jwhit34

My guess is they offered him two options, the restructured deal or releasing him. This is an okay option for the team, gets them out of the contract a year early. Probably not going after Hunter Henry or Hooper but doesn't preclude them from doing so because Knox is on a cheap 3rd round rookie deal. Kroft on roster for 1 year is a bridge to 2021 and a hedge in case Knox plateaus (I don't think that happens but it could).

Maybe Schopp and Bulldog will have a coronavirus state or country draft.

This move indicates to me that they think they are close and are going for it this year. They have the cap room and at a moderate cost they can bring in Norman and see if he has 1 good year left in him in a scheme in which he thrived. When a team does well, it's the type of move the pundits look back on and talk about how brilliant it was. As a ton of others have said they probably have it structured so if Norman gets to camp and he's done, they release him. If they were willing to part with McCoy, they will do it with Norman too. You have to take chances. The Patriots have done it all the time, Antoine Smith, Corey Dillon, Randy Moss, Albert Haynesworth, Antonio Brown, Revis, some work out, some don't but when you manage your salary cap and draft well it allows you to take calculated risks. That's the spot the Bills are in now, plenty of cap space, draft picks and no onerous commitments with current players, and with a 1 year deal there are no long term ramifications if it doesn't work out.

I don't know if Higgins is the right one, but the obsession with 40 times is amusing to me. I thought the consensus was that they needed a big target with a big catch radius to complement the shorter Brown and Beasley. I thought that is why so many have a crush on Duke Williams. There have been plenty of WRs who ran 4.6 or slower that had excellent NFL careers: Anquan Boldin 4.61 Jerry Rice 4.7 Larry Fitzgerald 4.63 Cris Carter 4.63 Speaking of Duke Williams, he ran a 4.7.

Lou Saban was inducted to the Wall of Fame in 2015. Bob Chandler - good story, fan favorite, stats aren't that great. On team for 9 years, was injured 1, so 8 seasons, had 295 receptions (37/year) for 3,999 yards (500/yr). High in yards for 1 season was 824. Wall of good, not wall of fame. In comparison, Eric Moulds is not on Wall of Fame yet and he had 675 catches for 9,096 yards so he's double that of Chandler. He is the next guy that should go in. Chuck Knox I say no because of record 37-36 isn't anything special. He's more name recognition. Ruben Brown and Bennett I would be good with. Phil Hansen is in with 61 sacks, Schobel had 78 so he probably deserves a look.

So with active roster at 55 and practice squad at 14, the teams take 90 to training camp and conceivably the net number of cuts will be only 21 (35 cuts to 55 but add back 14). It will put a premium on GMs signing undrafted free agents, futures deals and picking up vets at or around the league minimum to fill out rosters. While somewhat subtle, it could be a significant change in strategy in terms of roster building. Also will be interesting to see what positions are added with the increase from 53 to 55. Will more teams keep 3 QBs? I would expect not because of the lack of quality players at the position. I could see more offensive linemen kept, maybe an extra WR. On D, I could see extra DB.

Though you have to take all the lists with a skeptical eye, it seems pretty consistent that the Bills' free agents to be are not ranked very high: Shaq Lawson is usually in the 75-90 range of the top 100 Jordan Phillips doesn't make most list and if he does he's in the 90s I didn't see Quinton Spain on any top 100 list and is well down the list of guards It only takes one team to be interested but it would appear that all of the Bills' free agents will be at best 2nd tier types and may be waiting for a couple days to get the type of offers they may be hoping for. There seems to be a lot of D linemen on the market which may drive down prices for Lawson and Phillips. My guess at this point is that 2 of 3 are on the 2020 Bills and most likely Lawson and Spain which I would be good with.

Spend the money on Austin Hooper. Atlanta does not have a good cap situation (Spotrac shows $5.6 million in cap space) and that's after releasing Vic Beasley. There are so many examples of teams now with 2 good TEs have excellent passing attacks, like Philly with Ertz and Goedert, Balt with Andrews and Hurst and of course the original NE with Gronk and Hernandez (pre-murders). Add in KC and SF with great TEs. So many keep clamoring for the big target in the passing game and want to settle on Duke Williams, Hooper would be so much better than that. Price tag: probably about $10 million, maybe they structure a slightly more cap friendly deal in the $9-9.5 range. But the good thing is if they sign Hooper they can release Kroft AND Lee Smith, saving them $7 million on the cap. So for $3 million more they have Hooper vs. Kroft and Smith. Who wouldn't take that? AFter those moves they are still $79 million under the cap. As for blocking TE, they move Sweeney to #3, only keep 3 TEs and keep an extra OL and groom one of their backups to be essentially the 4th TE who just blocks. Dawkins has shown he can catch at goal line so you could use him. Lee Smith is always touted as one of the best blocking TEs in football but by definition isn't an offensive lineman going to be a better blocker than any TE? The other great thing about Hooper is that he's 25 years old, he's coming into his prime, another young, talented player. Last year they broke the bank on Morse, if I was to be willing to overpay for one player this year it would be Hooper. Statistics

