Thurman#1

You didn't use the words "spend like sailors," but then you talk about adding both Green and Yannick, which for them in one year is likely well within their definition of spending like sailors. You're like the guy who says, "I'm not drinking right now. This beer? Beer's not drinking." Yes it is, and while you don't want the words to be associated with you, the moves you're talking about are exactly what they've always said they're not going to do. And while the year-to-year strategies will absolutely differ, you're desperately hoping that something that they obvious consider not a year-to-year strategy but a foundational principle will change. And it won't. They've said the same thing about not spending a ton on FAs every single time they've been asked, not just this year but with absolute consistency since their very first press conference. Here's the most recent, from the end of season PC about three weeks ago: https://billswire.usatoday.com/2020/01/07/buffalo-bills-brandon-beane-press-conference-8-takeaways/ "Since taking over as Buffalo’s general manager in the 2017 offseason, Beane’s roster additions have been consistent and concentrated, often making under-the-radar moves that prove to be more impactful than initially thought. With roughly $90 million in cap space to play with in the offseason, Beane again plans to make careful and well thought out moves that may not steal headlines, but will improve the team’s roster. “I don’t think we’re one player away,” Beane said. “I never think you are, and I definitely don’t think we’re one player away. You lose the first round of the playoffs, that doesn’t say to me [that] the Bills are one player away from being exactly where they want to be. “We’re a lot of positions away that we’ve got to clean up or answer.” Hunh. Seems almost as if he in fact would disagree that they are only a few players away. Beane is who he is. You can either deal with it or not. Your choice. And as for "add a couple somewhat splashy signings/trades," again, yeah, very solid guess. They could re-sign Tre' White, for instance, or Dawkins, and they had some nice somewhat splashy signings last year in Morse, Cole Beasley and John Brown. It totally would make sense for them to do the same kind of thing again this year. Look, first that's only a small part of the argument. And second, if you want to force the word "soon" to mean something it doesn't, fine, go ahead, whatever. Your business. But for most people, next year is soon. I won't bother continuing that argument, it's not worth another keystroke to me. But pretending that they might not sign Edmunds as soon as March 2021 is kidding yourself. They might not. Equally, they might not, but it's absolutely something they'll consider. Same with Tre' and Dawkins and the others who they can consider as early as next month. Just because a guy is under contract for longer doesn't mean it won't be economically sensible to extend him now. They've said it's their first priority to re-sign guys and maintain continuity, and to build their core through the draft. The argument isn't "whether they have the ability to hypothetically give Golladay a new contract ..." It's whether they will, or maybe whether they would if he were available. It's whether that's the kind of move they intend to make. Look at their models and you see those teams making a move that big very infrequently, once every five years or so, roughly. Could this be the year? Maybe. I seriously doubt it with Golladay myself, even if he were available, not for the money he's likely to demand and the draft pick the Lions would likely demand.

Yeah, I'm not dying for it, but it would make a lot of sense, depending on the price.

Would I take him for a 5th or 6th? Yeah. Would I give him up for a 5th or 6th if I was Cleveland. A guy who had 639 yards in his 2nd year? Absolutely not.

Yeah, huge contract for Oliver. $4.9 M per year average. Def one "of the highest paid DT's in the league." How can they ever afford any other players?

I'd take Cousins in a micro-second. His playoff losses absolutely have not been mostly his fault. He's not a top five guy and looks like he never will be, but he's better than Dak. I'm so happy that the Bills don't have to deal with the Prescott situation. He clearly isn't a $35M guy, but at the same time, Dallas can't let him go, and he looks like he's not coming for less. I think they end up paying him too much. Couldn't happen to a nicer team and owner.

