The bleak cap situation going forward

[SCBills]

 

[VW82]

Is Diggs tradeable in any realistic and productive way?

 

Edit: we're not going anywhere next year anyway. We need a rebuild and a 2nd would help with that. I don't love his contract. 

 

Edit2: same question with Milano.

Edited December 1, 2023 by VW82

[MasterStrategist]

7 hours ago, Einstein said:

We were discussing this in the Von Miller thread, but thought maybe it wasn't wise to continue cluttering that thread with cap talk. 

We are currently $42 million over the cap for next season. That number assumes the NFL increases the salary cap increases, from the current cap of $224.8M to $243.9M (technically we are about $62 million over at the moment), plus rollover.



Getting under the cap

If we release Dion Dawkins, Tre White, Taron Johnson, Mitch Morse, Jordan Poyer, Deonte Harty, and Nyheim Hines, we can get down to almost $0 (-413,780) cap space.

Obviously this doesn't include restructures yet. But we can't just endlessly keep kicking the can down the road.

 

If we do NOT release one of those starters, you can add the following to our cap negative by this amount:

Keeping Dawkins: Add $4.8M to cap negative.
Keeping White: Add $6.2M to cap negative.
Keeping Taron: Add $7.7M to cap negative.
Keeping Morse: Add $8.5M to cap negative.
Keeping Poyer: Add $5.5M to cap negative.

Key players that will have to be re-signed or let walk 

Micah Hyde: Contract expires this offseason.
Daquan Jones: Contract expires this offseason.

Leonard Floyd: Contract expires this offseason.

Summary

 

We are $42M over the estimated 2024 cap, with Jones, Floyd and Hyde contract expiring. We will need a mixture of releasing starters, and re-structuring current deals, in order to get enough cap to draft players.

We are likely going to have to restructure Allen, and then replace a lot of starters with very little money.

.

So much analysis and drama, when all that's needed is:

1. Restructure: Allen, Diggs, Oliver

2. Cut: Poyer, Tre, Hyde, Morse

 

Potential: 

3. Restructure: Dion, Rasul (extend), and/or Knox (unlikely), Bates

4. Cut: Neal, Taron (50/50 chance), Hines, Harty

 

That gets us back into fairly decent cap position for 2024, continuing to kick the can, but not waste a prime Josh/Diggs year.

 

Then go into FA/draft focused on:

1. Wr2

2. DT: 1 tech (possible Daquan)

3. Safety: both SS and FS (seen Sean find Poyer/Hyde in 1 offseason...expect we go for 1 draft / 1 vet)

4. Nickle corner- depending on Taron, I'd think we don't reset 4 starters in 1 offseason tho

5. Depth: Then go find 1 year vet deals/young depth at ALOT of positions- top of order would be DE

 

I could see draft focused on WR, Safety, DL, OL/C.  Need Elam to "develop" into at least our 3rd boundary corner.

 

Gabe, AJE, others will walk.  Need to be very strict with new long-term deals.  Either said player is a proven/likely budding star, or we let them walk.  1 year cheap deals for depth, ie: Dane, Cam, etc is fine.  

 

2024 will be a "retooling" year on defense, but has potential to put our offense in a great position for success.  Hit on Wr2 and a younger compliment to Cook, this offense could take off.

[Einstein]

17 minutes ago, MasterStrategist said:

So much analysis and drama, when all that's needed is:

1. Restructure: Allen, Diggs, Oliver

2. Cut: Poyer, Tre, Hyde, Morse

 

Are you aware of how restructuring works? It’s not magic free money. Restructuring Diggs and Oliver makes little sense to me.

 

1) Diggs only has 3 years left on his contract after next season. Restructuring makes those last 3 years nearly impossible. We could free up $14M in cap space this off-season but then Diggs cap would be well over $30 million after that. His cap hit would be $31M in 2025, $32M in 2026 and $26M in 2027. Then what?  And he would be untradeable and impossible to cut (ever), since his dead cap would be more than $20M every single year going forward. I can almost guarantee the Bills don’t do this.

 

2) You said you want to restructure Oliver. Doing so would only save $1.6M. I guess we could do this, but it would be paltry.

 

Allen is the only reasonable restructure from the players you mentioned.

 

Quote

Cut: Poyer, Tre, Hyde, Morse

 

Potential: 

3. Restructure: Dion, Rasul (extend), and/or Knox (unlikely), Bates

4. Cut: Neal, Taron (50/50 chance), Hines, Harty

 

With this plan, we need at least 6 new starters.

 

SS, FS, C, NCB, DT, DE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, VW82 said:

Is Diggs tradeable in any realistic and productive way?

