BADOLBILZ

The money spent on Star, Murphy, Eifert, Bodine and Newhouse was cap space they do not have now and they've gotten almost nothing out of those guys. You can roll over unused cap space every year.........so every cap decision carries a future impact. That's why you don't sign a 30+ year old Eric Wood to an extension the summer before his UFA when you know he's highly unlikely to leave Buffalo. It's why you don't just toss Shady McCoy a couple extra million to keep him happy that same summer. When Kelvin Benjamin shows a lack of effort and performance in half of a season in 2017 maybe you should move him rather than pay him $10M in 2018 and quietly cut him half way thru the year. Choices. They made a lot of decisions that nickeled and dimed them into the cap position they are in. It really added up to A LOT in-season in 2017 and the offseason of 2018........creating dead money and acquiring dead money walking. They also made a lot of good personnel decisions. But their cap issues trace back to the first 12 months of Beane's money decisions.

The way the cap works is that unused cap dollars can be rolled forward to the next year........and the next year......etc..........so money spent or "killed" in 2018 is cap room they do not have now that they could have had. The two are tied together because the players whose money they had to bury were replaced with a garbage class in UFA. Lotulelei, Murphy, Eifert, Bodine, Newhouse..........just atrocious. I'm pointing this out because the OP is trying to create a narrative that the reason the Bills didn't have the money to outmaneuver the rest of the league in UFA this offseason is because they were disproportionately harmed by the pandemic. They were, in fact, PROPORTIONATELY harmed........same amount of cap space as everyone else.

That answer is simple and tangible. Cap dollars. They chose to create the dead money........they felt it was necessary........fine. But it was a CHOICE. They also chose to sink about $80M in cap space into Star Lotulelei and Trent Murphy with those deals in 2018..........that was a big chunk of change for a couple duds..........most of which they could have rolled over and had available to spend this offseason. These were Bills choices. There were lot's of smaller mistakes that added up as well.........giving Corey Coleman $3.5M for 10 days of TC........Paying Quinton Spain $5M to go away after re-signing him.......overspending on reserves like Spencer Long.........and of course the low impact DL signings of last offseason(and choosing to retain both Addison and Butler again). But the primary culprit for the Bills relative lack of cap room were the very impactful $ decisions of 2018 offseason. The pandemic was not a primary reason for the Bills lack of flexibility...........every team had their salary cap affected by the same amount. The Bills could have chosen to push debt down the line if they felt that was going to push them over the top. The reality is that the Bills weren't going to be in a better cap position to improve themselves in free agency than the rest of the teams in the league. The other teams would have had the same amount MORE to spend. It's not that complicated.

The minutia is not worth arguing with you about it. You have yourself tied in a knot of reasoning. It's not that complicated. His lack of impact is broad........he isn't good against the run..........he isn't a good blitzer..........his pass coverage leaves plenty to be desired..........and he doesn't make plays in the backfield or on the football........the kinds of plays that change games.

If they are simply allowing passes to be completed over the middle why do they need a special athlete to do that? I know the narrative.........but people talk themselves into a knot trying to explain this mysterious greatness that Edmunds brings........and then think they've drawn a straight conclusion. He's disappointed. I don't care that McBeane fluff him up in the media. They are a middling defense in great deal due to his lack of impactful plays.......and I am sure they don't like that. McDermott actually did say Edmunds had to play better when pressed on it last year.........which was RARE criticism of any player from the publicly uncritical HC. He's got a high ceiling, they have taken the experiment this far, they likely have their fingers crossed that this is the year he plays up to his potential.

2 of his 3 seasons his passer rating against have been poor. He hasn't forced a fumble in his last 42 regular season games. It's not just last year that he hasn't made plays............and as @GunnerBill has pointed out, teams have good scouting reports on him now and they have learned how to manipulate him in coverage to take advantage of his lack of instincts. Maybe the light comes on in year 4 but the reality is that he isn't playing anywhere near what his measurables indicated he would. When they drafted this dude and moved him inside there was HOF whispers and Brian Urlacher comps. Yet in most games he's virtually invisible.

This is why people need to be on board with a pick like Greg Rousseau. Yes, there is plenty of risk involved with a guy who has played one season on the DL in college at age 19. But in the NFL you CAN go broke just making a profit early in the draft. You need to replenish franchise difference makers. The Butler Bills tended to pick guys with low ceilings and impact potential early........perhaps with the idea being that they already had their impact players. That's what allowed the Patriots to come up from behind and take them down as their stars aged out. The first round of the draft should be for guys who would cost you $20M per season if they pan out...........not to fill the "need of the hour" like a frickin' RB.