Did I ever say everyone is coming back? IMO they will try hard to get two of the three to come back, but you could easily be right about them ending up with one of the three. But you seem also to be forgetting about Dawkins, Tre', Milano, Poyer, etc., all or several of whom could easily be extended this year. And yeah, expecting a "somewhat noisy FA signing/trade" ... what you're doing there is guessing, but it's a reasonable guess. I guess that myself. A Jordan Howard, maybe, a Vic Beasley, a Hunter Henry, guys along those lines who don't get re-signed. The teams Beane and McDermott model - teams built for consistent success over a long period - generally operate with the same principles Beane is talking about, building the core through the draft, re-signing their own as a priority, filling in with low- to mid-priced FAs. And many of the teams bring in a premium FA once in a blue moon, maybe once every five years or so. This could be the year Beane does something like that. Even if they don't, though, it would be reasonable to expect this year's Cole Beasley, John Brown and Mitch Morse. And there weren't only those three last year when they had nearly as much money as they do now. Those guys improved the team significantly and did it without breaking the bank. Throw in development of the group already here, a new draft class and hopefully some improvement by Josh Allen and they'll have a chance to be pretty damn good. Expecting them to wade into FA like Pacman Jones at a strip club, though, will almost surely lead to disappointment.

Oh, so you're making completely unwarranted assumptions and proceeding as if they're facts? Got it, but why would you appear so satisfied with making such an obvious logical error, not to mention the error of leaving out all the other people I mentioned that they could easily be signing this year, not to mention after that. You can argue that they don't "need" an "overly" conservative mindset if you want. But it's beside the point. They don't give a ***** what you think about their mindset, which by the way isn't "overly" anything, though it certainly is conservative. But they've made clear what their beliefs are and how they operate. I'm pretty sure you're not going to change their mind. Do you think that perhaps if you just argue enough the light will suddenly go on for them and they'll start spending like sailors on leave? You are the one cheerleading wild spending. They, the ones at whom the buck stops, have said again and again that they don't work that way. You seem to be more of a fan of wild spending than of the Bills. If you're so in love with that kind of approach, why don't you take the offseason and switch allegiances to the Redskins or the Cowboys. There are a few others who will doubtless do things that way. Follow them for at least the offseason and make yourself happy. Come back after Beane has done what he has again and again said he will do. Oh, and having now gone back and reading it, SoFla was still mischaracterizing. He mentioned only Allen and Edmunds when Elijah mentioned a bunch of guys and used the word "etc." besides.

Beane didn't draft Zay. Beane was still hard at work in Carolina. So, he's drafted Austin Proehl and Ray-Ray McCloud. And if drafting a 6th and a 7th and ending up with a practice squad guy two years later is bad drafting there isn't a front office in the league that isn't bad. How could you conclude anything other than that he's bad? Well, you could use sense. If you do that, it's impossible to make any other conclusion. Drafting an OL says absolutely nothing about how good you are at drafting WRs, and particularly not when that OL still has a very good chance of turning out to be a very nice pick. Again, if you start grading FOs by who they DIDN'T draft, there won't be a single one in the league who looks good, not one. You judge GMs by who they drafted. Um, you're the one who just said he should be judged on drafting Jones among others. See above in red. That is a horrible analogy, and not just in one way. First, it's nothing like a firefighter who doesn't respond to fires. Beane responded, he just didn't respond to the ones you'd have preferred. A better analogy would be trying to argue that a guy is terrible at asking out blondes because so far he's only asked out and dated women with brown, black and red hair, and with great results. That's the first way your analogy utterly fails, but the second is more obvious and worse. Saying, "your argument is "he CAN'T be bad at drafting WRs ... because he doesn't draft any!" is perhaps the worst paraphrase of a position I've ever encountered. He never said anything like, "He CAN'T be bad ..." It's you trying to make a (dumb) conclusion from no evidence, not him. He's trying to say "You can't prove that he's bad at drafting WRs because he's never drafted any," and you saying, "He must be bad at it because he's never done it." An utter fail. You don't know how good someone is at drafting a high-round WR till he drafts one at the very least.

First, whatever post you are talking about is not what I replied to. Second, "soon" has plenty of leeway. It's absolutely not a total exaggeration that they could be getting paid soon. Allen and Edmund could get paid as soon as next off-season. I very much doubt that Allen in particular will, but "soon" is a very reasonable word under the circumstances. Yeah, the Bills control Tre for another two years. That does not in any sense rule out giving him a new contract as soon as before or during this season. Depending on the details of the contract it could easily make total sense for both parties. And extending guys who are key contributors in a year when you have a lot of money makes total sense. As for going to get a final big piece or two ... well, that's fine if that's the way you would spend money. I myself am very happy that McDermott and Beane have made it very clear that it's not how they do things. They build their core through the draft and fill in with low- and medium-priced FAs and they prioritize bringing back their own guys, and they've said it so many times now I wonder how people still fight to ignore their words.

