The Salary Cap for the Bills Right Now

[Matt_In_NH]

6 minutes ago, Ya Digg? said:

This is what every GM does though, so it’s not as if Beane is doing something reckless that all GM’s aren’t doing. Not saying you in particular, but there’s a really odd obsession with what the cap will look like in 2-3 years around here. 

It is not every team...the Bills are one of the higher leveraged teams in the league.   But teams are at different points in their "cycles".  Poke around on Spotrac and you can see that.  I dont hate what the Bilsl have done as a whole but they need to be careful moving forward IMO while Allen is still around.

[MikePJ76]

13 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Indeed. Or they they might not want to use all of those restructures. It's hardly a requirement.

 

They usually seem to want to go into the season with $4 or $5M quickly available in case of injuries and such. But perhaps they just consider keeping a near-automatic re-structure or two in hand instead.

 

 

I would imagine they are going to do just that.  The way injuries happen in camp and then during the season you have to have around 5 million available.

 

It just seems like extremely poor planning to not have that much.

6 hours ago, atlbillsfan1975 said:

And Pegula only does that is he believes in his GM. 

The bills were/are also in a struggle to get a new facility built.  Owners are more than happy to spend and go along with the teams plans when it is going to net them a facility that will increase their wealth by the billions.  Once the stadium is built the teams value is going to skyrocket.  

 

 

[machine gun kelly]

15 hours ago, Mike in Horseheads said:

How in the world can the Jets have 24m of cap space after adding Rodgers

Because his cap is small for 23, but an absolute monster in 24.  It’s daunting as they’ll be in cap hell soon unless they get really creative with Rodgers as well as the team.  It’s already been discussed as nauseous on MTC by Pat and Jim on NFLR.

 

The bottom Line is if we want to seal the deal with Hopkins as well over power KC and Cincy potentially worth that add, but it domes with lots more restructures to signing bonuses to kick down the road with the speculation the cap goes up by about $25 mil. Next year and another $20 mil. The year after and will be well over $300 mil. by the end of the decade.

 

These are all gambles.  It’s also a gamble we accept the team as is and hope the evolutions of this team will produce better 11, 12, 21, and even 22 personnel options hit and can keep up with the teams I mentioned.

[Big Turk]

Most likely some players who get cut out of training camp will save some dollars on the cap with their younger, cheaper replacements

[Aussie Joe]

And what is the cap space… right now?

[ALLEN1QB]

So your saying Hopkins is a no?

[clearwater cadet]

19 hours ago, Doc Brown said:

I'm completely fine staying there as our roster is good enough right now to win a Super Bowl.  I don't want to kick the can down the road any more unless a premier RT becomes unexpectedly available.

I hear you, but I've been waiting 40 plus years for the Bills to win it all.  I've sat thru some pretty specular losses, at this point I would be anything to win it just once.  Life is short you have to live the hell out of it, tomorrow has to become today. 

[78thealltimegreat]

On 6/3/2023 at 1:34 AM, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Always? Just not true.

 

We see all the deals that go through. We don't see any of the deals where teams say, "Nope, can't do it," or "can't do it and stay in the kind of cap shape we want to maintain."

 

The one example we know of is the Saints and Clowney. The Saints tried to grab him and the NFL disallowed the gymnastics they found necessary to accomplish it. Because the Saints went public in trying to do it, we heard about it, whereas when teams can't do it you simply don't hear.

 

Pushing the cap can narrow your options and eventually, if you go far enough, force a rebuild before you otherwise would rather do that.

 

It can be pushed thoughtfully and carefully. This is how Beane seems to like to work. Pretty much every team kicks a few cans. Kick too many, though, and the road ahead of you gets constricted with them.

 

 

In two years Miller has no dead cap hit and so does Diggs. If you look at the current construction of this team they have a bunch major salaries rolling off the books with little to no dead cap hit in 2025. So basically Beane has given these guys a two year window to make the Super Bowl after that they are looking at being rebuilt which I think we all would agree is a fair amount of time to try to win with this bunch. 

[Drew21PA]

Wow 100 million on one guy

 

this is going to be fun to watch the jets ruin their franchise again 

[Captain_Quint]

On 6/3/2023 at 12:57 AM, Mike in Horseheads said:

Thanks Doc. The games people play

 

So basically, if they don't get it this year, it's a steep uphill climb with a 39 year old QB.

