Salary cap question, Leonard Floyd’s dead cap

[hondo in seattle]

5 minutes ago, Mark Vader said:

They can make contract extensions, and get pay cuts from other players as well.

 

Restructuring contracts is not their only option.

 

You're right, of course.  I shouldn't have said, "only by restructuring some contracts." 

 

Though Beane will almost certainly restructure some contracts to give himself some cap space.  While I understand the necessity of it sometimes, I hate restructuring contracts because I don't want a cash-strapped future. 

 

I'm hoping he gets a couple of guys to take pay cuts.   

[DCofNC]

10 hours ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:

You don't know how the NFL works. I'm not trying to be mean but contracts just don't work that way in the NFL. Very few have large amounts of guaranteed money. So players agree to huge signing bonuses to get the most money up front. Teams add years to lessen the cap hit in the present. These dead cap hits only get worse if you cut the player early. 

And it's interesting the only player you didn't list who actually can and should be cut, but actually makes sense for both parties to agree to a paycut is White.

I understand the cap and the rules very well, White is already gone in my mind.  You don’t understand, I am saying, blow it up, eat ***** this year, and deal with it. Then you go into next year with a large amount of salary cap to work with.  This team as it is, with the cap that’s left after kicking the can down the road again, is t good enough to win a Superbowl and to me, there’s no point in another year of an early playoff exit.  
 

I don’t want to be good, I want to be great.  Greatness takes sacrifice and admitting you have a problem.   Remember year one of Beane?  He trimmed the fat off roster.  The problem is, he turned around and added a lot of fat because they continued to miss in the draft.  To make up for bad drafting, they had to pay veterans.  Now you have one of the oldest rosters in the NFL and no way out without suffering.   So clean it up, deal with it for a year and move on.  The defense is a disaster after spending years trying to be a great defense.  

 

They have one good player on the entire DL that they drafted.  The best hope is to sign a 33 yr old DT and pray he stays healthy to keep the run game in check.  There is not one impact DE on the roster, the LB core is ok when Milano is back, the S position is a gapping hole, CB is weak and expensive.  What are you trying to save?  Dump White, Miller, Floyd’s gone, AJE will be priced out, Jones is 83 by NFL standards, you have the least athletic CBs of any contending team.  The only saving grace is LB and that’s assuming they can stay healthy.   This is the year to eat it and start over. 

 

The offense needs a talent infusion as well, but at least Kincaid looks good, Knox is over paid for his production, Diggs has fallen flat the back half of the last two years, I’m not excited about paying that guy so much either, so move him for whatever you can get, and you are really no worse off in the short term, and have room to breath long term.

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

I don't care whose tie dyed hats he wears.  Bring him back.

Edited February 20 by Ridgewaycynic2013

[SCBills]

12 minutes ago, DCofNC said:

I understand the cap and the rules very well, White is already gone in my mind.  You don’t understand, I am saying, blow it up, eat ***** this year, and deal with it. Then you go into next year with a large amount of salary cap to work with.  This team as it is, with the cap that’s left after kicking the can down the road again, is t good enough to win a Superbowl and to me, there’s no point in another year of an early playoff exit.  
 

I don’t want to be good, I want to be great.  Greatness takes sacrifice and admitting you have a problem.   Remember year one of Beane?  He trimmed the fat off roster.  The problem is, he turned around and added a lot of fat because they continued to miss in the draft.  To make up for bad drafting, they had to pay veterans.  Now you have one of the oldest rosters in the NFL and no way out without suffering.   So clean it up, deal with it for a year and move on.  The defense is a disaster after spending years trying to be a great defense.  

 

They have one good player on the entire DL that they drafted.  The best hope is to sign a 33 yr old DT and pray he stays healthy to keep the run game in check.  There is not one impact DE on the roster, the LB core is ok when Milano is back, the S position is a gapping hole, CB is weak and expensive.  What are you trying to save?  Dump White, Miller, Floyd’s gone, AJE will be priced out, Jones is 83 by NFL standards, you have the least athletic CBs of any contending team.  The only saving grace is LB and that’s assuming they can stay healthy.   This is the year to eat it and start over. 

