thurst44

To have Evans and Incognito on either side of him? That could be an incentive, and he seems to genuinely love the Bills, Buffalo, and Buffalo fans. But you may be right, too. I would have thought Incognito would be leaning towards returning.

As far as I know, there's no reason we DON'T have the money to lock up Gilmore. His cap would likely go down from the 11m+ it is now with an extension.

However, if they notice the fact that he's not particularly slipping and that the run defense went from double digits every game to triple digits most games after he got hurt, they'll wisely keep him and at most ask him to renegotiate for cap space. There's a reason he's been mentioned as coming back from the first day of the off-season (as opposed to Mario this year or Freddie last year). Cutting him would not be worth it. And, again, if anyone is questioning his age, remember when we let go another DT named Williams at the exact same age (spoiler alert: he went to three straight pro bowls after he left us).

That was a head scratcher. I can usually rationalize any Bills move, but that one baffled me then, and I'm at a loss to guess what was going through Whaley's mind then (other than he has an affinity for underachieving recruits and 1st round picks).

I'm in. It saves quite a bit of money and Carpenter was so unreliable last year.

Yes, I love our double negative standard. The Bills had an "easy" schedule and went 8-8 so they'll be worse. The Jets had a much easier schedule and went 10-6, and they'll clearly be better. We also beat the Jets twice last year, once when they had everything on the line and we had nothing, but that was wholly Rex playing for revenge (so apparently he can coach well when he wants {shrug}) I'm in NYC, trust me, the attitude on 660 The Fan about the Jets is pretty much the same as it is for the Bills here.

This team is about the hardest to gauge at this point. I'm gonna say yes, because I'm a fan, and honestly think they have the talent -- it's just whether some players can come back and Rex Ryan can remember how to coach a game or get the most out of his defense. I have some hope for the former as he has been top 10 most seasons in the past. If Aaron Williams and Kyle Williams come back strong, the line is healthy (Henderson may be better than most people think). and Ryan does with the defense, what he's done with past defenses, instead of whatever the hell was going on last season, and Tyrod is for real, Watkins continues his arc towards beyond real, this could be a breakout season a la the Panthers this year. If everything goes wrong, we could well be talking about who to take with a top pick this time next year.

So sick of this nonsense. No, it's not. I'd bet if you look at EVERY year around this time, you'll see scads of posts about how hard the schedule is. Cards and Seahawks should be very difficult, yes, but the Browns and 49ers may be absolute trainwrecks and the worst teams in football. The problem is, when we look at the schedule, we both presume teams like the Ravens had an off year, while the Bengals or Steelers definitely won't, and the Jags, Raiders, and Rams were clearly underachievers and will be better. We're a bad 8-8 team until we prove otherwise, except with those 7-9 (and 5-11) teams, there's no question they'll be better right away).

First off, I doubt these guys would drop, but this was how it played out with Fanspeak's board. Second, we would need some sort of chaperone or team therapist. 19: R1P19 OLB NOAH SPENCE EASTERN KENTUCKY 49: R2P18 DT ROBERT NKEMDICHE OLE MISS 80: R3P17 OLB SU'A CRAVENS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 118: R4P19 WR LEONTE CARROO RUTGERS 156: R5P17 CB D.J. WHITE GEORGIA TECH 195: R6P17 TE HENRY KRIEGER COBLE IOWA

How do you know he won't consider a small pay cut? Has he said anything (cannot find a link on quick google and google news searches), or is that just speculation. I suspect Kyle will either restructure or accept a cut, if it helps keep other players, but that's just conjecture based on his reputation and apparent demeanor.

So, you are a sage who knows Mario WILL return to form, but Aaron Williams WILL NOT return to form. And ages? Aaron Williams is 25, fercrissake. That is some Jerry Sullivan-esque worth twisted negativity. You also KNOW that McCoy is definitely done. If you match him up with elite RBs from now and from history, he actually fares pretty well in terms of yards and carries, and look at seasons that Lynch and Peterson have had around 30. He was an elite, top 3 back as of last year. Some RBs come back, some don't. As for dime-a-dozen players, Preston Brown has had one excellent season and one disastrous, but it's clearly the bad season which defines him after two years in the NFL. You rail against people for being fans and believing and for being blindly sure, then make your own assumptions as truth.

