Jefferson gets paid: 4yr, $140m contract signed

[Matt_In_NH]

Just now, mrags said:

Cool. We’ve been there. Consistently losing in the 2nd rd if the playoffs. Enjoy the ride I guess. 👎 

I am enjoying it.   Doesn't mean I am fully satisfied but if you were around for the drought and around now and you are not enjoying the 17 game regular season and playoff runs then you are probably just miserable all the time.  👍

[PonyBoy]

30 minutes ago, Ridgewaycynic2013 said:

At least in terms of his pay, looks like

🎶he's movin' on up!🎵

 

[mrags]

1 minute ago, MJS said:

Does it matter for the Vikings? They haven't won anything with him, and now they don't have a QB.

Cool. I’m not arguing for the fact that he’s on the Vikings. I’m arguing for an elite WR in this team. With Josh Allen as his QB 

Just now, Matt_In_NH said:

I am enjoying it.   Doesn't mean I am fully satisfied but if you were around for the drought and around now and you are not enjoying the 17 game regular season and playoff runs then you are probably just miserable all the time.  👍

Oh I’ve been around. I’ve had season tix and missed 4 games from 06 through 2020. So I’d say I’ve been around and watching. 
 

And no. I’m not enjoying this ride anymore. Not when it ends exactly the same way year after year. 
 

I’ll go as far as saying this, I don’t think we make the playoffs this year, but I’ll bet you a beer that if we do, we lose again in the divisional round, or against the Chiefs 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

3 minutes ago, mrags said:

Cool. I’m not arguing for the fact that he’s on the Vikings. I’m arguing for an elite WR in this team. With Josh Allen as his QB 

They just had that.

[MikePJ76]

10 minutes ago, mrags said:

Well. With rookie contracts on Kincaid, Cook, Shakir, Coleman, likely 3 starting OL, Benford, Bernard, Rousseau. It would be the perfect time to go all in for someone like Jefferson. Assuming we were stupid and overpaid for guys like Miller, Oliver, White. And then take massive cap hits on Diggs, even more by trading him and assuming more of his cap number to not play for us. 
 

and fwiw, I’m not advocating paying for Jefferson at that number. But I am advocating for actually finding that guy, or multiples that are even 75% as good as him in the draft, on rookie contracts. But you can’t do that when you don’t actually draft any. And yes, I’m aware we drafted Coleman. Great. One early WR in the last 7 years under this regime. 

Yes of course if the Bills are in a situation next year where there is a top wr when they pick they should do it or consider it.  My point is I view it as bad business to give up valuable resources and then make that wr the highest paid at his position creating a savior situation.  It just never works.

 

I will say though if you are about to pick and you know the player you pick is going to be great (you never do I know) and your choices were Jefferson, Aaron Donald or Chris jones.....I am taking Donald or Jones 100 out of 100 times because that is the more important position and the teams that win championships are better up front than outside almost always.  

 

Sometimes that does not work also, for instance the 98 cowboys took greg ellis over randy moss.  In fairness Moss has as many championships as my mom and I do so...

[RobbRiddick]

Haha fools. If Coleman makes it big we'll be able to just pay him in jackets 

[mrags]

Just now, Buffalo_Stampede said:

They just had that.

lol. Diggs the head case since he was in Minnesota. You’re comparing him to Jefferson? The guy barely broke 1k yards with the Vikings. JJ is putting up nfl record numbers since he was a rookie. 

[billsfan89]

Just now, mrags said:

Won’t know until you actually start drafting them with your future HOF QB throwing him the ball. 

 

Josh going into 2020 was an up and coming QB, he needed a true WR to come in and step in to help him take that next step. They traded for Diggs and that gave Josh that true "alpha" weapon he needed right out the box. Possibly Josh is a little less of a dynamic passer in 2020 if he's working with Jefferson who was just a rookie and not Diggs? 

 

I was very critical of the Bills in the draft particularly in 2021-22 over investing in defense. 2021 back to back picks in rounds 1-2 at DE seemed unnecessary, 2022 Elam while he filled a big need I was more comfortable with the Bills drafting elsewhere and challenging McD to find corners later in the draft (which he did ironically). But in 2023 and 2024 they spent their top picks on pass catchers (Kincaid and Coleman) they also did in 2022 draft Cook in round 2 which was a nice skill position add. 

 

I am hoping that the Bills are finally able to keep investing top picks into the offense year over year. 

[MJS]

5 minutes ago, mrags said:

Cool. I’m not arguing for the fact that he’s on the Vikings. I’m arguing for an elite WR in this team. With Josh Allen as his QB 

Well, having a $35 million per year WR would hamstring the team, in my opinion. It's getting to the point where teams should just draft receivers all the time and let them walk after 4 or 5 years and let some other team pay them QB money.

