Utah John

It's going to be tough for marginal players to stick with this team. It's sad, but it's a good thing that the required level of performance is so high that merely good players won't be retained. Mongo will find another team for which his level of performance is better than what they have already, and he'll get more money than the Bills were willing or able to pay him.

"in New York you can be a new man" -- like for example Diggs after he came to the Bills -- the only team in New York.

This is the sort of thing that will happen not only this year, but every year until the wheels fall off for some reason (hopefully not for many years). Good veteran players get released and rookies take their places, get paid as rookies (i.e., cheaply), and play until their rookie contract ends. The players all know how this works, and they're all looking forward and trying to stay healthy so they can sign at least one FA contract somewhere else. The Bills will have a trail of released veterans playing elsewhere, like the debris in a comet's tail, while the head of the comet keeps shining bright.

The Sammy Watkins episode showed it doesn't work to have a great WR corps when you don't have a very good (or better) QB. You get the QB and then build the offense around him. The weak QB draft class means the Seahawks aren't going to get Their Guy this year. They're going to try to hold their core together while shedding expensive veterans, so they'll have more cap space next year. They'll be trying for 6-11 or worse in order to get good draft picks in 2023. The real crisis will come when Pete Carroll decides to retire, and that could come about soon if the Seahawks struggle even worse than last year, which seems likely.

In a non-salary cap world, this would be great, but all those players will command big veteran contracts. The Bills depend on draft picks on cheap rookie contracts to play important roles. Getting those three players would likely mean losing three or four of the core guys who make the Bills work so well. I'm not talking about reserves, either -- we might no longer be able to retain Poyer or Hyde or Milano or Dawkins. If the Bills trade veterans for those veterans, that's a better option, but who would be on the block that other teams would want, and that we could afford to part ways with?

Rodgers might be the Most Valuable Player but he's not the Best Quarterback. By the time his contract runs out, he'll be an afterthought for postseason honors.

I have to agree with everything in this post. The Pack is desperately trying to get Rodgers back to a Super Bowl and is following the Rams' approach of going all-in for their target year. With this contract, Rodgers becomes trade-proof, I think. No one will want to pay him whatever the back end of his contract calls for, and the dead money for GB would be enormous. Jordan Love has spent enough time on the bench to be ready to take over somewhere. His trade value is diminished by the fact that he's burned through two years of his cheap rookie contract, so other teams would prefer to draft their own QB and get a full 4-5 years of cheap QB play. I feel sorry for that guy who likely won't ever get his chance unless Rodgers gets hurt.

I wonder if a 11-6 record will win the AFCW next year. It's going to be brutal competition within the division. Exciting games for all the teams involved. And good news for the rest of the AFC, since it will be easier for other teams to get wild card slots.

The LBs Union is not going to sit still for this.

The Bills roster isn't perfect but it doesn't have a lot of holes. This year, maybe there are a few more weak areas than last year, but last year it was really tough for a rookie to crack the 53. There just isn't a need for 10 picks or more, since almost all the picks will make the team, and the turnover rate should be pretty constant year to year in order to keep fresh blood in the system, replace vets who leave as FAs or retire or get traded, and at the same time not let the culture get sideways before the rookies get blended in. A late round comp pick is usually not very helpful overall.

It annoys me every time I see the Pegulas getting credit for providing "private" money when a large part of that is from PSLs. PSLs are purchased by the public, so that part of the overall financing should be considered public, not private, funds.

Beasley was our Kelce this year and last year, the guy who always got open and moved the chains. Of course Kelce is also a bigger downfield threat, but they had the same role when it came to first downs. I think the Bills are trying to sign Gronk and use Gronk as the chain mover. He's not very elusive but he's a reliable catcher, and he can still get downfield. And, he's a much better blocker than Beasley, so if the run game is going to get improved this would be a good step.

The Browns' biggest problem isn't Mayfield, IMO, it's the overall roster. The Browns went with the Big Star approach, gathering a bevy of top players, and filling out the roster with JAGS. The salary cap is going to force them to make tough choices -- keep Myles Garrett or Clowney or their starting QB? for example. The stars are going to thin out, leaving the roster full of meh JAGs, and that isn't going to win enough to challenge Cinci or Baltimore. Certainly not Buffalo.

They won championships with the standing buffalo helmet. Despite powerhouse teams on several occasions, no championships with the charging buffalo. Coincidence? Try going back to the standing buffalo for a full season and see what happens. If that doesn't work, then get a brand new logo.

Compared to Hunt, Singletary is younger/cheaper/a better person/just as good a runner. Why are we having this discussion?

Hunt was such a bad person even KC got rid of him. How does he fit into the process?

Deshaun Watson to Indianapolis, a very solid team that outdid its QB's capabilities this year.

They need to stay tight together. There will be situations coming up where players that have been Bills during the past four years return to excellence, are going to be traded or cut, and new players will be arriving. That's a challenge for the team's cohesiveness. It's important that the bonding process include the new guys so there isn't an old vs new mentality taking place.

