WhitewalkerInPhilly

Greg Thompsett from Cover 1 did a breakdown about how getting back over the cap is easy, getting enough to be a bidder in FA is hard. It is using a cap number higher than current estimates, but the released money is accurate. No Brainers - Cap Saved Restructure Josh - $23M Restructure Diggs - $13M (his words not mine) Restructure Ed - $3M Release Hines - $5M Release Harty - $4M Total - $48M Being $29M OVER cap right now, these moves alone put us $19M UNDER. Tompsett's Preferred/Likely Moves - Cap Savings Extend Dawkins - $7M Extend Douglas - $6M Extend Johnson - $5M Release Siran Neal - $3M Release Sam Martin - $1M Restructure McGovern - $3M With these moves added to the above, the Bills would be $44M UNDER

Unfortunately, 2024 is a "take your medicine" year. I think the only possibility for a departure is White. I think Von Miller deserves his ripping, but remember how Tre came back from an ACL and only looked himself at the start of 2023? I am all for eating his guaranteed money this year, and if he gets suspended it does the most of the cap. But I am not making a roster spot by releasing a likely HOF player AND losing cap. Agree on Knox, but the only way you reducing his cap hit with an extension. Take your medicine. Same issue with Diggs. Less quickness, bad hands. Buuuuut unless you can get some team to bite on a trade that is worth losing a #1 receiver (which he still is, if no longer elite) AND cap space (multiple 1 and 2s) the more likely answer is drafting a WR as high as possible and then taking pressure off Diggs. White...maybe. An injury settlement complicates things, and it would reduce the return the Bills would get. I have floated the idea that they might put him at safety since but who knows.