 

The offense needs a talent infusion as well, but at least Kincaid looks good, Knox is over paid for his production, Diggs has fallen flat the back half of the last two years, I’m not excited about paying that guy so much either, so move him for whatever you can get, and you are really no worse off in the short term, and have room to breath long term.

 

I somewhat agree with blowing it up, but disagree about a reset year.. it's malpractice to do that in a prime year of someone like Josh Allen. 

 

The Offense comes back largely in tact.  We can easily bring back David Edwards as OL6 and Ty Johnson as RB2, and then we're essentially the same exact Offense as last year, but with the ability to upgrade in the passing game, even if Diggs takes a step back.  Shakir Year 3, Kincaid Year 2, Cook Year 2 as feature back, Year 2 of Brady and the ability to draft 1 or 2 WR's in the top half of the draft to improve on Gabe Davis and Co.

 

The Offense could be the best it's been since we drafted Josh Allen.

 

Now the Defense on the other hand.. that's where we need a KC '22 like draft to get younger and pray that Von Miller is back to 80-85% of what he was pre-injury.  

 

Will our Front Office take that risk or are they going to kick the can to keep paying out a bunch of moderately expensive vet contracts on that side of the ball? 

[DCofNC]

31 minutes ago, SCBills said:

 

I somewhat agree with blowing it up, but disagree about a reset year.. it's malpractice to do that in a prime year of someone like Josh Allen. 

 

The Offense comes back largely in tact.  We can easily bring back David Edwards as OL6 and Ty Johnson as RB2, and then we're essentially the same exact Offense as last year, but with the ability to upgrade in the passing game, even if Diggs takes a step back.  Shakir Year 3, Kincaid Year 2, Cook Year 2 as feature back, Year 2 of Brady and the ability to draft 1 or 2 WR's in the top half of the draft to improve on Gabe Davis and Co.

 

The Offense could be the best it's been since we drafted Josh Allen.

 

Now the Defense on the other hand.. that's where we need a KC '22 like draft to get younger and pray that Von Miller is back to 80-85% of what he was pre-injury.  

 

Will our Front Office take that risk or are they going to kick the can to keep paying out a bunch of moderately expensive vet contracts on that side of the ball? 

This is where I disagree, stop hoping JA can carry you to a title.  He’s proven he needs help.  I’m not sure how many more years he can play like a mad man, trying to hide the flaws, but it’s time to take a year and say, “ if you can go full Mahomes and win in a rebuild year, good for you, but no expectations”.  Continuing to add condiments to a turd sandwich won’t make you a 5 star meal, you need to throw it out and start with fresh ingredients.

[SCBills]

3 minutes ago, DCofNC said:

This is where I disagree, stop hoping JA can carry you to a title.  He’s proven he needs help.  I’m not sure how many more years he can play like a mad man, trying to hide the flaws, but it’s time to take a year and say, “ if you can go full Mahomes and win in a rebuild year, good for you, but no expectations”.  Continuing to add condiments to a turd sandwich won’t make you a 5 star meal, you need to throw it out and start with fresh ingredients.

 

What do you disagree with?

 

I just advocated for signing vet minimum/cheap players, drafting two WR's in the first 4 rounds to replace Gabe, Harty, Sherfield and then spending the rest of the draft on defense to fill in around Von, Rousseau, Oliver, Jonathan, Milano, Bernard, Williams, Spector, Johnson, Douglas, Benford, Elam and Poyer.

 

Moving off Diggs and Von doesn't seem feasible this year, Knox we can move after this year, so our options to truly blow it up this season are cutting White (I'm ok with that), Morse, Poyer and Douglas.  

[DCofNC]

8 minutes ago, SCBills said:

 

What do you disagree with?

 

I just advocated for signing vet minimum/cheap players, drafting two WR's in the first 4 rounds to replace Gabe, Harty, Sherfield and then spending the rest of the draft on defense to fill in around Von, Rousseau, Oliver, Jonathan, Milano, Bernard, Williams, Spector, Johnson, Douglas, Benford, Elam and Poyer.

 

Moving off Diggs and Von doesn't seem feasible this year, Knox we can move after this year, so our options to truly blow it up this season are cutting White (I'm ok with that), Morse, Poyer and Douglas.  

