Magox

He had a number of good snaps with the Ravens, he can still provide good coverage on a number of receivers and you can see that his technique and physicality against them is still there. The problem is when he goes up against burners that he doesn’t have the juice specially when they make cuts to be able to keep up against them. I don’t know if he would be willing to sign on a vet minimum deal but personally I’d rather go with building this team through draft and udf contracts along with your impact players.

It’s not happening

I think every situation and team is unique, unique in that teams are constructed differently and have different needs, the reality is that there are many factors at play. However, at these overinflated WR rates, from a probability standpoint it wouldn’t make sense for most teams to pay top tier WR rates. Which is why I do think putting resources in premium draft picks do make sense for WR’s. If you can get 4 to 5 really good years from a WR without having to pay the overinflated rate then obviously that would be very beneficial for that team. I do think WR’s are very valuable to most teams and from my perspective the way this league is built I believe it to be the 3rd or 4th most important position grouping even though they are the clear 2nd highest paid group. I think it’s logical that the QB is the highest paid primarily to how often he handles the ball and the outcomes of those 32 attempts are literally in his hands. Top tier WR’s will be targeted around 8-12 times a game which gives them around 5-8 times they actually come down with the ball. I think it’s more logical for most teams to spend the 2nd most money by position groupings on the defensive line more specifically Defensive end. They are the primary people tasked at disrupting the most valuable position QB on passing plays and are used in a large extent to stop the run. I generally agree with what you said

This board and for that matter much of the league greatly values the worth of Wide receivers to their teams prospects to having success. As it stands there are 23 total receivers who make at least $20 million per year of which 11 make more than $25 Million. Just a couple years ago there were 14 who made $20M+ and just 5 that made $25M+. The rate of inflation for paying receivers has outpaced the rate of the salary cap inflation as a whole. To put this into perspective, by the time the 2025 season begins nearly half the league will have allocated pretty close to 10% of their entire salary cap towards their star receiver. Justin Jefferson made up 13.7% in 2024 Devante Adams 13.5% CeeDee Lamb 13.3% Cooper Kupp 12.8% AJ Brown 12.5% Amon-Ra St. Brown 11.8% Brandon Aiyuk 11.8% Tyreek Bill 11.8% Dk Metcalf 11.5% Deebo Samuel 11.5% Out of which 4 of them made the playoffs this past year. https://theanalyst.com/2024/09/are-the-highest-paid-wide-receivers-worth-it The league over the past 17 years had steadily increased their rate of passing which justified an increase in the rate of inflation to receivers. Back in 2005 teams were throwing on average for 203.5 and saw a steady increase all the way to 2020 peaking out at 240.2 yards per game. Since 2020, teams have began to run the ball more often and more successfully, seeing the passing rate steadily decline to 217.6 yards per game which is a substantial 10% rate of decline in passing yardage over the past 5 years. It makes sense that teams have evolved and have adjusted to playing more bully ball against teams that were designed to stop passes who employed lighter boxes and base nickel defenses leading to the decline in passing yards. https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/NFL/passing.htm It's not coincidence that sometime around 2020 NFL teams which was when teams were at their zenith in terms of passing yards had begun to seriously deflate Running back valuations comparatively to the rest of the NFL rate of player personnel pay and began the inflation of wide receiver pay relative to the NFL pay as a whole. The question begs is the rate of pay inflation in the NFL for receivers justified? Before I get into that, I wanted to share some stats. The four teams that threw the ball the least in 2024 was Philadelphia, Baltimore, Green Bay and Buffalo. All 4 teams were playoff teams, one won the Super Bowl, another went to the AFC championship. Out of the top 10 teams that passed the ball least 7 made the playoffs. This past year in 2024, out of the top 10 receivers in terms of receiving yards only 3 played in the playoffs, Justin Jefferson, Amon-Ra St. Brown and Ladd McConkey. Out of the top 10 of the teams that spent the most for wide receivers in 2024 only 3 made the playoffs. Out of the bottom 17 teams that spent the least in wide receivers in 2024, nearly half of them did make the playoffs. https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/position/wide-receiver/_/year/2024/table/active/sort/cash_total It's clear that for NFL teams to be successful that it is not necessary to have true blue #1 blue chip boundary WR's. Chiefs, Bills and Ravens are examples of this. Out of the 14 teams that made the playoffs, only 5 teams have receivers that are being paid over $20M a year. It's evident that the NFL has begun to trend towards running against lighter boxes more and passing the ball less. It takes a little time for GM's to adjust to realities on the ground, but we are beginning to see the deflationary cycle break in terms of paying playmaking RB's, but we've yet to see this happen in the wide receiver market. There are traditional factors at play such as basic supply and demand, in which unfortunately for RB's, the supply of RB's are expected to increase through this years RB crop of rookies which may put a damper on the overall RB market and that inversely there aren't that many stellar WR's in this year rookie crop which may prevent a lid for WR's. With all that said, I do expect to see the inflationary rate of pay for Wide receivers to begin to subside sometime in the near future. I don't advocate for having bottom tier talent at the receiver spot, what I am advocating is that it's not necessary to pay these extreme high wages that eat up so much cap room for a WR, specially in a league that has consistently been trending towards passing the ball less over the past 4 seasons.