Holecek was a nice player but the thing I will always remember is Donahoe re-working his contract in April and then cutting him in May.........costing the team an additional $2M in cap space..........when he was on his total tear down tour. Utter stupidity but fans were on board with the "5 years of cap hell narrative" (the f*cker was back shopping in free agency for "his guys" the very next offseason). That Holecek move ranks second only to Beane's 10 day trial with Corey Coleman that cost the Bills $3.5M in cap space for such sudden wastes of cap space.

Yeah.........the eye test says he simply doesn't make game changing plays. The counting stats......turnovers forced and collected, passes defensed, TFL's......they all say he doesn't make game changing plays. The advanced stats...... like his atrocious 114 passer rating allowed and an astonishing 0 pressures on 72 blitzes......say he doesn't make game changing plays. The hope has to be that he has a breakout season like Roquan Smith did in the second half of last season. Very talented player........loved the draft pick.........he's basically got the wingspan of Greg Rousseau but with 4.5 speed and excellent agility.

Bryce Brown could flat out FLY...........maybe the fastest RB in the NFL at the time. 4.32 40 yard dash. And a super recruit out of HS. Just a knucklehead both on and off the field........and he couldn't hold onto the football.

Doubling down on DE's in the draft also, in theory, gives them some financial room to overpay for Edmunds and hope he elevates his game. They are likely projecting that they won't have to pay $15M-$20M for a pass rusher in the next 4-5 offseasons. I don't agree with that strategy.........the guy simply needs to be playing on the LOS more than posting up like a stiff in the middle of a 2-3 zone but it is what it is.

2018 offseason cap maneuvering was the main culprit. Terrible free agent signings and the most dead money buried in one season in the history of the NFL has put them in a position where they are less cap flexible than we'd like with a QB still in the middle of his rookie deal. I like a lot of what Beane has done but he and McD came out the box with a lot of financial misfiring. In the context that useful NT's are getting paid minimum wage now.........eating Dareus' unamortized signing bonus when his base salaries were dwindling and guaranteed money was almost gone.........and then putting 5 years and $50M on Star Lotulelei was an atrocious decision. Murphy was a significant bust too. They had the highest paid DL in the NFL last year.......so they are still paying for those. In full context, Beane has done a lot more good than bad, but initial mistakes have been $ costly and that the money burned on busts like Kelvin Benjamin and Murphy and Star is impacting them still today.

That was a really good draft......but even then, I thought it was off-tune. That was viewed as a loaded OL draft.......and the Bills OL had turned to horsesh*t.......that was what had ended their SB run more than anything........I was very disappointed that Butler didn't double down on the offensive line in round 2. My preference was Brian DeMarco, but he was off the board. Next was Brendan Stai. DeMarco didn't really have a great career but Stay had a very nice run in Pittsburgh. Instead they went with Todd Collins........a pick I hated........as @Bob Lamb can attest when I mocked his acquisition of a signed rookie card of the Michigan soft tosser........I wasn't ready to turn the page on Jim Kelly, I wanted to build a great OL around him. Covington was indeed a beast. Unfortunately the most memorable thing about his career was a scuffle where he ended up picking up gigantic Glenn Parker......at the time viewed as a soft player........and body slamming him on camera at training camp. Video of that has to still exist online. It was shocking and showed what immense power the smallish LB had. Drop foot did him in. Something similar to the injury that Jaylon Smith for Notre Dame/Dallas has/had.

Not really as a player.........Taylor was smaller, narrower, more athletic..........he was a PERFECT 3-4 OLB prospect. It reminds me again of how frustrated I used to get with the Bills though..........and how Beane actually picks players in round 1 that I want. John Butler was a decent drafter.........but he for some reason couldn't pick a pass rushing LB to save his life.......and Taylor was his biggest miss. During that 1997 draft process Taylor was considered a fast riser.......he had become my favorite player in that draft........I believe the last Zimmerman SI mock draft even had Taylor going in round 1.......which, at the time was the last and most "connected" mock. So I thought it was round 1 or no for the Bills and Taylor. Everyone knew the Bills were leaning toward Antowain Smith in round 1, that pick was no surprise. But in round 2 I remember being ecstatic that Taylor was on the board............and then Butler dropped a bomb on me and picked Marcellus Wiley. That hurt. I trusted Wiley would be solid but Taylor was going to be the dream pass rushing OLB. My heart sank again when the Dolphins took him. He had a great career but he would have been even better in a 3-4 IMO. Butler got me back on board though when he took Jamie Nails in round 4...........Nails was another late riser who I think was also mocked by Zimmerman in round 1 in that same mock draft. Tossup which draft I was more exasperated with Butler about........passing on Taylor or not trading up in front of the Titans to get Jevon Kearse (who I had as the #2 overall player behind Champ Bailey in the 1999 draft). That event played out here on TSW.