I’m saying, eat it this year.  Eat the dead cap, cut the fat and rely on rookies/coaches to make a difference.  Diggs and Miller CAN both go, it’s going to hurt.  I’d take it for one year vs another year of nothing and no advancement towards a title. 

[ColoradoBills]

9 hours ago, hondo in seattle said:

 

I think cash-to-cap is an intriguing idea though transitioning to it would be painful.

 

Yeah, most teams restructure contracts.  Most teams are NOT sitting $55 million over the cap (using the OTC figure) and forced to restructure just to get under the cap even with 22 FAs no longer under contract.  

The Chief, in contrast, won a SB and are $15 million under the cap.  They have the 2nd least dead money ($457,000) in the league because they don't continually kick the can down the road.   

 

How do we catch up to their roster strength when they have $70 million more to spend?  

 

KC has done a good job with the cap but don't let these current numbers hide what is in front of them.

They have some big $ guys on UFA right now.  Jones, Sneed, Danna and Gay to name a few.

If those guys were under contract the numbers would be drastically different.

 

KC did a mini-reset the year they let Hill go and got in a good cap situation while still dressing a good team.

I'm in the group thinking the Bills need to reset this year.  

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

19 hours ago, Virgil said:

I don’t get this.  Didn’t he sign a one year deal?  How is there a cap hit this year?

 

Void years.  you can lessen the cap blow by basically spreading base salary as void years into the future.  They all trigger the next season though. 

2 minutes ago, ColoradoBills said:

 

KC has done a good job with the cap but don't let these current numbers hide what is in front of them.

They have some big $ guys on UFA right now.  Jones, Sneed, Danna and Gay to name a few.

If those guys were under contract the numbers would be drastically different.

 

KC did a mini-reset the year they let Hill go and got in a good cap situation while still dressing a good team.

I'm in the group thinking the Bills need to reset this year.  

 

Yep - they had a tremendous draft that year - but they had been stashing a lot of talent over the last few drafts.  

 

Even whiffing on CEH in 2020 - they still nailed gay, snead, danna.  

 

Assume Chenal replaces gay.  They also drafted an end at 31 in 2023 who can potentially replace danna.  This would allow them to pay sneed and Jones.  

[Matt_In_NH]

3 minutes ago, Bleeding Bills Blue said:

 

Void years.  you can lessen the cap blow by basically spreading base salary as void years into the future.  They all trigger the next season though. 

Also, this was sparsely used before covid.  People think the Saints did some magic and proved the cap does not exist.  However look at their page and look at all the void money they have in future years.  They ran that team like idiots and never got anything for it after their one and only SB.  You dont have to spend like a drunken sailer to win the SB.

[Bleeding Bills Blue]

27 minutes ago, SCBills said:

 

What do you disagree with?

 

I just advocated for signing vet minimum/cheap players, drafting two WR's in the first 4 rounds to replace Gabe, Harty, Sherfield and then spending the rest of the draft on defense to fill in around Von, Rousseau, Oliver, Jonathan, Milano, Bernard, Williams, Spector, Johnson, Douglas, Benford, Elam and Poyer.

 

Moving off Diggs and Von doesn't seem feasible this year, Knox we can move after this year, so our options to truly blow it up this season are cutting White (I'm ok with that), Morse, Poyer and Douglas.  

 

White cannot play under the contract he has right now - so he's either cut or taking a pretty substantial paycut and loosening guarantees.  

 

I wouldn't cut douglas as he was one of our best players down the stretch, and the base salary number is reasonable.  He'd also have a pretty solid trade value still.  

 

Morse, if we drafted someone at C in the last couple of years maybe.  I know bates is prepared to step in, but I'm not sure how i feel on depth.

 

Poyer's cap hit is 7.7 and you get 5.7 in savings.  Seems like a lot, but then you have to replace him and its basically the same.  Depends how FA pans out here, but it probably eases the transition to keep one of Poyer/Hyde.  Most especially since the defensive line is in such a massive state of flux. 