Good move to reduce Star's #. As many have said, fair for both sides. They have stated multiple times that they want to bring as much of the team back as possible. With this restructure, I wonder if the next one could be Trent Murphy. 2020 is the last year of his deal, he has a cash # of $8.025 million, a cap hit of $9.775 million and a dead cap # of $1.75 million, which means they save $ 8 million if they release him. Maybe they go to him and give an option to extend 1-2 years to bring his number down to the $5-6 million range and say the alternative is they release him. My thinking is Murphy at $5.5 million is about fair value, if he doesn't want to do that then they release and save $8 million and deploy that elsewhere.

This is 2019 I'm one of those lucky ticket holders that are in the pink areas (lower section 135 to be exact) mine are going up from $1,130 to $1,215 per ticket (I have 4) so it's more like 7.5% or $8.50 per game. Hopefully they price the preseason at about $40-50/ticket so the in-season game prices are higher.

It looks daunting but maybe not as tough as it seems: Divison: Go at least 4-2: sweep Jets and Dolphins, ?Pats AFC West: 2 wins vs. Vegas, Chargers Broncos NFC West: 2 wins vs. Rams, Cards and Seahawks - that is toughest one but I think Rams and Seahawks will be down a bit Other 2 games are Tennessee and Steelers - at least split That's 9-7, figure out 1 more win (home vs. NE?) and 10-6 gets you in, may win division. I could see them going 3-1 vs. AFC west. A lot will happen in the offseason but as of today and presuming they continue to draft well and wisely spend the money they have under the cap, they should be able to contend with anyone.

I say no to Olsen, I want them to go big at TE, excellent TE play and having more than 1 is a successful trend in NFL. I still want Austin Hooper. Releasing Lee Smith and Kroft (which is doable if they have Hooper) make the net impact of Hooper on the cap of about +$3 million. And Hooper is 25. Build the young core. Knox and Hooper could have a 5-7 year run in Buffalo. I don't think it's a coincidence that the Super Bowl teams have Kelce and Kittle.

Players: Tom Cousineau Kelvin Benjamin Coaches: John Rauch (OJ a decoy?) Chuck Dickerson Front Office: Russ Brandon Stew Barber

I would go big game hunting and target Ngakoue, Hooper and Conklin. Expensive, but all are young (24 or 25). While the 3 could cost $38-40 million a year combined, signing them enables the Bills to let go Tyler Kroft, Trent Murphy, Spencer Long and Lee Smith, saving about $18-19 million, so it's a net spend of $20-22 million. That leaves them about $70 million under the cap. They could keep Lawson at around $8 million and their DE/edge is solid with Ngakoue, Hughes and Lawson, plus Darryl Johnson (and 3 young players potentially coming into their prime). SIgning Conklin could even open the door to letting Nsekhe go (saves about $3.7 million) if they feel good enough about Bates being swing tackle, potentially moving Cody Ford there in an injury scenario from one of the guard spots, or if they like Waddle sign him as the swing tackle. Hooper is the big get though, and having him, Knox and Sweeney make the position a real strength. That still hasn't addressed WR, but even re-signing Lawson they have over $60 million left. A 2nd tier WR like D. Robinson from KC and draft Shenault or Higgins (since you shored up DE and OT in free agency that's not a pressing need anymore). Pick a RB you like and draft one in middle rounds. Mostert is more evidence you can find them anywhere for cheap.

Last 8 games Rivers had 11 TDs and 13 INTs. He still had a lot of yards because they have good skill position players and trailed in most games so they had to pass a lot. He's going to get worse, not better. He had really good WRs, good TEs and excellent RBs. I don't know what team takes him, especially since he will demand $15-20 million. What team commits to that even if for 1 year? If he goes to another team picture Johnny Unitas as a Charger or Joe Namath as a Ram.