And in this copycat league, you can be sure the Bills are looking at that performance and trying to figure out how to make that approach work with the Bills' personnel. Of course KC knows everyone will be doing exactly that, and will be working to stay a step ahead.

Allen's stupendous play over the last couple of games of the year and the playoffs gobsmacked the league and the fans. They had never seen QB play like that. And compare Allen with the arrogant Burrow or with Stafford, who was not interested when a photographer taking his picture fell off a stage and broke her back. Josh is the consistently nice guy. Of course he's getting attention. I hope his vacation ends soon, though, and he gets back to Jordan Palmer's QB school for the next round of improvement.

If they want to go anywhere, they should go back to Fredonia. The great teams of the 80s and 90s used those Fredonia training camps to bond, with the players going out in groups to the bars. No such situation is possible near SJF. I can't believe the Bills would sell fewer tickets to people in NW NY -- Rochester etc -- if training camp wasn't held nearby.

Aikman he can't seem to understand the rules of English. That commentator he always wants to have two subjects in every sentence. Aikman he can't seem to tell us anything that most football fans already know. Those fans they might like him if they're stupored up from too much beer, and Aikman he tells them what they ought to know anyway, so the fans they can feel smart and superior. Aikman he is so far below Tony Romo in telling us what we DON'T already know that there's no comparison. Aikman he would be a good choice for people who know nothing about football to learn a little about the basics of the game. Aikman he is Captain Obvious for most of the rest of us.

I agree with you, WEO. The real purpose of this bill is to attract political attention, not to solve anything. As you said, the sexual harassment issues are already being addressed. If anything this bill just lets the NFL know that Congress expects action on that issue. As for the stadium funding question, that's just to attract attention.

This bill is an attack on the NFL for the continuing problems with misogyny and sexual harassment, in general, and with the behavior of the Washington Commanders in particular. The way to attack the NFL is to go after money, so the bill links up an unrelated issue -- public financing for sports stadiums -- with the women's issues. I look at it like a big bomb dropped near the real target, that gets debris on the target but also makes a big splash that gets everyone's attention. Should stadiums get tax breaks? That's a good topic for a discussion and possibly for changing things. Let's have that but let's keep these two unrelated issues separate. And certainly the women's issues need to be addressed.

Fan since 1963, age 7, when the Bills battled Boston, and my cousins had moved from WNY to the Boston suburbs so the arguments had started already. That's when I figured out how the playoffs worked: Whichever team, Buffalo or Boston, won more games, got to play San Diego for the championship. Not whoever the western division champ was, just San Diego. That made sense to me and in those years I was right. We listened to Bills games on the radio, and Jack Kemp and his high-pitched voice was the sound of the Bills. Now and then we could get them on television. After the games all the boys in the neighborhood would pile out of their houses and we'd play football in the back yards, arguing over who was going to be Jack Kemp. I clearly remember the Kemp-Lamonica debates. Eventually my uncle got a color TV and we'd watch the games at his house. I remember watching the first game of the 1967 season, and the Bills beat the Jets, but my dad and uncle both shook their heads and said it was going to be a long year. Favorite Bills football memory: First game of the 1974 season, Monday Night Football vs the Raiders. The Bills took the lead late in the 4th quarter and had the ball to run out the clock. Then Braxton fumbled and the Raiders ran it back for a TD and the lead. Ferguson brought the Bills back and hit Ahmad Rashad in the left half of the west end zone. All this with OJ out, hurt as I recall. The first two or three years Rich Stadium was open, I was a vendor in the stands, selling pop in 73 because I wasn't drinking age yet (only 17) but after I turned 18 I could sell beer. Great job, but lousy beer. Got to watch a lot of OJ runs for free, and made some money besides. Favorite Bills non-football memory: In 1972 or 73, our HS band (West Seneca East) did an exchange with a band from a HS in Maryland. They came to Buffalo to see the Falls, and we had a free day in DC. Seven or eight of us boys found Rep. Kemp's office and asked to see him. And we got in! The other guys just looked at the football photos on the walls, but Kemp and I got into a long argument about development in China. I thought the people in China were really benefiting from the improved standard of living, and he thought the people in China deserved better human rights. Turns out we were both right. Favorite Bills player. OK, so many obvious choices, but I'll give Freddy Jackson some love. No one played with as much heart. A good back, not a great back, but always trying. Beat out Marshawn Lynch for the starting RB slot. I was so sad he couldn't last another couple of years so he could taste the playoffs. Favorite current player. Josh, of course. I started on The Stadium Wall in the mid to late 90s. (The Dean and I were pretty active posters. Is he still around? I haven't seen his posts for a long time.) I was living in California then and posted as John in CA. Moved to Virginia in 2000, and posted as John in VA. Moved to Utah in 2008 and became Utah John. Moved to Alaska in 2018 and kept the Utah John name.