Nice.

Always liked Tyrod as a person. I wish him the best. And I agree with your statement if taken exactly literally. He did the best HE could with the pieces we had at the time. A better QB could have done better. But it wasn't Tyrod who did enough to get to the playoffs. It was the Buffalo Bills.

Please, nobody's mentioning cap hell right now, though we really were in horrible cap shape when McDermott arrived from the Whaley administration. You don't have to be worrying about an immediate cap hell to advocate spending judiciously. And that's nonsense that the guy he was referring to was specifically pointing towards having to protect guys like Edmunds and Allen. Yeah they enter the equation but they are very very far from being the only guys that we are going to be concerned with re-signing. Where did Elijah, the guy Scott was replying to, saying anything about Edmunds and Allen, specifically. He's talking about the whole situation, and yes a big contract that will last for years will affect our ability to sign guys now and for years. We're not going to have $90M every year, or at least not unless we spend very judiciously indeed. Here's his post: And I greatly disagree with your effort to minimize guys we might be looking to re-sign or extend this year. It ain't just Milano and Dawkins (and no, those two wouldn't break the bank, but they also won't be cheap, particularly Dawkins). It's also guys like Tre' White, like Poyer, like Spain, Levi Wallace, Shaq Lawson, Jordan Phillips.

Have the Saints won any Super Bowls since they stopped handling their cap fairly frugally? In fact, wasn't that the moment when they had three 7-9 years in a row? In any case, it's not surprising that you looked at that list of about 12 consistent winners and were only able to pluck out one that was much of an exception. Exactly. When you want something and have about 12 models for the kind of success you want and almost all of them operate with much the same overall financial approach, that's the approach that you should take. Your point was that with $90 mill you don't have to worry about the cap, right? Yeah, I got your point, and my objection still stands 100%. Guys who say, "We've got enough money, we can do what we want are generally the ones who very quickly are saying to themselves, "Jeez, just a coupla days ago it seemed I had a ton of money and now I can't afford to go to Mac's for a burger and fries. What happened?" Smart people always husband their money, treating it carefully. Always. You look at guys like Bezos, Gates, Buffett and while they make purchases, they aren't saying, "Ah, now I don't have to worry about money anymore, cuz I've got lots. They still worry about it, and that habit is a lot of the reason they ended up having so much of it. They might easily want to save $20 or $30 mill and roll it over to next year to put them in great shape again. You act as if the $90M is only for Josh Allen. It's not. And I agree with you that he's still got a lot to prove before they give him a massive QB deal, but Josh is very far from all they're thinking about. They've made it as clear as it can possibly be made that they value continuity and that they will be re-signing and extending their own guys as an extremely high priority. That $90M won't all still be there after they bring back the several of the many guys they are surely looking at extending, from Spain, Levi Wallace, Jordan Phillips, Shaq Lawson and a bunch of lesser priorities who might still be helpful enough that they'd want to bring 'em back, guys like Stanford, Coleman, Marlowe, guys like that. Not that they'll bring all of those guys back. Clearly they won't, but there'll be a bunch. And that's not to mention Tre' White, Milano, and Dion Dawkins. And Poyer. Me? I give Poyer a very nice contract extension sometime soon. He's the guy who holds that backfield together, and that backfield has been the backbone of the Bills backstops, the defense. He wouldn't be easy to replace either, as the reason he's so good is more about smarts, experience, leadership and now continuity than physical freakhood. You can replace him, maybe even with a guy with more physical talent, but you still won't get the same level of performance out of the new safety or the backfield as a unit. As always, I'd be conservative, as the smart teams overwhelmingly do. I wouldn't give him anything he wanted but absolutely I'd give him a raise. He's been worth it, and in fact he's wildly overperformed his contract. This defense is extremely cheap in 2020, around $57M right now. Absolutely bring back a major leader of a group that outperforms their own talent at a position that won't likely require a huge outlay to make him happy in a year when they can afford to spend judiciously.