 

Edit: we're not going anywhere next year anyway. We need a rebuild and a 2nd would help with that. I don't love his contract. 

 

Edit2: same question with Milano.

 

Realistically, Diggs and Milano dead cap is too high ($20+M each).

[Thurman#1]

"Bleak" is overstating it.

 

But yeah, we'll be constricted.

 

Those expecting $20M - $25M signings are drinking the Kool-Aid.

[Big Turk]

9 hours ago, Einstein said:

We were discussing this in the Von Miller thread, but thought maybe it wasn't wise to continue cluttering that thread with cap talk. 

We are currently $42 million over the cap for next season. That number assumes the NFL increases the salary cap increases, from the current cap of $224.8M to $243.9M (technically we are about $62 million over at the moment), plus rollover.



Getting under the cap

If we release Dion Dawkins, Tre White, Taron Johnson, Mitch Morse, Jordan Poyer, Deonte Harty, and Nyheim Hines, we can get down to almost $0 (-413,780) cap space.

Obviously this doesn't include restructures yet. But we can't just endlessly keep kicking the can down the road.

 

If we do NOT release one of those starters, you can add the following to our cap negative by this amount:

Keeping Dawkins: Add $4.8M to cap negative.
Keeping White: Add $6.2M to cap negative.
Keeping Taron: Add $7.7M to cap negative.
Keeping Morse: Add $8.5M to cap negative.
Keeping Poyer: Add $5.5M to cap negative.

Key players that will have to be re-signed or let walk 

Micah Hyde: Contract expires this offseason.
Daquan Jones: Contract expires this offseason.

Leonard Floyd: Contract expires this offseason.

Summary

 

We are $42M over the estimated 2024 cap, with Jones, Floyd and Hyde contract expiring. We will need a mixture of releasing starters, and re-structuring current deals, in order to get enough cap to draft players.

We are likely going to have to restructure Allen, and then replace a lot of starters with very little money.

.

 

Guess its a good thing the cap isn't real.  

[Thurman#1]

5 hours ago, Xwnyer said:

Beane has managed the cap poorly 

 

 

On the contrary. He's done really really well. A few mistakes of course, as everyone does, but overall he's been smart and efficient with a QB on a really high second contract.

 

 

2 hours ago, VW82 said:

Is Diggs tradeable in any realistic and productive way?

 

Edit: we're not going anywhere next year anyway. We need a rebuild and a 2nd would help with that. I don't love his contract. 

 

Edit2: same question with Milano.

 

 

Way way way too early to say the Bills aren't going anywhere next year. Just about exactly one year too early. At this point next season, we'll know. Not much before.

 

We don't even know whether we make the playoffs this year, much less next.

 

And while nobody can know how deep the reload will cut, we can know with absolute certainty they aren't going to rebuild.

 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by Thurman#1

[juno999]

3 hours ago, SCBills said:

 

Per Thompsett, the more likely re-structures of Allen, Diggs, Oliver and couple others gets them to $45 Million under the cap.  If they do all the available moves, gets them to about $72 Million under.  So we're back to can McD get his crap together and close out a close game.

[FireChans]

Von Miller can be cut next year with a post 6/1 designation and save some money, no?

[MasterStrategist]

2 hours ago, Einstein said:

 

Are you aware of how restructuring works? It’s not magic free money. Restructuring Diggs and Oliver makes little sense to me.

 

1) Diggs only has 3 years left on his contract after next season. Restructuring makes those last 3 years nearly impossible. We could free up $14M in cap space this off-season but then Diggs cap would be well over $30 million after that. His cap hit would be $31M in 2025, $32M in 2026 and $26M in 2027. Then what?  And he would be untradeable and impossible to cut (ever), since his dead cap would be more than $20M every single year going forward. I can almost guarantee the Bills don’t do this.

 

2) You said you want to restructure Oliver. Doing so would only save $1.6M. I guess we could do this, but it would be paltry.

 

Allen is the only reasonable restructure from the players you mentioned.

 

 

With this plan, we need at least 6 new starters.

 

SS, FS, C, NCB, DT, DE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Realistically, Diggs and Milano dead cap is too high ($20+M each).

I guess we shall see, but Allen/Diggs are surefire restructures IMO.  Ed was added as an easy, afford another depth player.  Beane liked his $1.7m rentals, which is what Ed would create.

 

Needing 4-6 new starters, and likely 5-7 new primary/key backups, is the direction we are heading regardless.  Starters: WR2, SS, FS, C / Key backups: Slot WR, Safety, OL, DT-2x, DE-2x... Beane will likely look to bring back Daquan.  Then to the draft for filling a few backup roles (DT/DE, Safety/CB, OL) and starters (WR2, Safety, if we're lucky a C to compete).