Actually in some cases, there is. For example, SI wrote an article the other day which used the 168m payroll number as the reason they were way over the cap. Multiple sources have used the higher payroll or the lowest possible salary cap (which is unlikely to happen) to exaggerate the Bills situation because dire is more dramatic. The most likely situation is that they will be flush against the cap. They won't be players in free agency, but they aren't likely to lose players they'll miss (considering the way Mario was playing), and could very well emerge a better team.

I would also miss Easley, but wish he could have stayed healthier. All the late news about Aaron Williams sounds cautiously optimistic to me. They seemed to think it was 50/50, and implied that if it swung in one direction, the injury did not make it any more dangerous to play, but if it leaned in the other direction, he would wisely retire. Hopefully, Whaley's assessment from a few weeks ago was knowing. He's a solid leader and an underrated defender -- it was right around when he and Kyle went down that the running d fell off a cliff. However, I agree, if there's any doubt, he should walk away. This is just based on social media posts and interviews, but I'm a huge fan of Aaron Williams, the person, as well as the player.

George Wilson was 26 when he did exactly that, and he had a couple very good seasons for us, before dropping off a cliff, skillswise. That said, I highly doubt Easley will be doing that, nor do I think he should. If anything, if he comes back, he should be exclusively ST. Honestly, when I've been messing around with that sportstrac salary cap tool, I've pretty much written him off (not that i know anything )...hopefully, that's wrong.

Get it, can't win, don't try. Seriously, we have a QB who is top 10 in a ton of categories in his first season (including most accurate on the deep throw), and that's not even worth a chance. So, let's just let a guy who by most national standards is top ten at his position (PFF for one), one of the hardest to come by in the league. Bills had one of the best seasons of any team in the last decade running over the right side. I'd be shocked if he's not considered a cornerstone. You lose him and/or Incognito and the line could be an absolute disaster. And I'm so tired of all the crying broke here when if you actually look at it instead of whining "Bills suck," it's not as bad as it looks. Sportrac has them at 90k over the limit with the Top 51 considered, and there's so many places to save money. They're not going to be players, obviously, but Whaley's been pretty transparent; we're gonna focus on signing our own guys, and maybe one defensive signing (I'd guess Damon Harrison). As for Glenn, we should not pretend to know what's on his mind. But it's true, players always heed their agents and only seek the best money possible...that's why Jerry Hughes wound up leaving us last year after so many people here made the same arguments. Let's just see how this plays out, why don't we? You may be right. History would suggest we sometimes sign our players, we sometimes don't. Ditto the franchise tag...we used it on Byrd a couple years ago. Based on your arguments, 13.5m is a reasonable price since he would clearly get so much more elsewhere. At very worst, tag and trade.

It's not a coincidence that the running defense suddenly disappeared when Kyle got hurt. I highly doubt Kyle Williams is going anywhere, certainly not to make room for Quentin Coples. He loves it in Buffalo, and would probably renegotiate his contract, and there are many other places for them to find space (McKelvin, Boobie, Clay restructure, Urbik, Easley). Let's not hope the Bills make the same mistake they made when they released Pat Williams at roughly the same age.

Miami was supposedly in cap hell last season and went out and signed Suh to an absurd contract (and seemed to be linked to every free agent)

Yep, b/c that's what happened when Ray Lewis was in a group who stabbed two people to death. No, wait, he stayed with the team and was the Super Bowl MVP, and would go on to have over a decade's worth more seasons with the same team, becoming a beloved team leader feted by the league and the media upon retirement. Not saying it's right, just that it's probably not that simple, nor should it be (for the record, I can't stand Lewis), nor am I not bothered by this story, and disgusted if he did it. Just b/c he is charged doesn't mean he did it, and the team should probably stick by him until it's fully clear what he did. Hopefully, the story turns out to be much different than it may seem now. Aaron Hernandez may have been released before proven, but at that point he was pretty much suspected of murders at a serial killer level.