1 minute ago, Matt_In_NH said:

Also, this was sparsely used before covid.  People think the Saints did some magic and proved the cap does not exist.  However look at their page and look at all the void money they have in future years.  They ran that team like idiots and never got anything for it after their one and only SB.  You dont have to spend like a drunken sailer to win the SB.

 

Correct - they kept a flawed core together to try and win as much with brees.  But for whatever reason they've continued doing all of that without the winning formula.  Most of the players who have them are solid players.  But they have guys with high cap hits who are either old or injured or both, and they have no way of getting any cap savings by releasing them.  

 

Rams did it and went to one and won another.  So its not necessarily a bad strategy, just have to be careful who you extend or you'll end up having to dump good players when you cant afford to extend them.  

[Beck Water]

20 hours ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

Leonard Floyd’s contract voids today. Costing us $4.3 in dead cap space for 2024.

 

If we re-sign him later does that erase the dead cap?

 

 

 

No, as far as I’m aware the void years stay void even if we re-sign him to a new contract, so the dead money stays dead.

[jlgarsh]

LOL at the Bills having 5 players on the list. Oh well

[BarleyNY]

2 hours ago, DCofNC said:

I understand the cap and the rules very well, White is already gone in my mind.  You don’t understand, I am saying, blow it up, eat ***** this year, and deal with it. Then you go into next year with a large amount of salary cap to work with.  This team as it is, with the cap that’s left after kicking the can down the road again, is t good enough to win a Superbowl and to me, there’s no point in another year of an early playoff exit.  
 

I don’t want to be good, I want to be great.  Greatness takes sacrifice and admitting you have a problem.   Remember year one of Beane?  He trimmed the fat off roster.  The problem is, he turned around and added a lot of fat because they continued to miss in the draft.  To make up for bad drafting, they had to pay veterans.  Now you have one of the oldest rosters in the NFL and no way out without suffering.   So clean it up, deal with it for a year and move on.  The defense is a disaster after spending years trying to be a great defense.  

 

They have one good player on the entire DL that they drafted.  The best hope is to sign a 33 yr old DT and pray he stays healthy to keep the run game in check.  There is not one impact DE on the roster, the LB core is ok when Milano is back, the S position is a gapping hole, CB is weak and expensive.  What are you trying to save?  Dump White, Miller, Floyd’s gone, AJE will be priced out, Jones is 83 by NFL standards, you have the least athletic CBs of any contending team.  The only saving grace is LB and that’s assuming they can stay healthy.   This is the year to eat it and start over. 

 

The offense needs a talent infusion as well, but at least Kincaid looks good, Knox is over paid for his production, Diggs has fallen flat the back half of the last two years, I’m not excited about paying that guy so much either, so move him for whatever you can get, and you are really no worse off in the short term, and have room to breath long term.

 

For two years now I’ve said that the target for a roster reset of expensive vets was next off-season, give or take one season due to circumstances. It’s a matter of how those contracts are structured and how old the players are. I think the Von Miller and Tre White injuries should move it up to this off-season, but I don’t know if they will do it. I’ve no idea how warm McDermott and/or bean think their seats are - and I stress that their  perceptions of this are far more important than the reality. How they proceed will tell us a lot. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

25 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

No, as far as I’m aware the void years stay void even if we re-sign him to a new contract, so the dead money stays dead.

Yeah I get it now. It was just a cap manipulation. Instead of taking on his cap for 1 year they spread it out. He was less than $3 million cap last year.

 

Technically they can do the same thing this year.

Edited February 20 by Buffalo_Stampede

[Beast]

Floyd did nothing for the Bills down the stretch.

 

Time to move on.

[Beck Water]

Just now, jlgarsh said:

LOL at the Bills having 5 players on the list. Oh well

 

Yeah, before/when Beane and McDermott arrived local Buffalo press (Tim Graham etc) pretty much threw Whaley “under the bus” for how few drafted players were still on the Bills team and Beane threw the previous admin under the bus for the cap and FA situation.