https://mattwaldmanrsp.com/2020/02/13/matt-waldmans-rsp-film-room-wr-laviska-shenault-jr-colorado-dont-call-him-gadget/ Waldman does consistently excellent breakdowns on a ton of players every year. He argues that comparing Shenault with Cordarelle Patterson isn't fair to Shenault. "When I made my first pass through the 2020 NFL Draft class of wide receivers this summer, I wondered if Laviska Shenault might have more in common with Cordarrelle Patterson than desired. Patterson was one of the best open-field runners I’ve ever seen and when you restrict your viewing of his receiving skills to the catch-point, there appeared to be a lot of promise for Patterson to become a primary NFL receiver. Unfortunately, Patterson hasn’t demonstrated the skill to learn the intricacies of an offense required of an every-down receiver. As was shared with me before and after his rookie year, Patterson needs a lot more practice repetitions to execute assignments than the average NFL starter. "Remember when Bill Belichick told the media that he promised Patterson in the spring of 2018 that he’d make Patterson as productive as his talent suggests? Although Belichick got production from Patterson, it wasn’t to expectation and Patterson was a Chicago Bear by 2019. "Patterson is a gadget player with elite physical traits. On the surface, Shenault’s film looks dangerously like Patterson’s—his targets consist of a high volume of short passes, running plays from the wing and the backfield, and the occasional vertical routes when the offense can match Shenault one-on-one. "A deeper look into Shenault’s game reveals a promising intermediate and vertical route runner with an above-average arsenal of footwork and hand usage against press coverage. While Shenault’s route tree is limited in Colorado’s system, his ability to sell cornerbacks with his stem work and finish off patterns with sharp breaks indicates that Shenault will become a primary option in an NFL offense within 2-3 seasons. There are a handful of more refined wide receiver prospects in this class but you can make the argument that Shenault has the best combination of floor and upside of any of his colleagues. It’s why Shenault might not have the highest grade on my board but he might be worth taking as the top option of this heralded receiver class anyhow." He has a 15 minute video here where he spends a lot of time talking about what he sees and why he thinks Shenault is not a gadget guy. Points out a couple of things he'll have to work on and also a few subtleties that are already there in his game.

You're mixing cause and effect, IMO. If the Bills don't strive to become consistent winners, they aren't likely to win the Super Bowl. If you win consistently, you will have chances in several years rather than just one. That drastically raises your odds. Thoughtful and interesting post, though. But I do wonder about your first few sentences. You say there's no such thing as sustainability in the NFL and then you point out how one group of teams have sustained excellence for quite a long time.

Why is he concerned about money? Because everyone should be ... always. That question utterly and totally misses the point. It's like asking, which do you want, to be rich or to save money? The answer should be both. Saving money is one of the main things that leads to being rich. Same as handling your cap space smartly and frugally is one of the main things that leads to consistently being competitive for Super Bowls. Oh, man, is that ever dead on target.

Sorry, Hap, but you're not right about this. It's you who is accounting twice for the Unamortized signing bonus. You're subtracting Cap Number (which DOES contain the unamortized bonus, called Prorated Bonus in your chart) and then subtracting dead money, which ALSO contains the unamortized bonus. Or more correctly, it IS the amortized bonus. You're using it twice. There's a reason your graphic there lists Cap Savings and Dead Money in pink and right next to each other. Because if he's cut, you need those two pieces of info to find total cap impact, you subtract one from the other. If you sum the first four money columns, you are including his unamortized bonus money. It's the third column, titled "Prorated Bonus." You know what his dead money is, right? It's his unamortized bonus money, the same money you added in earlier, the "Prorated Bonus." So you're originally adding and then later subtracting the same money. There is no universe where that makes sense. Yes, his "cap number this year" is $22.5M. But again, the cap number is only an "IF" conditional. It only is $22.5 mill IF he stays on the team ... that's how much he will cost them, and his dead cap will be zero if he's still on the team. If on the other hand, he's cut, his unamortized bonus ("Prorated bonus" in your OTC graphic) becomes zero ... it disappears from his cap number and reappears in dead money. It's one or the other, it's either in the cap number or the dead money, depending whether he is with the team or not. But it simply can not be in both. It's listed in both places because they don't know in advance whether he'll be cut or not. But you simply ... can ... NOT ... add the same money to both sides of a subtraction and expect to get the correct answer. Let me try to put it another way to make it clearer. You certainly agree that they save $20 mill (base salary + roster bonus + workout bonus = $20M) if Dareus is gone, correct? So ask yourself this. Do they also save $2.5 mill in amortized bonus on top of that if they cut him? Is that money "saved"? It absolutely isn't. He got paid that money years ago in his bonus check, and whatever money they already paid ABSOLUTELY MUST be charged against the salary cap sooner or later. That money is NOT saved if he's cut. It's a sunken cost. If he stays on the team, his cap cost will be $22.5M. And there Is no dead money. If on the other hand, he's cut, they only save the money they have not paid him yet, the $20M. But now the unamortized bonus is shifted into dead money. And if you're looking for the total cap impact of cutting a guy, you subtract the dead money from what Spotrac calls Yearly Cash, the total future cash saved this year if you cut him. If you still doubt this, there's a cap expert on here. Dammit, his name escapes me now, but you know who I mean, right? Message him. He will tell you I'm right. Hell, email Spotrac and OTC. They will tell you the same thing. EDIT: I just emailed Spotrac about this, and assuming they answer, I vow to post it, even if they say I'm wrong. That's a promise.