My guess is Kroft, DiMarco, Smith and Murphy get released at some point. I can see waiting until others are signed unless there are bonuses that kick in at the start of the league year. Net of dead cap that saves about $16 million. They either release Long or re-work as a backup. My guess is they get his cap # down to $2-2.5 so that saves another $1.5-2 million. That would give them about $105 million under the cap. I like the thought of Conklin, Hooper and Ngakoue added for a total of $35-40 million. That would leave them $65-70 million under the cap. Draft a WR in rounds 1 and either 4 or 5. OL left to right: Dawkins-Ford-Morse-Feliciano-Conklin TEs: Hooper, Knox, Sweeney WRs: Brown, Beasley, (hopefully) Higgins or Shenault, 4th/5th rounder, McKenzie/Foster/Duke, Roberts (returns) RB: Singletary, either vet RB or 4th or 5th rounder, Yeldon Keeping Star at $10M vs. no Star at $7.8M - Keeping him essentially costs the team $2.2 million. If you look at it as is he worth $2.2 million to be here the answer is a resounding yes so he will stay. I don't think they redo his deal figuring they have Oliver and H. Phillips here long term. Hauschka, Roberts, Yeldon all stay, they are cheap but they bring in competition at all those spots and if they get cut it's because they are not good enough to make the 53, not a cap casualty. Do 2-3 long term deals for your own (Tre White, Milano, Dawkins). Nice to dream...

Bruce Smith would have waited until April or May so he missed mini-camp and most of training camp. He seemed to have some sort of surgical clean up/clean out every year. Adapted from The Six Million Dollar Man: Steve Austin, astronaut Cody Ford and Ed Oliver, Football Players. A man barely alive. Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology. We have the capability to build the world's first bionic man. Steve Austin Cody Ford and Ed Oliver will be that man. those men. Better than he was before. Better, stronger, faster.-Oscar Goldman

While Cowher and Johnson are decent picks, they probably get in through the regular process eventually so I wouldn't have used 2 slots for them. The players and coaches from the mid 60s on I'm good with. Carmichael has a crazy long consecutive game catch streak which for the era was impressive. For some reason I though Karras was already in, he was really good.

The infatuation is: 1. There is a bias towards players who are fiery/animated on the field and rev up/respond to the home crowd. I think this is way, way overvalued. 2. The league overvalues sacks. 3. People remember the flashy plays and don't break down all the plays. From those who seem to have done the work (I haven't but enough on this board seem to have done it), he's not consistent and weaker vs. run compared to his results vs. pass. Top 3 DT? Some have wondered if he's top 3 on the Bills. He might not even be the top Phillips on the Bills. 100% right he's a rotational player. With Star, Oliver and H. Phillips he should get less than 50% of the snaps and you aren't managing the cap effectively if you have $8-10-12 million tied up in a player like that. Think of it this way: if they can re-sign Liuget for $2 million or so, is Jordan Phillips as a rotational player going to be 4-6 times as effective as Liuget? He may be 20-25% better but at 40% of the snaps that is only 8-10% better. That money is better spent elsewhere.

Beane understands the moneyball aspect of the draft and the thing is that in terms of getting value out of draft picks (cap hit under rookie contracts) the positions it makes sense to draft in the first and second round are QB, WR, Edge rusher, OT and CB. The Bills' needs line up perfectly and look for a WR or DE/Edge rusher in the 1st and one of those two or OT in the second. If they feel strongly about someone at those positions I have not problem with them trading up to around 14-17. #22 in the trade value chart (drafttek) is 780 points, #16 is 1,000. Their 3rd rounder is 160 points so that gets them close. Otherwise sit tight and most likely they will have good options.

Very thorough analysis MAJ. I agree that Spain will not cost $10M, if the price gets that high they let him go. There are only 10 guards in NFL making $10M. With the final landing spot for Ford in question, I think they keep Spain on short (1-2 year) deal at modest money ($5-6M) which put him in range of comparable players in the league. He made $1.9 million in his last year with Tenn. and $2 million with Bills and he's 29 years old. The way Beane went about re-building the line gives insight on how he values the various positions. They used a high draft pick for Dawkins (LT) and spent a lot on a center. The guard positions they went quantity and middling quality (Long, Spain, Feliciano). If Ford ends up being better inside that gives them value on his rookie contract and buys them time to see how he develops, that is why Beane hedged in PC and part of the reason he said they like his versatility. So they have fair value in Feliciano, could get very good value if Ford is at G and then let's see what they value RT at.

While there was huge volume of free agent signings last year the one big one they targeted and did not let get away was Mitch Morse. This year it should be Austin Hooper. He is an offense changer and they should be as aggressive with him as they were with Morse. Cutting Kroft and Smith free up almost enough $7 million to offset a $9-10 million cap # for Hooper. To me that's a no brainer - add Hooper and cut Kroft and Smith and you still have $87 million in cap space.