 

[Malazan]

17 minutes ago, Captain_Quint said:

So basically, if they don't get it this year, it's a steep uphill climb with a 39 year old QB.

 

Well, he'll be a year older then.. so 40

[Buffalo_Stampede]

14 hours ago, Aussie Joe said:

And what is the cap space… right now?

Depends. Could be around $8 million in space depending on how they structure Oliver’s deal.

[Doc]

That article didn't age well...

[Simon Says]

On 6/3/2023 at 1:03 AM, John from Riverside said:

There is a possibility that the bills don’t want to restructure anybody else this year

 

They might want to save some of those restructures for a future year

How do you "save" restructures? Once this year's season ends, that year of a players  contract is also done. You might be referring to players under long-term deals and, assuming there will be actove contracts that offer some benefit as possible restructure 

[Chaos]

3 hours ago, Herb Nightly said:

How do you "save" restructures? Once this year's season ends, that year of a players  contract is also done. You might be referring to players under long-term deals and, assuming there will be actove contracts that offer some benefit as possible restructure 

Prior to the Oliver signing the bills were 14 million over the 2024 cap.  Restructuring money out of 2023 has an impact in future years.  We saw the impact on the Rams last year.  Cap problems are an actual thing. 

[SCBills]

17 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Prior to the Oliver signing the bills were 14 million over the 2024 cap.  Restructuring money out of 2023 has an impact in future years.  We saw the impact on the Rams last year.  Cap problems are an actual thing. 

I cringe whenever people use the Rams as an example. 
 

I get the sentiment, but they are such an outlier and not, at all, emblematic of our FO approach. 

For one, they built around an aging QB who seems to, potentially, be breaking down physically. 
 

And two, not only did they hand out big contracts against the cap, they also traded away picks to do so.   Therefore, they didn’t have the ability to backfill with cheap rookie contracts.  
 

The Jets are taking the Rams QB approach, but they have a ton of talented rookie contract talent so that they aren’t destroyed by his contract.   It gets tricky for them, but manageable - especially given this is a 2 year run with Rodgers and then likely a cheaper QB or rookie again. 
 

The Dolphins are taking the picks for big contract talent approach .. but aren’t paying a QB yet, so, again it’s manageable.  
 

We’re up against the cap, but haven’t been trading away picks and - most importantly - have a QB just entering his prime. 

[Chaos]

3 minutes ago, SCBills said:

emblematic of our FO approach

based on the kick the can down the road actions taken so far, and if people expect oliver to instantly restructure to save another 7 mm of 2023 cap space, then you may have to modify your comment to read ...."Our FO's stated approach"

[billsfan89]

13 hours ago, Chaos said:

Prior to the Oliver signing the bills were 14 million over the 2024 cap.  Restructuring money out of 2023 has an impact in future years.  We saw the impact on the Rams last year.  Cap problems are an actual thing. 

 

The Saints start the season 100 million over the cap and somehow get by, in the NFL you can rob Peter to pay Paul for a long time. The Rams aren't the best example. Mainly because they not only went all in short-term cap-wise but also mortgaged their draft picks in acquiring their top-heavy roster. Von Miller, Jalen Ramsey, Stafford, Sammy Watkins, Brandin Cooks and others were all acquired with premium draft picks they also made smaller moves to trade away mid-round and late-round picks. 

 

It just wasn't the cap that caused the Rams to be in a bad spot. Had the Rams had some cost-controlled talent from those picks they traded away they likely could have had some shot at fielding a better team long term. 

[jaybills]

On 6/3/2023 at 6:45 AM, ProcessTruster said:

I hope so.  I have to believe Beane is done for this year.   This roster is better than last year's.  Time to go play some games.  

Unless they're going for Dhop still. Doesn't extending Oliver free up some cap space? Extend someone else, free up more, and pay Hop.

[Doc Brown]

1 hour ago, jaybills said:

Unless they're going for Dhop still. Doesn't extending Oliver free up some cap space? Extend someone else, free up more, and pay Hop.

They could do that and then draft a WR next year with their top two WR's over 30.  Gabe pry isn't getting an extension then and is a goner.  My gut based on the way Beane's operated in the past tells me whatever money they save from the Dareus extension this year gets set aside for any in season moves they may want to make.