 

Main point, we easily can make moves to get under the cap.  Difficult players to cut, but Beane had to realize that coming into the season (at least WRT Poyer/Hyde and Morse..Tre is unfortunate).  It's a re-load through the draft and hope to find 2-3 1 yr rental guys to fill roles.  Again, it's the vet/leadership that will need replaced which is the difficult part..but we have a strong core already

[Aussie Joe]

Not sure I would use the word “bleak”…

 

I expect them to compete again next year for the title …

 

[John from Riverside]

We’re gonna have to play some of our draft picks like Kansas City does

[GunnerBill]

15 hours ago, Einstein said:

We were discussing this in the Von Miller thread, but thought maybe it wasn't wise to continue cluttering that thread with cap talk. 

We are currently $42 million over the cap for next season. That number assumes the NFL increases the salary cap increases, from the current cap of $224.8M to $243.9M (technically we are about $62 million over at the moment), plus rollover.



Getting under the cap

If we release Dion Dawkins, Tre White, Taron Johnson, Mitch Morse, Jordan Poyer, Deonte Harty, and Nyheim Hines, we can get down to almost $0 (-413,780) cap space.

Obviously this doesn't include restructures yet. But we can't just endlessly keep kicking the can down the road.

 

If we do NOT release one of those starters, you can add the following to our cap negative by this amount:

Keeping Dawkins: Add $4.8M to cap negative.
Keeping White: Add $6.2M to cap negative.
Keeping Taron: Add $7.7M to cap negative.
Keeping Morse: Add $8.5M to cap negative.
Keeping Poyer: Add $5.5M to cap negative.

Key players that will have to be re-signed or let walk 

Micah Hyde: Contract expires this offseason.
Daquan Jones: Contract expires this offseason.

Leonard Floyd: Contract expires this offseason.

Summary

 

We are $42M over the estimated 2024 cap, with Jones, Floyd and Hyde contract expiring. We will need a mixture of releasing starters, and re-structuring current deals, in order to get enough cap to draft players.

We are likely going to have to restructure Allen, and then replace a lot of starters with very little money.

.

 

We restructure Josh every year. That is just what you do. Cap management 101 for teams with a paid QB in the NFL 2023. 

 

That gets you half your cash back basically. Then the easier cuts are Poyer (4m saved) Morse (8m saved), Harty (4m saved) and Hines (5m saved). That pretty much gets you to zero or darn close. 

 

Then you still have holes to fill, don't get me wrong, you would have zero starting level safeties you'd have a question mark at Center (though Bates is an option) and we are thin across the Dline... only Ed at DT, only Greg and Von of our top 5 DEs. So you do have to get to decisions on some tougher guys. I would say there is next to no chance Tre is back on his current deal. He either takes a cut or is gone. There are some other restructures you can do as well but it is a reset point for the roster.

 

It is one reason why I lean towards a new regime if the playoffs are missed. I think there is an opportunity to have a "take some pain" year in 2024, move on from Tre, Von (saves you nothing but he is done even before I get to off field allegations) and maybe even Diggs (trade not cut) among others and create some space to manouvre in 2025. 

[Airseven]

The next GM is going to love all these restructured contracts.

[BarleyNY]

Jack Duffin, a sports writer who does a lot of cap and contract analysis, put this together for Desean Watson’s contract. I would expect something similar with Allen’s:

 

 

3 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

We restructure Josh every year. That is just what you do. Cap management 101 for teams with a paid QB in the NFL 2023. 

 

That gets you half your cash back basically. Then the easier cuts are Poyer (4m saved) Morse (8m saved), Harty (4m saved) and Hines (5m saved). That pretty much gets you to zero or darn close. 

 

Then you still have holes to fill, don't get me wrong, you would have zero starting level safeties you'd have a question mark at Center (though Bates is an option) and we are thin across the Dline... only Ed at DT, only Greg and Von of our top 5 DEs. So you do have to get to decisions on some tougher guys. I would say there is next to no chance Tre is back on his current deal. He either takes a cut or is gone. There are some other restructures you can do as well but it is a reset point for the roster.

 

It is one reason why I lean towards a new regime if the playoffs are missed. I think there is an opportunity to have a "take some pain" year in 2024, move on from Tre, Von (saves you nothing but he is done even before I get to off field allegations) and maybe even Diggs (trade not cut) among others and create some space to manouvre in 2025. 

 

Edited December 1, 2023 by BarleyNY

[Einstein]

7 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

 

We restructure Josh every year.