 

I don't see how a team with a franchise QB can afford elite receivers. The Chiefs saw the writing on the wall and traded away Tyreek Hill.

[mrags]

2 minutes ago, MikePJ76 said:

Yes of course if the Bills are in a situation next year where there is a top wr when they pick they should do it or consider it.  My point is I view it as bad business to give up valuable resources and then make that wr the highest paid at his position creating a savior situation.  It just never works.

 

I will say though if you are about to pick and you know the player you pick is going to be great (you never do I know) and your choices were Jefferson, Aaron Donald or Chris jones.....I am taking Donald or Jones 100 out of 100 times because that is the more important position and the teams that win championships are better up front than outside almost always.  

 

Sometimes that does not work also, for instance the 98 cowboys took greg ellis over randy moss.  In fairness Moss has as many championships as my mom and I do so...

Yes nobody remembers Ellis and Randy Moss is a HOFer. 
 

point is you draft WRs when you need a true stud. And you keep drafting them until you find him. Then, even when you do find him, you keep drafting more because pretty soon you’re going to have to pay for your elite WR. And you either fork over 20-30m a year or find someone to replace him. It’s good to have more waiting in the wings. The Bills haven’t done that. We literally got rid of our top 2 WRs and drafted 1 unknown (you said it yourself) WR to replace them. Oh but we have Shorter, Shakir, Claypool, MVS, and Hollins. We’ll be fine. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

6 minutes ago, mrags said:

lol. Diggs the head case since he was in Minnesota. You’re comparing him to Jefferson? The guy barely broke 1k yards with the Vikings. JJ is putting up nfl record numbers since he was a rookie. 

You’re saying Diggs wasn’t an elite WR?

 

No he’s not Justin Jefferson. Just like no one was Calvin Johnson or Randy Moss. They are the best 1 of 1 at their position during their era.

Edited June 3 by Buffalo_Stampede

[mrags]

3 minutes ago, MJS said:

Well, having a $35 million per year WR would hamstring the team, in my opinion. It's getting to the point where teams should just draft receivers all the time and let them walk after 4 or 5 years and let some other team pay them QB money.

 

I don't see how a team with a franchise QB can afford elite receivers. The Chiefs saw the writing on the wall and traded away Tyreek Hill.

Cool. This we agree on. But instead the Bills don’t and drafted one single WR to replace what we lost this offseason. 

[MikePJ76]

16 minutes ago, mrags said:

Cool. I’m not arguing for the fact that he’s on the Vikings. I’m arguing for an elite WR in this team. With Josh Allen as his QB 

Oh I’ve been around. I’ve had season tix and missed 4 games from 06 through 2020. So I’d say I’ve been around and watching. 
 

And no. I’m not enjoying this ride anymore. Not when it ends exactly the same way year after year. 
 

I’ll go as far as saying this, I don’t think we make the playoffs this year, but I’ll bet you a beer that if we do, we lose again in the divisional round, or against the Chiefs 

I think the Bills make the playoffs this year but I still think they are behind the chiefs because the chiefs are just better up front.  The Bills have done nothing to change that this offseason.  

 

I view the Bills currently as in the same ballpark as the 90's packers.  The packers just could not beat Dallas in the playoffs.  They tried everything.  Signed one of the greatest players in nfl history in reggie white and he got his azz kicked in two playoff games against Dallas.  They just could not matchup because of Dallas talent up front on both sides of the ball.  It completely disrupted their ability to play the game the way they wanted to.

 

Green Bay finally got over the hump in 96 because Dallas was running on fumes and with irvin suspended and deion hurt Dallas lost to Carolina.

 

To me as it stands today, the Bills need someone else to knock off KC and then they need to go win.  I think its possible.  Buffalo struggles with Cincy and JAX a little also but I think they would have a better shot today at Cincy, Jax, Baltimore than KC.  Especially if the ravens decided to play like a passing first team the way they did last year vs KC in the championship game, that was just insane.   The AFC is loaded.  I just hope the Bills are actually healthy for once when the playoffs start, I believe they will be in them someway somehow.

Edited June 3 by MikePJ76

[billsfan89]

1 minute ago, MJS said:

Well, having a $35 million per year WR would hamstring the team, in my opinion. It's getting to the point where teams should just draft receivers all the time and let them walk after 4 or 5 years and let some other team pay them QB money.

 

I don't see how a team with a franchise QB can afford elite receivers. The Chiefs saw the writing on the wall and traded away Tyreek Hill.

 

I think you need a team with a rookie QB if you are going to have a 30+ million dollar WR with a QB on a big 45+ million dollar number. The Vikings have a rookie QB so keeping Jefferson for the next 4 years to help their QB is a sensible solution esp as the cap goes up the back 2 years of that Jefferson deal is much more palatable.