There’s a saying I am fond of: “Success knows many fathers but failure is an orphan.” Well, that is inverted with the Buffalo Bills. The Bills deserved to lose that game last night, and there were many, many contributing factors. If I am to pick one person who doesn’t have feces smeared on his face this morning it’s Joe Brady. I won’t say that he called a perfect game, but if I told you that the Bills had put up 24 points while holding onto the ball for 14 more minutes than the Chiefs I think a lot of people would have expected a blowout. Even if there was a bit of a stall when the Chiefs adjusted to stop the run, the offense was clicking up to the 2 minute warning. At 2nd and 9 at the 26, the Bills were in position to burn the clock and either force OT with a chipshot FG or put the dagger in with a TD. And guys were open. I can’t fault Brady for that. Maybe the offense wasn’t high flying, but if I was going to write a game script, the long drives (mostly for TD) is exactly what I would have tried to do to keep KC off the field and the defense rested. That is, if the defense could actually get a stop. If I am the Bills, I am doing everything I can to keep him, even if its just for one more year. Look, I get it. The defense is banged up. We all know it. We were running AJ Klein out there. But having AJ Klein on Travis Kelce? OOOOOOOF. No wonder the Chiefs spammed that advantage. It seemed like nothing changed up until it was far too late. I saw the stat of 20+ yard plays and they absolutely crushed the Bills on those. The Bills would methodically grind out a TD and then the Chiefs would zip down to match. I said this week that it was time to push all chips into the table, and someone asked me what it mean. It meant that if the injured players were anywhere near to go we had to start them. I am not on the medical staff, but we clearly saw the difference. I will say this about 2023: Josh’s WRs, as a whole, let him down this season and I think it’s why things seemed to struggle. I get it that Mahomes isn’t working with his best cast but my god, those drops my Sherfield and Diggs were backbreaking. For people who said that it can’t get worse than Gabe Davis, this is my retort. Even one of those deep catches working out changes the script. Special teams. Oof. Where do I even begin? I know I don’t like Matt Haack, but even he would have been better than Martin last night. Martin was clearly not ready and he gifted field position. Bass has been unclutch, and if he can’t kick in December winds I think it might be time to move on. But for the love of god, what was with that fake punt? I know they saw a mismatch, and it wound up not giving points, but sweet mercy was that painful to watch play out. With that kind of advantage, what does it say about coaching one of the highest paid ST units in the league? We pay guys for this level of play. Josh. I love Josh Allen. He is a special player. But for the love of god did he screw the pooch inside of 2 minutes. It’s not that I hate taking a shot at the end zone on a 2nd and long. In most situations, I am fine with it even if it doesn’t work out. But you have to know the situation here. The decision to gun it at that moment is terrible. Say it worked, that the Bills gun the ball into the endzone to take a 4 point lead under two minutes. That is 1:55 and 2 timeouts for the Chiefs to score and they had shown little issue moving up and down the field. Diggs is wide open on the crossing route for what should be an easy 1st down or a makeable 3rd. The clock keeps ticking. The Bills don’t need to hurry they have 2 timeouts and Kansas will be burning some too. Josh is a veteran at this point and while he had a good game on the whole those are the kinds of things people point too when they say that Mahomes is on another level. So that’s my autopsy. Where do we go from here? Well…there actually isn’t a lot the Bills can do. I know the cap is malleable but even if I wanted to advocate burning it all down the Bills really can’t. (I know, I looked into it after Denver and Philly). Our top 4 cap hits are Josh, Diggs, Von Miller and Dion Dawkins. Dawkins is the only one we could cut outright and get cap space for, and why would we? He played at a Pro Bowl level. Josh, if anything, will be looking at an extension. Even if I wanted to move on from Diggs and Von on down years, knowing their potential makes me loath to lose cap space. The biggest pending FA departures are set to be Hyde (who I think might just retire), DaQuan and Floyd. The last two I think we have a decent chance of getting back. In spite of everything, I do think there is legitimate reason for optimism. The one thing about the utter devastation on our defensive starters is that we found that we have extremely talent depth who looked good as starters in big moment. Bernard really came on as a LB and we thought was a Pro Bowl snub. Back with a healthy Milano that looks like an incredible talent pairing with solid depth in Williams and Spector. We still have a solid CB group (Douglas, Benford, TJ). The O-line had its best year in a while and looks to be mostly intact going in (I can see only one potential cap casualty). James Cook looks like a superstar. Our draft classes over the last two years hit in big ways. We saw starters and significant rotation from our 2022 and 23 drafts (Cook, Bernard, Shakir, Benford, Spector, Kincaid, Torrence, Williams), which speaks very well to longevity. 2024 will be taking some medicine on some contracts (Knox, Miller, possibly Tre White if the team thinks he’s washed), and this team can still compete. Coaches! I really hope the Bills retain Brady and give him another year to scheme. For reference, around the league Brian Johnson of the Eagles (and the second half collapse that has every fan howling for blood) is apparently a hot candidate at the moment. Compared to that Brady is Bill Walsh. McDermott needs help too, I expect a DC to help him even if he handles play calling still. Offseason: WR, WR, WR. If I am Beane, I am grinding film on every 1st and 2nd round prospect. Draftek does good work, and there are 14 WRs with the measurables to be a potential Peerless Price class player in the top 100 picks. There has to be someone available at 28. I don’t care if it’s a reach, get them.

Whhyyyyy

Why didn't we keep Haack again?

They finally changed

We got away with one

What the actual *****

Ok. Keep pounding it.

***** you Hoculi

Let one thing never be said about Joe Brady: he is never afraid to pound the rock when he sees the advantage. It sounds simple but so many coaches second guess themselves

That's for Hailee not Taylor!

Keep it up until they are forced to change personnel

More of that. MORE OF THAT. Smash them in the mouth and leave the D gasping in the 4th

Keep running

Crowd noise seems to be having an effect

I hate the end but that's 7 minute drive

I am heartened by the blitz beaters. But we need to finish in the red zone

FAKE SLIDE! He really sold it by actually sliding

That's helmet to helmet

No flag there?

They are not making the Brady/Manning comparisons subtle

Let's goooooo

Celebrity? I thought Peppa was part of the roster.

That's Travis. Jason is cool (Eagles player)