That was then. He has shaved the beard. In fairness.......the Bills "want to" for bloated blocks of ***** at the 1T position has been questionable............they cut Vincent Taylor at the end of TC and when everyone assumed they would try to find a Snacks or even Cory Liuget type.........they signed the hustling Zimmer. They could have made a net zero cap move for Danny Shelton.......who was excellent as recently as 2019 and better than you'd expect Star to be this year, last year.........but instead he was signed by the Giants for the vet minimum.

Not to be trite but I hope that the league and media perception is that Cleveland, Baltimore and Indianapolis are all better than Buffalo and that the AFC East is up for grabs. This team is better served being doubted at this stage in their roster and development, IMO.

He and his agent have made it clear thru their NFL insider mouthpieces that he wants out of Philly. I know some people think the Eagles owe it to him to let him become a free agent........but if I were the Eagles I'd let him sit and wait until TC and preseason games and see if someone gets an injury and becomes desperate for a TE so that I could get something of value for him. Also, him catching on with a team late, without benefit of an offseason with the new team, greatly decreases his chance of having much impact. If they let him go and he puts up 80+ grabs for his new team Roseman will catch hell from the media and fanbase for it.

Not trying to hijack the thread here.........but the Bills were just middle of the league.......not good........against the run in 2019 with a very healthy defense against one of the easiest schedules they've played in the over 40 years since the league went to 16 games. They were mediocre against the run against a very tough schedule and with significant injuries to the LB corps last year. Though they proved capable of shutting down Derrick Henry(his worst game of 2020) and the NFL's top rushing team Baltimore in the playoffs. The perception that they were terrible against the run, relative to the rest of the league, is incorrect.

The draft picks were high RAS guys..........the UDFA's were more "film" guys who played better than they tested. I found Tariq Thompson's RAS..........it was .33. Neither of us were big on Basham.........after 5 years in college he seems like a pretty finished product without a lot of upside........but hopefully his effort and intensity allows him to keep improving. My only real issue with this draft was not coming out of it with a bigger receiving target with downfield skills. Even Austin Watkins would have been nice.........though not sure, as Sammy's cousin, that the fit would have felt for his family or for the Bills and their fan base. Still time this offseason to improve the TE position and maybe even add some more to the WR corps. Expecting some teams to release players and some trades to happen.

More broadly, perhaps not good enough to even make this roster.

That takes us back to schedule. That 2019 schedule IMO was the easiest the team has had since the league went to 16 games back in the 1970's. In reality they have not been a consistently stout defense under McD since the first couple of months of 2017.

Of course he's going to show up.......he's not going to walk away from that guaranteed money. The question is whether they deem him roster worthy at the end of August. I'd say that's a 50/50 chance for him or any other minimum salary level quality of player.

IMO it's only a 50/50 proposition that Star even actually plays this year. The Bills have had PLENTY of opportunities to upgrade their 1T with more of a stationary Star-type between last August and now and still haven't done it. I mentioned it earlier but Danny Shelton literally settled for a $1.1M deal with the Giants a couple weeks ago. He's younger and better than Star, simple as that. If the Bills were looking they could have had him with almost no impact on their cap. So I don't know what the gameplan is there either......... but with all of these outside/inside rushers that they've added maybe they actually are planning to play a lot less 1T. On paper they are looking like they might even go wide 9 up front........which would allow them to play both DT's in positions that make them more dangerous as pass rushers. Like double 3 tech's (which they used a little in the playoff game vs Baltimore). That invites teams to run up the middle. That wouldn't be Edmunds-friendly. Klein might be able to handle it though.

After the top 10 picks........ the results for teams picking RB's in the rest of the 1st round have been abysmal for the past decade+. Been some outstanding RB's in round 2 and 3 though so it would be interesting to see a deeper dive why picks 11-35 or so have been bad business for RB drafters.........I have my suspicions why. That said........while there might not be any Derrick Henry's in UDFA........VERY explosive RB's are found in UDFA.........Raheem Mostert, Matt Breida and Phillip Lindsey might be the 3 fastest RB's in the entire NFL. What matters is getting production from your running game.

I'm actually a bit surprised by the quality of this UDFA haul..........I didn't think the Bills would do well at all in UDFA..........but with the exception of McCloud these guys were all seen as likely-to-be-drafted back in January before all the gymnastics events pushed them down. Obviously, what these guys lack mostly is explosive traits. Glad we got your guy Thompson, maybe he will be an exception.