That would still be 14m worth of cap space, b/c otherwise you'd be taking the money from the savings gained by cutting (or in the unlikely scenario, renegotiating and extending) Mario. In this scenario, that 13-14m can be spent on someone else. However, as you and others have said, this may be a moot point as this money may not apply to the cap this year. Anyway, while they're right up to the cap as it looks now, there is at least some wiggle room between Mario's likely cut and a bunch of contracts (Clay, McKelvin, Wood, etc.) which can be renegotiated. Again, last year, the Dolphins were right up against the cap and were somehow players in FA. The Bills are not in a dire situation, as the "doooomed" chorus here would have everyone believe; it's just not really a fun situation where they can go on a spending spree. They can probably sign their own where they want (Glenn, Incognito, maaaybe Bradham), add some role players, and if one big ticket item is out there that they really want, they'll just do a ton of fancy restructuring if they can. That being said, I do agree that Whaley is not counting on these savings, and saw this reply after posting, so sorry to pile on.

19: R1P19 ILB REGGIE RAGLAND ALABAMA 49: R2P18 DT ANDREW BILLINGS BAYLOR 80: R3P17 WR BRAXTON MILLER OHIO STATE 114: R4P19 CB BRIEAN BODDY-CALHOUN MINNESOTA 144: R5P17 G GREG PYKE GEORGIA 174: R6P17 DE CHARLES TAPPER OKLAHOMA

Talley, Bennett, Conlan, Odomes, Kelso, Hansen, etc.?!?!?! So, now we're even getting unnecessarily negative about the glory days of the team. The yardage stats are a bit deceptive b/c they were on the field by design more than any other defense, but they had an above average if not dominant defense, although, ok, they were "not good" in the Super Bowls, if that's what you mean. Yes, they got outcoached (and were also unfocused) for the Giants. They had a terrible start in the second, were definitively overmatched in the third, and started well and fell apart in the fourth. On balance, the AFC was the weaker conference, but the Bills more than held their own at that time (weren't they something like 13-3 against the NFC in the regular season), and the team deserves to be considered one of the better teams of all time (and probably would be if they had just won the first SB).

They really are not at all. There's a lot of room for cuts which put them in a not great, but not impossible, situation (Mario cut/restructure, Clay restructure, bump in salary cap alone would likely put them 20-30m under). They are in almost exactly the same situation the Dolphins were last year when they went and signed Suh. Salary cap hell is when a team enters free agency 10-60m over and has to cut players they don't want to lose. Bills are clearly not in that situation. They are also not in the situation where they can be players. They will likely not be major players in free agency, as Whaley has openly said. They will likely try to re-sign Glenn, Incognito...others like Bradham, if their price tags are not overinflated, a few Ryan-friendly bargain guys (of the DeMario Davis variety), and I wouldn't be surprised if we signed one major defensive free agent, despite Doug's comment about not doing anything the first week, as he also said (if i am not mistaken, correct me if i'm wrong) one top-level defensive signing but no more is possible. But, yes, as others have said, they will probably mostly pick up role players after the market calms down, when you can get better value deals, and I'm sure there will be 2 or 3 major underachievers as that's clearly Whaley's stock-in-trade (check out the rivals top 100 recruit lists from 2003-12 and see how many current bills were on there). Vernon Davis would be unlikely too...terrible value at this point in his career and as one poster pointed out, he's not necessarily that connected to Roman.

The schedule is nowhere near as brutal as people here are making it out to be. We tend to look tend to look at the next year's schedule with the best possible versions of our opponents. Hence, no good team is going to tank, the Raiders, Jags, and Rams are "definitively on the upswing," yet the Ravens were somehow an aberration. You never know what your schedule is going to entail until it happens, until you know which teams catch the injury bug. Even now, I don't quite get the horror...yes, we play the Cardinals and Seahawks, but we also play the Browns and 49ers, who look like absolute train wrecks at this point in time. Steelers and Bengals were great this year, but the Ravens were terrible, and the Rams were falling apart by year's end (and who knows how they react to the hubbub of L.A.). The Raiders and Jags have a lot of hope, but it's the same sort of hope that an outsider might see in the Bills -- a lot of young talent, which doesn't always come together. It may turn out to be a nightmare schedule -- or it could be a cake schedule. We shouldn't pretend to know.

Unless you mean pains we don't see, Kyle only missed one game in the prior three seasons. In ten seasons in the NFL, he's played all games in six seasons, and played in 14 or more games in eight seasons.

You might feel differently if you lived in NYC, surrounded by obnoxious Jets fans (in fairness, they were friendly when i went to the game this year)