 

Well, many of the players Whaley drafted and the Bills moved on from (Stephon Gilmore, Ronald Darby, Robert Woods, Marquise Goodwin, Shaq Lawson, even practice squad late round picks like Jonathan Williams and Kevon Seymore) were still playing in the league last year, some for very good teams (Dallas, Ravens, Houston, Browns, Shaq back with the Bills, Seymore with the Ravens PS).   Others are out of the league now, but contributed to other teams for several years after the Bills moved on (Ragland, G John Miller, Preston Brown, Russ Cockrell).  It’s not like they couldn’t play football.

 

And our FA and cap situation are if anything, worse than they were in 2017

 

The difference is that back then, the best we had to show for it was a #4 overall defense and no playoffs.  Now we have playoff wins the last 4 seasons and consistently top-10 offense and defense, usually top 5.  I enjoy that a heck of a lot more than the drought years, I get it to some that’s not good enough because from a championship we are still falling short.

 

Anyway, Beane has been quietly mortgaging the Bills cap situation with signing FA using void years since 2020, because his draft picks haven’t quite cut the mustard.

 

It will be interesting to see how he manages this season, the most challenging for him I think because so many of our top paid players aren’t living up to their contracts and it’s a very good question whether that can change (Diggs, Von Miller, Tre White)

[Starr Almighty]

https://www.si.com/nfl/cardinals/news/report-2024-nfl-salary-cap-could-hit-250-million

 

This would lower it without any moves not completely but it would be a huge help

[GunnerBill]

9 minutes ago, Beck Water said:

 

Anyway, Beane has been quietly mortgaging the Bills cap situation with signing FA using void years since 2020, because his draft picks haven’t quite cut the mustard.

 

It will be interesting to see how he manages this season, the most challenging for him I think because so many of our top paid players aren’t living up to their contracts and it’s a very good question whether that can change (Diggs, Von Miller, Tre White)

 

Beane argues, and it is not untrue, that the covid cap reduction threw all his plans out of kilter. There is some truth to that. Teams who were at the start of a Championship window in that period were hit the hardest because the last couple of years they had with a rookie QB as buyers in the market got sucked away by a reduced cap. However, you are right..... there is also money he has had to throw at Oline and Dline that is a direct result of the misses on the likes of Cody Ford and Boogie Basham and the fact that AJE and Rousseau were not in themselves difference makers. He is about to be in the same spot with Douglas when if Elam was ready, even with Tre's injuries, you should have been able to transition more smoothly to a cheap deal. 

 

So I do give him a bit of leeway on the covid cap implications but also, yea, he has gone hunting for difference makers in FA to cover one or two of his misses. 

7 minutes ago, Starr Almighty said:

https://www.si.com/nfl/cardinals/news/report-2024-nfl-salary-cap-could-hit-250-million

 

This would lower it without any moves not completely but it would be a huge help

 

I heard $252m mooted on Sunday by a twitter account of a guy who is pretty plugged in. That extra $10-12m would be huge for the Bills. 

[Billl]

8 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

 

For two years now I’ve said that the target for a roster reset of expensive vets was next off-season, give or take one season due to circumstances. It’s a matter of how those contracts are structured and how old the players are. I think the Von Miller and Tre White injuries should move it up to this off-season, but I don’t know if they will do it. I’ve no idea how warm McDermott and/or bean think their seats are - and I stress that their  perceptions of this are far more important than the reality. How they proceed will tell us a lot. 

This is the crux of the matter right here.  A front office is always serving two masters.  They are trying to win a Superbowl, but they're also trying to keep their jobs.  If you believe, as I do, that the best path to a championship is to rip off the band-aid now, take your lumps in 2024, and target 2025 and beyond, the it's a question of whether McBeane feel they have enough job security to survive a 7-10 type season.

 

To me, Beane is acting more like a guy who would rather continuing to kick the can down the road for as long as he can win 10 games and make the playoffs rather than someone who is singularly focused on winning a championship.  It's why I think this board directs too much blame at McDermott and not enough at Beane.

 

It's not just cap management, either.  Even the draft picks have been safe lately.  A 24 year old TE in the first round and interior OL in the second are solid pieces, but they're relatively high floor, low ceiling picks.  They're not the type you take when your mentality is "superstar or bust".  They're the type you target when you feel that you've got enough firepower on the roster already and need to supplement them with quality supporting pieces.