 

That gets you half your cash back basically. Then the easier cuts are Poyer (4m saved) Morse (8m saved), Harty (4m saved) and Hines (5m saved). That pretty much gets you to zero or darn close. 

Yep, that's exactly right.

Cutting Poyer, Morse, Harty and HInes gets us to $-19,246,528.

Restructuring Allen to $1M base brings us to -$245,528.

Then with negative cap, you have to get a new starting SS and Center (or start a guy who is a backup on the current roster). Plus sign all your draft picks. Plus get free agents.

I'm guessing they will extend several players (like Dawkins, Douglas, etc) to give them some cap relief next year. But that, again, creates some cap space this year, while deflating next year. 

Problems for the future

Continuously restructuring Allen's contract creates issues going forward, because his contract is only 5 more years. He doesnt have a Mahomes 12 year contract to spread the restructured money out. 

Restructuring Allen this offseason will create the following cap hits going forward.
 

2025: Original: $56,556,281 + Additional $4,000,000 (prorated bonus) = New Cap Hit: $60,556,281

2026: Original: $52,256,281 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $56,256,281

2027: Original: $45,284,000 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $49,284,000

We are trading a $28M cap hit this year, for a $60M cap hit next year. The money never goes away - we just keep kicking it down the road and making his cap hit incredibly high later on.

 

.

Edited December 1, 2023 by Einstein

[FireChans]

2 minutes ago, Einstein said:

Yep, that's exactly right.

Cutting Poyer, Morse, Harty and HInes gets us to $-19,246,528.

Restructuring Allen to $1M base brings us to -$245,528.

Then with negative cap, you have to get a new starting SS and Center (or start a guy who is a backup on the current roster). Plus sign all your draft picks. Plus get free agents.

Problems for the future

Continuously restructuring Allen's contract creates issues going forward, because his contract is only 5 more years. He doesnt have a Mahomes 12 year contract to spread the restructured money out. 

Restructuring Allen this offseason will create the following cap hits going forward.
 

2025: Original: $56,556,281 + Additional $4,000,000 (prorated bonus) = New Cap Hit: $60,556,281

2026: Original: $52,256,281 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $56,256,281

2027: Original: $45,284,000 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $49,284,000

The money never goes away - we just keep kicking it down the road and making his cap hit incredibly high later on.

You extend/rework Josh near the end of his deal to smoothen out that cap hit again. It’s funny money but it works until he retires or we have to cut him. 

[GunnerBill]

11 minutes ago, Einstein said:

Yep, that's exactly right.

Cutting Poyer, Morse, Harty and HInes gets us to $-19,246,528.

Restructuring Allen to $1M base brings us to -$245,528.

Then with negative cap, you have to get a new starting SS and Center (or start a guy who is a backup on the current roster). Plus sign all your draft picks. Plus get free agents.

I'm guessing they will extend several players (like Dawkins, Douglas, etc) to give them some cap relief next year. But that, again, creates some cap space this year, while deflating next year. 

Problems for the future

Continuously restructuring Allen's contract creates issues going forward, because his contract is only 5 more years. He doesnt have a Mahomes 12 year contract to spread the restructured money out. 

Restructuring Allen this offseason will create the following cap hits going forward.
 

2025: Original: $56,556,281 + Additional $4,000,000 (prorated bonus) = New Cap Hit: $60,556,281

2026: Original: $52,256,281 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $56,256,281

2027: Original: $45,284,000 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $49,284,000

We are trading a $28M cap hit this year, for a $60M cap hit next year. The money never goes away - we just keep kicking it down the road and making his cap hit incredibly high later on.

 

 

But they won't ever let Josh play on a stupid hit. They will extend him and extend him and kick the can and kick the can. And take the pain the year he retires. Like the Saints did with Drew Bees.

[MJS]

Locked On Bills goes over next year's cap situation in the latest episode. Doing the easy, obvious restructures and moves gets the Bills to 20+ million in cap space. They can easily get more than that with other moves, including extensions and cuts.

 

The Bills are fine. Beane knows what he is doing.

 

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0MT1OvOBUBgbmk6J5iYA6D?si=hoRtIDpVSVyU1qrRTzUbeQ

Edited December 5, 2023 by MJS

[DCofNC]

On 11/30/2023 at 1:41 PM, May Day 10 said:

They need to have a terrific draft

Having 5 years of no real difference makers outside of Allen is exactly why they are in this situation.  Last draft LOOKS pretty promising, hopefully the next draft can net 3 new starters on the OL, a #1B WR, 2 DTs, a pass rusher, 2 starting safeties and a partridge in a pear tree so they can fix the cap and be good at the same time.