Milano is still playing well, let him play out his contract.

You misunderstood what we were saying. The context of it all is that you can continue pushing out huge cap hits no matter how long he stays as QB until whenever the end is determined and once it’s over you can blow it all up.

Who cares that he's posturing in a manner that many fans don't like? He's not the face of the team, but he is a playmaker. This was by far his best year and he was highly productive per play. Going into the year, I would have pegged him with just playing out his contract and replacing him, but I believe in retaining playmakers and he most certainly was. My view of Cook changed this year. His EPA per carry was 5th in the league. Only Barkley, Henry, Gibbs and Irving had a higher EPA per play. And it wasn't just the stats, we saw his value throughout the season. I suspect next year they will give the rock to Cook at a higher rate than they have in the past as I expect that the Bills won't look to retain Ty Johnson. This is what a contract could look like which would make it very manageable for the Bills With that said, $15M is what Cook threw out there. Negotiations usually start off with the entity asking on a higher amount that they don't expect to receive, then the supplier of the contract comes in with a lower amount which the Bills are probably starting off around $10M per year. I expect that the Bills will end up signing him somewhere in between that amount. The Bills are looking to win a Superbowl now and if they can sign him around $12.5M per year, that will make the contract extremely affordable in a cap friendly way for the next couple years. By the time we get to 2027, the cap will probably have expanded by another $40 - $50M from where it was in 2024.

He’s not a “prototypical” boundary receiver, yet he has the speed, the entire route tree, the quickness/explosion, nuanced route running and hands to win against pretty much whoever is put in front of him. It’s not as if he hadn’t played the position in a meaningful way, he did it throughout his college years. I pointed out earlier, the senior bowl. I love watching Senior bowl practice highlights, for me it’s a great way to showcase abilities for GM’s in a very competitive setting against relatively top tier talent. Thats when I began to have my man crush for Ladd and posted incessantly about him last year. He was the star receiver in the camp, the video footage of him was ridiculously dominant. He showed cased his speed, his route running, how he setup DB’s and none of them could come close to covering him in the 1 v 1 portions of practice. He was leaving jockstraps all over the field. I knew at that time that he was going to be a stud. The better question isn’t whether what Buffalo ideally would want, it’s who was available that could have been had. Yes, you could make the argument that the Bills should have traded up for BTJ, and I was huge booster of his as well, but when that didn’t happen, the Bills had a choice on who to select. It’s pretty clear to me that they rated McConkey, Worthy, Coleman and a few others roughly about the same. I understand the thinking of why they went with Coleman, but I’m a proponent that there should be a heavier weighting on quality over need. Not to say that need isn’t a big consideration when making a draft selection just that quality of player should be weighted accordingly. And when the Bills had their selection come up they made the calculation that having a traditional get up and get the ball sort of guy outweighed a guy like McConkey who could have been your Swiss Army knife receiver who could line up effectively at any of the receiver spots. I know this sounds like a 20/20 sort of post and I guess it sort of is, I like Coleman and think it’s unfortunate that his injury derailed the rest of his season which was beginning to shape up nicely. And with the way Buffalo likes to run their running schemes he fits in more so than other receivers such as Worthy or McConkey. I just bring bring up McConkey because I did post a lot about him pre draft much more so than most and I always refuted the idea that he was just a “slot” guy.

