vincec

I suspect that is the "market rate" for Byrd (until the next premium safety's contract is up at least)

That's not a good sign, although TO gave Fitz a similar endorsement after he replaced Edwards as the starter when Fewell took over. And Fitz didn't turn out to be anything, so receivers don't know everything.

Well, if I were Byrd and his agent I would hold out until just before the start of week 1 and then sign the tender and report. That way I get my full salary and will be able to count the season. It would be crazy to give up money during the regular season by holding out then. These are millions of dollars that will be permanently lost. He will never be able to recover them later in his career and there's no way that holding out for a few extra hundred thousand will make up for the millions he will lose if he sits out the year. No reason to sign before then though and risk injury. If he's lucky, he will not know the system and will not even play for the first few games so he will be collecting his monster contract and not putting his body on the line. Then next year we start over with the same situation.

He will be doing the backstroke before long.

I don't think that coach Harbaugh will be ok with it. http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/06/colin-kaepernicks-dolphins-hat-recalls-an-old-jim-harbaugh-spat/

Wow. If Mark Sanchez is better that Kevin Kolb then it's going to be another long season...

I don't know Pat Kirwan from Pat Moran but this article was pretty superficial. I guess most of these one page summaries are but there really are no new insights in it.

I really don't know why they got rid of Donald Jones. I always thought he had a lot of playmaking potential. At least let him get beat out in camp.

It's tough to guess until we can see what Marrone's offense and Pettine's defense will be like. Based on my guess however, I think that you'd have to be looking for pass rushing OLB assistance. The Bills are now playing a blitz heavy 3-4 and still don't really have a premium OLB pass rusher. I can also see CB as a high priority. OG and possibly safety (if Byrd leaves) are weak spots but not worthy of a 1st round pick, IMO. Could possibly justify OT at #1 depending on what happens with Pears this season. I'd have OLB, OT and CB as P2s, no P1. P3 would be NT, S, C, TE. P4 is G, ILB and RB. All else P9. Forget FB. I'm not sure how you can have DE at P3. Don't the Bills have M Williams at one spot and Dareus, Carrington and Anderson vying for the other?

I'd say the only "locks" are S Johnson and Woods. All others, including Graham and Goodwin, will have to prove themselves to get a spot. I think that they will keep 6 WRs, maybe 7 if the 7th best WR is a better special teams player than the best at the other positions but that's up in the air until training camp. The early frontrunners besides Johnson and Woods, IMO, are Graham, Goodwin, Rogers and Kaufmann. Given his salary and age I think that Smith would really have to stand out for them to keep him (although he has been good this off season).

Obviously it depends if he is planning to run them over with the car or not.

The Bills should've kept Fitz!

Well Parcells had already put together a Super Bowl team before he left, and they were young, so he wouldn't exactly be starting from scratch in the "dynasty" department. I won't say that they would've had the same level of success as they have since by lucking into Brady but they would've been good and contended for a championship for several more years.

Reported by whom?

What do you call destroying his cell phone, security tapes and bringing in a team of cleaners to wipe down his house?

It appears that Hernandez took pointers on what to do after a crime from Ray Lewis.

The over/under is 6.5, not 3, which seems about right. 3 is crazy low and it takes more than just having a bad team to only win 3 games unless you're an expansion team. You usually need a lot of bad luck as well.

I know, one top player is enough. I mean what you trying to do here- build an all star team like the one in the early 90s? One top player and the rest scrubs is the way to go!

They do this at every other position on the field when they are trying to work in a rookie player. I don't know why it's such a taboo at quarterback.

I don't think you can equate the NFL with the stock market for many reasons, two of which are that Byrd is a human being with his own opinion of his value and that the value of a stock if far easier to monazite than an NFL player. A player doesn't deliver clear monetary rewards to a franchise so it's very difficult to determine what he was worth financially to a team. The true measure is what he draws from the market place at the time of negotiation. Anyway, if you think that some other team will pay Byrd what he is asking then that's his value, IMO. Whether you want to pay it or not is up to you but I wonder if any player is going to settle for less than what he could earn somewhere else just for the privilege of remaining a Bill.

Only the good draft picks were Whaley's. The bad ones were Nix's or possibly due to Brandon's meddling.

It is not an oversimplification. How can you can that someone "outperforms their contract" when both the quality of their performance and its actual value are completely relative? What someone is worth financially is not a clearly defined number. It's just a construct of the market and usually varies with one's perspective. People place different emphasis on things they find important, like statistics, leadership, being associated with winning, health history, loyalty, potential, etc. That's why there are disagreements and negotiations. At the end of the day your financial value is what you have negotiated. Nothing more or less.

No one is overpaid or underpaid. Everyone is paid exactly what he is able to negotiate. If he can get $8m from someone else then his market value is $8m and if the Bills want a top safety then it costs $8.

My questions (and my point) is: what are the Bills going to do with the money if the don't sign Byrd at whatever price? If they don't think he's worth what he's asking and let him go then they have a pile of money and another hole on defense. If it was a choice like sign Byrd or Spiller then you have to pick, but that isn't the case. I was told that the choice was Levitre or Byrd and now it looks like we may lose both, and if that was the case then why did we let Levitre walk? Is it simply the principle of not paying a lot for players? What happens when Wood wants more than a center with an injury history is worth? Let him walk too?

I love how everyone immediately jumps on this aspect of the post instead of commenting on the substance. Unless of course the implication is that since Levitre didn't make the pro-bowl then he's really not a good player, which is ludicrous as nucci points out. I ask again, if the Bills aren't going to spend their money to keep their best players then what are they planning to use it for?