Utah John

The Bills already have more draft picks than they need -- more than can make this loaded roster. They should be trying for quality, not quantity, by trading up as much as possible. They need five rookies -- CB, WR, OL, possibly RB, possibly backup QB -- and those guys should be as good as possible.

Gilmore was an excellent cover CB while he was in Buffalo, but he didn't tackle worth a damn. I always figured he was trying not to get injured so he could play long enough to cash in on a big contract, and really who can blame him for that? The fact that he left the Bills for a big contract elsewhere is just business. The fact that he left the Bills to go THERE is harder to swallow. On today's Bills team, he wouldn't fit in, because everyone is supposed to tackle well. (Insert Tremaine Edmunds comment here.) But if the Bills thought they could compensate for that, he'd be a lot better than other options. The price, though, is probably not within reach considering the Bills have already checked under the sofa cushions and returned all their pop bottles for change, and they're about out of cash at this point.

There were Allen doubters even into his third season with the Bills. These stubborn fools could not admit they were wrong. They said that accuracy issues could never be fixed. Eventually they quieted down but every time Allen misses a pass they stick their heads back up and say "see, I told you". These are not Bills fans I'm talking about, they're the talking heads that make a living talking about the same things that we spend our time writing about here.

Wallace didn't sign for a huge amount in Pittsburgh. I think the Bills, who have watched him closely for years, figured he just wasn't ever going to be good enough, and that someone with equivalent skills to his would be available. I'm sure this wasn't a careless decision on the part of Beane.

The only reason I can see not to defer is this: Deferring means you're putting your tired defense back on the field. The other team's offense gets the ball and takes five minutes to score on your tired D, while THEIR defense is sitting and resting.

The Bills aren't in a BPA position this year. They have a serious hole to fill at CB. That's got to be where they put their money.

The tricks used to stay under the salary cap often involve more money going out early on, with that upfront payment counting toward all the years of the contract. Millions of dollars of future salaries get converted to bonuses that get paid NOW. Doing that requires the Pegulas to approve large payments, well above the salary cap in most years. I've never seen any indication that Beane's hands are tied -- the Pegulas are letting him spend spend spend if that's what it takes.

I like to compare Allen's attitude to that of other Bills' QBs. There was a game near the end of Kyle Orton's time here (please don't say that name three times, or he'll come back) when the Bills were down near the end of a game, and Orton had to scramble to the right and get a first down, or the Bills were going to lose. As this player ran toward the line to gain, two defenders came up to challenge him, and he ran out of bounds short of the line to gain. Put Allen in that situation, and at least one of the defenders will have to make a business decision right there on the spot.

Someone in the NFC will get things sorted and will become a strong team. The Rams won't be able to compete. They're going to slide into mediocrity and irrelevance. Maybe having a Lombardi is worth a decade of disappointment. Ask the Eagles fans. The Eagles and Rams would probably be happy to endure a decade of struggles for a single Lombardi. I think the Rams will fade just as quickly as the Eagles did, particularly when Donald hangs them up. But it would be better to stay at or near the top for a decade like the Seahawks did.

Miller played for the Rams in the year the Rams went all-in. The happy year is now over and the Rams will lose too many players to be able to keep the good times going. Rather than stick around and help bail as the ship sinks, ending his career on a struggling franchise, Miller came over to a ship that is making a big push this year but which hasn't mortgaged its future. All along, Beane has been building what he hopes is a dynasty, with the Bills ranging from pretty good in their off years, to dominant in their good years. Beane doesn't want a roller coaster. He wants a battleship.

Cleveland is desperate, that's the only way to look at this. They had the overall #1 and got a QB that deserved to be a Day 2 pick. They now give up three MORE 1st rounders to get a QB. At the same time they're having trouble holding on to the talent they already assembled. They still have Myles Garrett, two great RBs, and have traded for an aging Amari Cooper. But not having 1st rounders is a killer in a salary cap era, where the key to success is drafting good players who are cheap for the first four or five years. Watson is an excellent QB but the team is eating its seed corn now and will starve later. Plus they're in a division with Burrow and Lamar Jackson. And Trubisky who is a lot better than Chicago made him look. Success this year for Cleveland is NOT guaranteed, and their future looks doubtful. Desperation makes people and teams do very doubtful things.

You're one Josh Allen run and awkward slide away from losing your money. But I admire your loyalty.

The message to the Bills players and the rest of the NFL is that in Buffalo, you produce or you're gone. That tough love approach would be deadly if the Bills had a bad team, but it's great when the Bills are strong. Players who want to be on the best team know they have to deserve it. Maybe this is why McKissic backed out. Didn't want to risk being found out as not all that, so he settled for a safe spot on a bad team.

Nicely done.

Agreed on money for Miller vs Jones. Personally I'd have preferred Jones over Miller, who's fading faster. But, he's still a threat and a skilled pass rusher, so maybe he'll pass on some tips to our young DEs. Also Miller is great in the locker room, not sure about Jones. Also agreed about the salary cap, but I'm not sure the explosion you mentioned will come soon enough to avoid a couple of critical years where the Bills can't squeeze through on keeping who they want to keep as well as filling holes. I figure it had to be a non-football reason for McKissic. His wife not wanting to move? Maybe he has a great house and living situation near DC, and when he brought his wife to Buffalo in yucky March she said no no no no. Well, his loss. And maybe the message got through to Motor and Moss and Brieda (who's probably gone anyway) that they need to keep upping their game.

BTW, does anyone besides me remember Beane saying the Bills couldn't do much in free agency because of the salary cap? He's getting a lot of cooperation from players willing to restructure contracts because they all see how this is building to an amazing group of talented guys. As for J.D. McKissic passing up the opportunity to get on board, taking the SAME MONEY to stay in DC, this could be one of the biggest blunders in NFL history.

Green Bay used to be an unattractive destination for FAs, and then Reggie White went there and everything changed. GB became an acceptable location, if not desirable, and good players were willing to sign there. The Packers have kept that going ever since. The great Bills teams of the early 90s were mostly built by drafting. Some exceptions like Lofton, but mostly drafting. Today's Bills have been built and are being built by a smart combination of drafting, to get cheap talent on board, selective retentions after rookie contracts expire, and FAs. Beane is showing the NFL how this works. But -- and of course there's a but -- Beane paid an awful lot for Miller. Yes it's likely that only the first few years of the contract will matter, and yes this is a sign that Beane is going all-in because he isn't willing to let his previous bets ride by hoping that Epenesa, Groot, and Basham become great pass rushers. But after Allen, Miller, Diggs, and White there isn't going to be top dollar cash available for all the rising stars on the Bills. Davis and Oliver might not be here after their rookie contracts end. Milano, Edmunds, Poyer, and Hyde could be gone in a couple of years. After winning the SB, the Rams might be lucky to make the playoffs next year -- I don't want to see the Bills fall off a cliff the same way. Beane has been managing the team to become a dynasty that endures for a decade, by NOT having high-priced individuals on the roster. It will be interesting to see how this all holds up over the next several years. I'm OK with this change. This might be the only way the Bills finally get their Lombardi, even if it means the wheels start to come off sooner than they would otherwise.

Sorry to see him go, but the Bills couldn't match that offer. What kind of compensatory pick does this mean?

The Pats are in the worst possible situation. They think they have their QB but he's not very good and they won't succeed with him and won't let themselves move on from him. Stuck in mediocrity land for half a decade to come.

Mack was a tremendous player who isn't a tremendous player anymore. Mack's salary correlates with a tremendous player, not the guy he is now. And the Bills aren't going to screw up their salary cap to grab a player whose production is falling off a cliff.

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?