Yes, the Bills could have had him. The thinking by many was that he was wasn’t a true boundary receiver that was better suited for the slot and since we already have Shakir it didn’t make sense to get another slot guy. Where those people got it wrong was that he was a better receiver than any other by the time the Bills traded away their pick and that Ladd could play any receiver spot and thrive. He was a boundary receiver in college, he was uncoverable 1 v 1. Doesn’t matter now, I like Keon and he was trending nicely until his injury. Hope he works hard this off season and gets in lots of time with Josh so that they can build some chemistry.

I did want to draft him. I definitely repped for him. Many believed he was just a “slot” guy almost in a pejorative sense. I saw how he was killing all the DB’s at the senior bowl, they couldn’t hang with him. His route running was so advanced, honestly I hadn’t seen anyone coming out of college that had so much nuance in his route running as he. I felt strongly that he was going to be a really good pro. I wanted Bryan Thomas Jr. more than anyone outside of Nabers but Ladd is who I wanted next. You could line him up anywhere and he’ll win.

And this is why Ladd McConkey is so much better than what his detractors believe. He wins against man to man

If the Bills don’t have Allen’s successor while he’s on the roster, they could blow it all up the year he leaves, cut players and take the massive debt hit the year after which probably would lead to a high draft pick to go after your next franchise QB. That was the problem with the years that the Bills were in playoff purgatory, they were rarely one of the worst 8 teams and were always just mediocre and it seemed like they were drafting in that 10-14 range. They couldn’t land their franchise QB.

Maybe Beane can mortgage the future similar to how the Eagles did Holy fudge!

I would consider slitting my wrist if that happened.

Old habits die hard. When you get used to thinking a certain way which has been validated by many GM's in this league then it gets hard to outgrow outdated habits. The league was very pass heavy and that trend is beginning to become more ground centric. 2020 NFL teams ran the ball on average of 41.9% of the time, last year in 2023 it was 43.8%. This year, 47.9% Why? Because teams like the Bills were built to try to stop the pass, going into more Nickle base schemes. How did teams react? By going with personnel to take advantage of lighter boxes. Who had the best scoring offenses in the NFL this year? The Lions, Ravens and the Bills. Philadelphia ran the ball 56.29% of the time Ravens ran the ball 53.55% The Bills ran the ball 49.26% The Lions ran the ball 46.96% What do they have in common? Philadelphia has Saquon, Ravens have Henry, The Bills have Cook and Lions have Jamyr Gibbs. And they all won their divisions this year. Success leaves clues. Yeah, paying $13M a year for Cook is a no brainer.

This Ravens offense was better than any other they've ever had, I never had fear of stopping the Ravens offense than like this year. The Eagles offense was most certainly better than last year, that running game made teams try to load up and stop the run making their passing game more efficient, same with the Ravens. Houston fell apart this year in their passing game, it's a fact that Mixon carried that offense during the middle of the season. But that's not the best way of looking at it, look at the teams that those players left. The Raiders, - Josh Jacobs was their focal point in 2023 and they were 8-9, he leaves and then their running game disappears and they go 4-13 The Titans, - Derrick Henry had a down year but was still their focal point and they went 6-11 to going to 3-14 The Giants - Saquon was their entire offense and they went from 6-11 to 3-14 Cincinnati - is the only team that ended up with the same record. That's as clear as it gets, the loss of those running backs aside from Mixon were detrimental to those teams, all because their GM's wanted to be moron bean counters who operate in the old way of thinking. And for what? $2M difference a year of what they were willing to pay. That's a symptom of what was wrong with those GM's which is why they are either no longer there or they are on the hot seat.