 

A team like Buffalo paying a QB 50-60 million and a WR 30 million occupying nearly 1 out of every 3 cap dollars is just hard to do. You would need to be an insanely good drafting team in order to pull that off and the Bills are very good at drafting but that would offer a team virtually zero margin of error as they would consistently need to draft 3-4 starters year over year which while possible is a lot of pressure. 

 

The Bills likely are going to draft a lot of WR/TE in the top two rounds in the next 5-7 years as long as Josh is a top 3-4 QB in the league. 

[MJS]

3 minutes ago, mrags said:

Cool. This we agree on. But instead the Bills don’t and drafted one single WR to replace what we lost this offseason. 

They did. They drafted a receiver with their first pick.

1 minute ago, billsfan89 said:

The Bills likely are going to draft a lot of WR/TE in the top two rounds in the next 5-7 years as long as Josh is a top 3-4 QB in the league. 

As they should. And I think all the teams with elite QB's will be doing the same.

[DCofNC]

Well, that settles it, you can not have a QB and a WR 1 on the same team.

[MikePJ76]

7 minutes ago, mrags said:

Yes nobody remembers Ellis and Randy Moss is a HOFer. 
 

point is you draft WRs when you need a true stud. And you keep drafting them until you find him. Then, even when you do find him, you keep drafting more because pretty soon you’re going to have to pay for your elite WR. And you either fork over 20-30m a year or find someone to replace him. It’s good to have more waiting in the wings. The Bills haven’t done that. We literally got rid of our top 2 WRs and drafted 1 unknown (you said it yourself) WR to replace them. Oh but we have Shorter, Shakir, Claypool, MVS, and Hollins. We’ll be fine. 

IMO the team has to be good enough to Double Dip if you will at a position like wr early in the draft in repeated years.  I don't view buffalo as being on that level yet. Depending how this season goes, they might be in a position to do that next year.  I just feel like they need to be better up front on defense and just like wr you do that through the draft.   

 

Green Bay in the late 00's did this exact thing, they drafted wr in the 2nd and 3rd round like 3 or 4 years in a row. Greg Jennings, James Jones, Jordy Nelson, Randall cobb to go along with Donald Driver.  

 

[mrags]

14 minutes ago, Buffalo_Stampede said:

You’re saying Diggs wasn’t an elite WR?

 

No he’s not Justin Jefferson. Just like no one was Calvin Johnson or Randy Moss. They are the best 1 of 1 at their position during their era.

In the 3 years before he was traded to Buffalo these were his rankings
 

In 2017 he was:

31st in receptions

25th in yards

12th in TDs

86th in catch %

23rd in first downs

 

In 2018 he was:

11th in receptions

20th in yards

12th in TDs

86th in catch %

21st in first downs

 

In 2019 he was:

46th in receptions

17th in yards

27th in TD

96th in catch %

36th in first downs

 

in the same time Jefferson is pretty much top 10 in every category. He literally has never had a season with less than 1k yards and that includes last season where he missed 7 games. Other than that he’s never been under 1400 yards. Comparing the 2 is comical. 

12 minutes ago, MJS said:

They did. They drafted a receiver with their first pick.

As they should. And I think all the teams with elite QB's will be doing the same.

One freaking guy? Back to my original argument. We need to replace players we lost. We’ve not done that. 

[mrags]

5 minutes ago, MikePJ76 said:

IMO the team has to be good enough to Double Dip if you will at a position like wr early in the draft in repeated years.  I don't view buffalo as being on that level yet. Depending how this season goes, they might be in a position to do that next year.  I just feel like they need to be better up front on defense and just like wr you do that through the draft.   

 

Green Bay in the late 00's did this exact thing, they drafted wr in the 2nd and 3rd round like 3 or 4 years in a row. Greg Jennings, James Jones, Jordy Nelson, Randall cobb to go along with Donald Driver.  

 

Except they keep double dipping and triple dipping (including FAs like Miller, Jones, Floyd) in the DL and they still suck when it comes down in the playoffs. But that’s an argument for McDermott being a scared little girl and not being aggressive enough as well as his 17 man rotation on the DL. Mitigating the pickups in the first place. 

[billsfan89]

2 minutes ago, MJS said:

 

As they should. And I think all the teams with elite QB's will be doing the same.

 

I think offensive line and WR/TE should be the Bills top pick and possibly top two picks the next 5-7 years. I don't hate taking a defensive player in round 2 here or there as you need pass rushers and other players as you can't leave the cupboard completely bare on defense. I liked the Bills investing a pair of fairly high picks in Bishop and Carter to help the defense. But I think generally speaking the Bills are going to have to rely on mid-round and late round picks along with lesser free agents to keep the defense stocked up while cap dollars and higher draft picks are invested around Josh and the offense.