McGee and Clements

[Fake-Fat Sunny]

Some folks may simply want to ignore the cap, but if you are a GM and do this then you will not be a GM for long.

 

This all jas so many factors to it now and has become so complex that unfortunately even the non-casual outside observer is pretty much guessing as to what the best thing to do is. The easiest and one of the biggest mistakes that many of us outside observers seem to make is that we seem to assume there is some one to one convergence between the level of a players talent and the contract he gets.

 

Nope, this is not the case.

 

Each owner and thus GM has a budget to spend reflected in the salary cap that he/she will spend on their team. Within this budget a player may be a young great performer, but if his team is willing or able to budget enough to sign him to a big contract, but a better player of similar youth is on a team whose cap budget is dedicated to other positions then the second team correctly might let that player hit FA and walk.

 

As pointed out, the various examples cited are older players, non-top 5 cap hit contracts or simply do not draw much direct analogy to Clements and even if they did, the Bills could quite reasonably let him walk if they have what they feel are adequate cheaper replacements.

 

If Thomas Smith, Peerless Price, Andre, Thurman or Bruce or one of the other Bills we have let go had become world-beaters then I would have a problem with our general strategy of not investing in these players then I think there would be a problem. However, that has simply generally not been the case so I think it is hard to make a credible case that we do not invest in players correctly.

 

Of the folks who have had notable play after they walked on us (Dusty Zielger made an SB, Big Ted has some good accomplishments) there do not appear to be any long term deals or individual successes that I would point to us having made a mistake (Antowais Smith is a good example of leaving the Bills was great for him but I would have a hard time arguing that their success was due to Smith).

 

Overall, when one looks at the FA market and the benefuts we have garned from pick-ups like Bryce Paup, Sam Adams, Takeo Spikes and even London Fletcher I think we are way ahead of the game in investing or not investing in the correct way or timing of players.

 

The future will be interesting, but I think AW is a good player but his market cost did not make him reasonable to sign and I will be quite surprised if the market value that Jennings achieved would have made him a good investment for the Bills.

 

I disagree that we have handled investment decisions on young players badly. If you do then who should we have signed that walked and how much should we have paid them to keep them off the market.