Pyrite Gal Posted July 30, 2008 Posted July 30, 2008 IMO, the Bills made a big mistake letting Clements go. But BADO, know one can know for sure but we all just theorizing here, however, while it is clear the Bills made a proactive decision to go in another direction that did not include Clements, to what extent do you feel this was a mutual deal where like it or not Clements was gonna go elsewhere even if the Bills did all they could do financially for him. The simple fact was that prior to the new CBA and the new cash from the TV deals greatly expanding the salary cap, the Bills were under significant fiscal constraints which would have allowed them relative chump change for signing Clements. NC and his agent had to know that they had a choice between taking relative security of taking the best deal the Bills could offer or instead the "playmaker" could risk the possibility of injury and play til he hit the market. Nate simply would have been a financial fool to sign the biggest deal the cash-strapped by the cap the Bills could offer and walk away from what turned out to be the at the time the biggest contract ever signed by a defensive player in NFL history. NC's team needed only to look at whose contracts were coming up for renewal (folks like Bly and Samuel) to see that even if he had a mediocre year for him as he did in '05 he still was going to command a big contract in FA. I disagree that a flat out statement that the FO let Clements go away as not only would a Bills team running a Cover 2 would be badly managing the cap if they spent big bucks on a CB, but also Nate himself would almost certainly have not signed an extension.
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