract.  Means your team needs to be excellent at drafting and replenishing talent through the draft on cheaper rookie deals because you wont be able to afford both buying them in FA and resigning your own.  

 

Chiefs for example are a team that will be a major contender, and likely favorite, this year and next couple.  But at some point, if Chiefs dont consistently hit on their draft picks the next few years, Mahommes could become Aaron Rodgers where he always plays excellent himself but his team roster is always just missing just enough to keep them from getting more SB births and titles.  

 

 

 

Brady was making $22M in his last year they won the SB.

 

Had Green Bay had competent coaching they'd have won more than 1 Superbowl even with some pretty average drafting. 

[SlimShady'sSpaceForce]

3 hours ago, HOUSE said:

I am so confused...

Ditto.  
 

another LAMP IMO

 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

1 hour ago, Alphadawg7 said:

 

No disrespect, but this is wrong.  The $20M mark is irrelevant in the first place, but I mean just going back 2 years to Tom Brady, he had a cap hit over $20M that SB victory, so its not accurate either to say no one over $20M has won it.  The case you are really trying to make is a cap chocking contract by a top paid QB.  But that is not accurate either.

 

Steve Young has the record as his contract ate up 13.1% of his teams cap in 1994 when he led the Niners to the SB.  Guys like Manning, Farve, etc all also won the SB while being among the highest, if not the highest, paid at their position too.  

 

I don't disagree with the point that winning a SB once you have already paid a QB as one of the top 3 paid players in the league makes winning a SB much harder moving forward due to the cap restrictions of that contract.  Means your team needs to be excellent at drafting and replenishing talent through the draft on cheaper rookie deals because you wont be able to afford both buying them in FA and resigning your own.  

 

Chiefs for example are a team that will be a major contender, and likely favorite, this year and next couple.  But at some point, if Chiefs dont consistently hit on their draft picks the next few years, Mahommes could become Aaron Rodgers where he always plays excellent himself but his team roster is always just missing just enough to keep them from getting more SB births and titles.  

 

 

Don't disagree with anything you stated, but would add to it where the problem becomes a huge issue to the point the team can't win, it's not due to giving Brady, Manning, or a Mahommes a huge contract.   It's giving huge or close to huge contracts to someone like a Tyrod Taylor or a Tannerhill (though not looking so bad now in Tenn) who is a good QB, but not a superstar that can carry the team on his back.  Then you quickly get yourself in trouble.