You have to be good at your job, but fit/chemistry can be the X factor(s) in making you great at what you do or a company/organization great. Lou Saban was a terrific coach and had excellent results but the fit was never quite right so it was two terms of some great results (AFL titles, OJ's best years) but almost as quickly a crash and burn. Marv Levy had a great relationship with Ralph Wilson and Bill Polian (and John Butler). That was a great fit organizationally and there was staying power. Probably the best example in the NFL in terms of competence and long term fit is the Steelers since they have had 3 coaches in the last 40+ years. I see the same thing here with McDermott and Beane with the Pegulas and their relationship with the community and their players. It is a good fit and they are good at their jobs. And they approach building the roster by acquiring good players that fit, not just the most talented but first and foremost they have to be able to play. For decades the Yankees have been the best team money can buy but the years that they have won championships are not necessarily the years they had the best talent.

Spain was okay, but I think ultimately the line would be much better if they moved Cody Ford to G and got a really good RT. Dawkins-Ford-Morse would potentially be as good if not better than rookie Dawkins-Incognito-Wood (because Morse>Wood and Dawkins yr 4>rookie Dawkins).

The Bills have: 42 players under contract for 2020 12 Unrestricted free agents including Lorenzo Alexander and Frank Gore (others: J. Phillips, K. Johnson, S. Lawson, Q. Spain, L. Waddle, M. Alexander, J. Stanford, K. Coleman, C. Liuget, S. Perry) 1 Player with a club option for 2020 Spencer Long) 3 Restricted free agents (I. Asiata, I. McKenzie, D. Marlowe) 3 Exclusive rights free agents (R. Foster, L. Wallace, J. Croom) 9 2020 draft picks (their own 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, Cleveland's 5th & 6th, Patriots 6th) Estimated $89 million in cap space If I was GM, this is what I would try to do: Cap casualties: Of the 42 under contract, I would release: Tyler Kroft - projected $6.4 mill. cap #, $1.6 dead money for $4.8 mill. cap savings Trent Murphy -$8.95m cap #, $1.75m dead money for $7.2m cap savings Pat DiMarco - $2.35m cap #, $500k dead money for $1.85m cap savings Total cap savings: $13.85 million giving them about $104 million under the cap Spencer Long: He's on a club option and under contract for 2 years, either tack on a year in a cap friendly structure or decline the club option and take the $700k in dead cap, his cap # is over $4 million for 2020. Their UFAs Use the $ from the cap casualties to re-sign Jordan Phillips and Shaq Lawson. This may take a little more than $14 million, but if it's $16m so be it, that would still leave $88 million under the cap. They would have 7 DL under contract, 8 counting Taylor. If Jordan Phillips doesn't re-sign, sign Cory Liuget, he can probably be had for around $2 million Quinton Spain - it depends. If they move Cody Ford to G and go after a top notch T in free agency or high in the draft then they can let him go. He likes it here, he would be one that I would continue to give 1 year deals at modest money ($2-4 million). Kevin Johnson maybe a 2 year deal at modest money, he's a depth player now. Let Gore retire, all the others if you sign them fine, but they are bottom of the roster guys who will cost between the league minimum and $2 million, they will either sign them of find others just like them. RFAs Make qualifying offers for McKenzie and Marlowe, if they stay okay, if not, okay. McKenzie will probably stay. ERFA I think they hold all the cards with them, can sign all to modest deals. Wallace will be interesting, I'd keep him but wonder how much he will cost. Free Agent Market WR: Not a lot to pick from, Amari Cooper longer term or AJ Green on a 1-2 year prove it deal. OT: Also not a lot of choices of players under 30, Costanzo is 32 and probably the best player but would think he stays with Colts. Maybe Jack Conklin TE: I would make Austin Hooper a priority, he's 25, pair him with Knox and that can be a dynamite duo. Hunter Henry is a good one too but I would go hard after Hooper. OLB: I don't have a name but they need a 3rd LB who would play 40-50% of snaps, find a $3-4 million guy and draft someone in round 4-5. They can probably get all 4 of these for no more than $40 million, maybe a little higher if they land Cooper, which leaves them still way under the cap Unlike 2019, 2020 can be about quality not quantity. Draft Rounds 1 & 2: DE and WR - they are need positions and if you hit on these they are value picks for 3+ years. Rounds 3, 4 & 5: LB, OL, CB, RB, best player available Round 6: Best player available Draft choices will probably count about $9-10 million on cap. Long term deals: Start signing your own.