The Salary Cap Issue

[butch rolle]

On 2/12/2025 at 10:36 PM, BarleyNY said:

 

The big question for me is what they do about Allen. He got $60M cash last season, but he’s only due $14.5M this season. If something is getting done there then that’s where you start. 

 

As for a big trade like Garrett or Crosby the Bills would need to do a new deal for them so they could minimize the first couple year’s cap hits. 

 

The Bills can open up some decent cap space. I use OTC’s calculator to play with scenarios when I’m bored. 

Thank you for all of these insights, Barley!  I wish I had a better understanding of the cap.  I listen to a lot of podcasts and I really enjoy Greg Thompsett's explanations on how the cap can be manipulated within reason, which is essentially a strategic "kicking of the can".  So 2024 was definitely a "take your lumps" type of year with the cap but I guess I was foolishly optimistic about 2025 and being more middle of the pack as far as cap space.    When I check out Spotrac's 2025 team cap space rankings, it looks pretty depressing to see the Bills sitting at 4th to last, with teams like the Chiefs and the Ravens having 4-5X more cap room.  I know that there are levers to pull and ways to free up space but don't many teams have similar available options?  In your opinion, are the Bill really close to the bottom of the league again as far as cap space or does this ranking not really paint an accurate picture?

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/_/year/2025/sort/cap_maximum_space

Edited February 14 by butch rolle

[BarleyNY]

36 minutes ago, butch rolle said:

Thank you for all of these insights, Barley!  I wish I had a better understanding of the cap.  I listen to a lot of podcasts and I really enjoy Greg Thompsett's explanations on how the cap can be manipulated within reason, which essentially a strategic "kicking of the can".  So 2024 was definitely a take your lumps type of year with the cap but I guess I was foolishly optimistic about 2025 and being more middle of the pack as far as cap space.    When I check out Spotrac's 2025 team cap space rankings, it looks pretty depressing to see the Bills sitting at 4th to last, with teams like the Chiefs and the Ravens having 4-5X more cap room.  I know that there are levers to pull and ways to free up space but don't many teams have similar available options?  In your opinion, are the Bill really close to the bottom of the league again as far as cap space or does this ranking not really paint an accurate picture?

 

https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/cap/_/year/2025/sort/cap_maximum_space

 

I appreciate the kind words. I’m always happy to help with things I have some knowledge of. I’m a numbers geek and have been looking at the salary cap for over 20 years now. 

 

Things are always so nuanced and so much is unknown by us fans this time of year. We can look at the cap numbers and have a good idea of team needs, but we often don’t know what the team thinks of some of the players on their roster. 

 

I think they can get to $30M under if they want to. More, if they really push it. That will enable them to make some reasonable signings and fill their holes. They could even make one big signing if they want. I would not expect more than than one splash signing though. 

 

The direction they are going should be a lot clearer in mid March. The new league year will be here and they’ll make their cuts. If there is a splash FA signing, it’ll likely happen then. We will have a better idea of their needs too. 

Edited February 14 by BarleyNY

[That's No Moon]

On 2/12/2025 at 7:32 PM, Stenbar said:

Are we sure they are going to cut Miller this offseason? 

If they don't that's a bigger issue because it means they think he's still a productive player.

[LifeLongBillsFan]

If Pegula wanted he could ignore the cap - he has more money than he can spend.

[ddaryl]

2 minutes ago, LifeLongBillsFan said:

If Pegula wanted he could ignore the cap - he has more money than he can spend.

Nobody can "ignore" the cap. You can get creative and push things down the line but the piper must get paid ( See the New Orleans Saints ). 

What we really need to do is draft a helluva a lot better in rounds 1 and 2 so we are not having to get creative and face a brutal reality sooner than we would like

[billsfan89]

5 hours ago, ddaryl said:

Nobody can "ignore" the cap. You can get creative and push things down the line but the piper must get paid ( See the New Orleans Saints ). 

What we really need to do is draft a helluva a lot better in rounds 1 and 2 so we are not having to get creative and face a brutal reality sooner than we would like

 

You basically can borrow from future years by adding void years. But eventually the bill comes due. The Bills got a lot of their books clean this past season by taking a lot of dead cap (74 million) and not all of that was Diggs. The Bills without the massive Diggs hit still would have had 40+ million in dead cap which would have been 15th in the league. The Bills don't have much dead cap going into this season with just 5.5 million mostly Tre's money spread from last season. The Bills also don't have much in the way of void years either only having about 5.8 million in void years (Douglas at 4.1 million, Smoot at 1 million and Austin Johnson at 600k). 

 

The Bills also don't have much in the way of bad contracts. Von and Knox are the only bad contracts on the roster. And both players showed a willingness to rework deals so I suspect there will be some of that again this off-season at least from one of those players. And while I would classify Knox and Von as overpaid they aren't bad players either. So the Bills books are very clean so to speak. They have only about 12 million in dead money via dead cap and void years which is among the lowest in the league and they don't have much pushed out down the road via void years. 

 

The Bills will have flexibility they paid a big bill in 2024 to clean up the cap and now they are in position to take advantage of it. But for all the cap isn't real folks out there the bill does come due eventually. It takes at worst 2 years (and usually just 1) to reset your cap situation but you do eventually have to take it on the chin.