The Buffalo News "BillBoard"

[Rubes]

I haven't seen this mentioned before, but since Chris Brown's blogs are a welcome read in the offseason (and during the season as well), thought I'd put this out there for people who just can't get enough Bills information from the dudes at the Buff News. Feel free, of course, to either provide or withhold your opinions on those guys, I don't really care.

 

There's a Bills Blog there, manned by Gaughan and Wilson (and apparently Sullivan, though I don't know if he's done any). Updated pretty frequently, too. And, it gives the opportunity to comment on the blogs. Here's the latest, from Gaughan:

 

In a blog item a couple of weeks ago, we mentioned that the Bills' salary cap is $112 million this year. The standard salary cap for most teams is $109 million. Here's a further explanation. The adjustments are based on whether players with incentives in their contracts actually achieved those goals. The incentives are broken down into two categories -- "Likely To Be Earned" and "Not Likely To Be Earned."

If a team defined an incentive as likely to be earned for 2006 -- let's say it was playing 35 percent of the snaps -- then the incentive counted against last year's cap. However, if that player did not achieve the incentive goal, then a portion of that incentive counts as credit toward this year's cap. So the cap goes up a bit for the team.

Hence, the Bills were adjusted $3 million up for this year due to incentives not achieved by some players last year. Now, there are rules on defining a "Not Likely to Be Earned" bonus. A team can't cheat and define a 35-percent playing time bonus as NLTBE when the player was on the field every down last year. However, there are no rules for defining a "Likely to Be Earned" bonus. Meaning, a team can put any bonus in the LTBE category for a given year. So if Shaud Williams has a $100,000 bonus for making the Pro Bowl in his contract, the Bills could label that LTBE. Why do that? They know he's not making the Pro Bowl. But if they have room in this year's cap and want to create more room in next year's cap, they could play with the numbers so they will get more credits for next year. It's debatable how much of an advantage these bogus LTBE's give a team. But a handful of clubs do this sort of thing. It's not much of a factor for the Bills since they're not likely to be in a cap crunch any year.

---Mark Gaughan

 

Just in case you haven't seen it and have any interest in it, the "BillBoard" can be found here.

 

Apologies if this was already mentioned or obvious.

[I 90]

the "BillBoard" can be found here.

 

Apologies if this was already mentioned or obvious.

 

That's a nice catch as far as I'm concerned -- if they don't link it to the front of TBD, I'm not going to see it. It's properly freewheeling as blogs should be and Michael Turner free from what I saw.

[ROCCEO]

I haven't seen this mentioned before, but since Chris Brown's blogs are a welcome read in the offseason (and during the season as well), thought I'd put this out there for people who just can't get enough Bills information from the dudes at the Buff News. Feel free, of course, to either provide or withhold your opinions on those guys, I don't really care.

 

There's a Bills Blog there, manned by Gaughan and Wilson (and apparently Sullivan, though I don't know if he's done any). Updated pretty frequently, too. And, it gives the opportunity to comment on the blogs. Here's the latest, from Gaughan:

Just in case you haven't seen it and have any interest in it, the "BillBoard" can be found here.

 

Apologies if this was already mentioned or obvious.

Thats very interseting and Ive never heard of it before.

[Rubes]

Hey, if Gaughan can say this in his blog:

 

Thank God ESPN finally took Joe Theismann off its prime-time football broadcast.

 

He's cool in my book. I'll read it.

[Kelly the Dog]

PHOENIX -– There have been a number of things said and written about former Bills running back Willis McGahee following his comments about the city in last Sunday’s Baltimore Sun. But there is some truth in part of what he said.

 

I’ve talked to a number of other single young men of McGahee’s age and background who have complained about a lack of things to do in our town. Some defenders of Buffalo's night life will point to Chippewa Street, but not everybody likes to go bar-hopping. Some people have different tastes, like hanging out in more urban settings. But inner-city nightclubs for young adults are in short supply in Buffalo.

 

It should be noted that McGahee grew up in Miami, so compared to that city, Atlanta or Philadelphia, Buffalo does come up short in terms of diverse places for young adults to hang out.

 

I got to know McGahee a little bit away from One Bills Drive. He and I have a mutual friend in Derek Grey, our barber in the inner city. McGahee liked playing in Buffalo. He enjoyed many things about the city. You might not believe this, but he’s really a good guy.

 

He does have some faults, like fathering children with different women. That’s not unusual in society, but it’s bad for the image of a high-profile athlete that is looked upon as a role model. McGahee also has a habit of speaking his mind publicly, which is bad in Buffalo because people are super sensitive to anything negative said about their hometown. Even if McGahee didn’t mean anything he said to come off the way it did, a professional athlete has to use better judgment and understand that some things are better kept to yourself.

 

---Allen Wilson

[daquix]

The best line in the blogs (taken from post above this): "which is bad in Buffalo because people are super sensitive to anything negative said about their hometown."

[clumping platelets]

Gaughan is wrong...........Bills rec'd a cap credit of $3 million because Shaud Williams didn't reach an incentive added in December