I think most of you are off base and the way you are viewing playmaking RB's are outdated. One thing was clear this year, the teams that continued with this outdated way of thinking on playmaking RB's and didn't retain their stars paid the price. Saquon Barkley, the Giants offered less than $12M a year and as a result paid the price. Josh Jacobs, the Raiders didn't want to pay $12M a year and all he did was end up with 1800 total yards and 16 TD's. Derrick Henry, Titans fell apart and Ravens had their best offense ever with Henry accumulating over 2100 total yards and 18 TD's. Joe Mixon, he carried that offense for much of the season, whereas the Bengals had their worst ground game in years. All this because they wanted to save a few million dollars. Just to put this into context, Gabe Davis signed a contract at $13M a year, more than any of the RB's that I just mentioned. Playmakers at any position should get paid at a premium. The pendulum swung way too much to undervaluing playmaking RB's and I believe you'll see that trend begin to go to it's medium. Cook was a playmaker for the Bills, he was explosive, made lots of plays that other RB's could not make and broke lots of long runs. He was even more impressive around the goal line and showed he has a knack for getting into the endzone. What about that short goal line run against the Chiefs? Holy! That was as spectacular of a 1 yard run I've seen in a Bills uniform, only a handful of RB's in the league could have made that play. Not to mention he's a good receiving back. His $15M a year is a starting point and it's a very reasonable one. The Bills should absolutely look to get a deal done for him and they probably will settle around the $13M a year mark which is a hell of a deal for a playmaker. I would be sick to my stomach if he ended up going to another team after this season.

The secondary is not fine, Rasul is looking older and is not a good man corner and Kair will be gone. The defense desperately needs to upgrade at CB and also could use an upgrade in safety play as well. Rapp and Bishop play a similar style of play, the other safety needs to be the deeper safety who can cover lots of ground, instinctual with some ball skills. The Eagles Chiefs game showed that good cover defenders can force teams like the Chiefs off their first read, clearly the Bills biggest problem defensively was the coverage unit

March 12th I believe is when trades can begin again as well.

I didn't think they would be available until 2026 and 2027.

If I were Beane I would make a call to the Titans and see what it would take to trade for Jeffery Simmons. He's an absolute beast, and if he were playing for a top tier team he would be considered to be one of the top 4 DT's in the league. He can rush the passer and stuff the run. He is on a 4 year $23.5M per year contract that runs through 2027, he's only 27 years old and the Titans may entertain that trade offer considering where they are. A trade for him would probably look like a 2025 1st, 2025 4th and a 2026 2nd. Pick up some decent Pass rusher through FA and draft one with one of your premium picks and a mid rounder and hope that Javon Soloman develops along with Epenesa. Having Oliver and Simmons in the middle would be huge for the defense. He's a couple years younger than Myles Garrett and will end up being a lot cheaper.

I'm obviously all for that. They can negotiate and see what he fetches. The potential is there and he could potentially fill a need that this team would like to have. His rate should be something somewhat affordable. With that said, I do think he will be around that $8M range, his qualities are attractive and I think his contract will be comparable to what Samuels received.

If the Bills don’t trade for Myles Garrett then they should look to draft two of these.

The Bills don’t need a big time feature guy at the WR spot. The Bills have solid complimentary and competent guys who as a unit under Brady’s system, with this offensive line and Josh Allen form an elite offense. The only thing this offense lacks is a WR who can win vertically with speed. They don’t need a top tier guy to fill that role.

He is a decent route runner who can win vertically. I have been a pretty big proponent of not using lots of cap resources on a WR this off season but from what I saw he is expected to get a contract somewhere around $9m a year. That is about right at the top of what they should spend on a WR this off season. DE, DT, Safety and CB are needs.