Yeah, OK, dude. This defense is quite a bit better with Milano out there. He's not going to get huge money, but expect him to get a very nice deal indeed.

Thanks, glad you're seeing it now. I didn't see your more recent comments before I posted that, and they are far more reasonable. It's certainly possible he isn't good enough, but how much of that comes from being treated badly. How you're treated absolutely does have an effect on how you play. Not the only effect and not a conclusive effect, but it absolutely hurt his development. Guy doesn't know what kind of offense he'll be in when/if he finally gets his chance with a group that believes in him. You should know that by this time in your career. It's also certainly possible that given a good environment he might have been good enough by now, and that if he's given the right environment soon, it could still happen. It's simply not clear what'll happen. I liked Rosen better than Allen but thought all of the top four had a very reasonable shot at being successful. I've never used the wrong/right label, thought it was ridiculous from minute one.

Keee-yikes! Money that is left over under the cap this year will get rolled over into next year's cap. It doesn't just go into the Pegulas investment accounts. Agreed the team is a bit worse without him. But not $15 mill worse.

It's pretty clear they absolutely are considering it. Beane says as much in the article. I hope they do it this year. This large amount of cap freedom they have this year and the need to get Dawkins, White and Milano on board make this a good time to do so. But it'll come down to details and negotiations, as usual.

Um, to each their own, I guess.

Hap, not exactly. They aren't listing total savings at $20 mill. Theyare calling it "Cap Savings" but you'll notice that they then list - separately - $2.5 mill in dead cap. That dead cap is NOT included in what they are calling "Cap Savings." Take a look. Both list Dareus as receiving $9.5 mill in base salary, a $10 mill roster bonus in March and $500K in workout bonuses. That totals $20M, and it's what they are calling "Cap Savings." To me it should be called something clearer, like "Cash Saved," but whatever, they're calling it "Cap Savings." But after that $20 mill which they would have had to pay him this year is saved, they still have $2.5 mill in dead cap subtracted from the cap. The total is $17.5M. I guess if people want to ignore the dead cap, that's their business, but it would make no sense to me.

You're so right. And here's another: Yeah, offense bad in 2018 when they didn't put any resources into it. News flash, though. That's what happens in rebuilds, and especially rebuilds when the previous regime left you in very bad shape cap-wise. You suck for a couple of years. "How many times does Mahomes have to carve up a top defense for people to see offense is what sets winners apart from pretenders," you ask? Great question. Here's another, with just as much logical sense. How many terrific oranges do you have to eat before you realize that no other kind of fruit is worth eating? I mean, you may have asked the world's dumbest question there. I guess that's an achievement.

He does know his football. But I really don't think you recall that correctly. You mean Rodgers, correct? Yeah, I don't think so. But if you can show I'm wrong .... I like Barnwell a lot, personally. He's heavy into analytics and he doesn't mind taking unpopular positions. He's smart. He'll be wrong a lot but also right in a bunch of places where very few thought he would be. He did like Tyrod a lot more than I ever did, but he wasn't off the edge nutty about it either.