QCity

As opposed to Fitz staying, in which case the season is also a write-off (and we get to eat his cap number again in 2014 yay!) 4 days 18 hours....I'll be watching my phone Friday, I feel a text message coming....

So you expect Calvin Johnson or Jerry Rice as a #2? Got it.

March 13 4PM is D-Day. Fitz now has 6 days and 19 hours left in a Bills uniform. I predict the axe will fall on Friday. Godspeed Fitzgibbons.

Right. Except Levitre is a "peer" to Yanda by position only, not by talent. Yanda is a top-5 guard and Andy simply isn't at his level. Now, nearly every GM in the league would say that Baltimore got fantastic value signing Yanda to a very reasonable contract, but that's not my point. You can sit down at the negotiating table and justify that number by saying "we are offering you a contract similar to a guy that is considered better than you" (obviously worded at bit more delicately). Also I can see him wanting more, but a 23% raise from $6.4M to $7.9M doesn't seem logical to me, how did you get that number?

You might not understand the logic because what you are saying simply isn't true. The best OGs in the league aren't paid the highest salaries because they are versatile - they command top dollar because they are dominant at their respective positions. Sure durability is important. Yes, it's a nice luxury to be able to kick Levitre out to LT in a pinch, but that speaks more to our lack of depth than anything else. Amen. I agree with you on keeping him as well. Offering him the $6.4M/year that Yanda (a better G) gets would be very fair to both sides IMO.

I thought she rented a hotel room to him? Anyhow, we are less than 7 days until the March 12th 4PM deadline! Something's gotta give!

It's a lot easier to take that risk when you've never been injured. Also people have to understand that the agencies representing NFL players today are extremely sophisticated. They chart out and project all the possible UFAs and RFAs in the upcoming years. I'd wager they assign a "% chance to be franchised tagged" stat to each client as well as a host of other metrics. Your client has a chance to be the #1 available FA at his position next year?? Cha-Ching! Coach him to say he loves his team and just wants to play football, nobody likes a malcontent. Even Jerry knew it. Agreed, perfect example of a very good player that got paid far more than he was worth. Would love to have kept him, but not for $80M.

What you are hearing from Levitre is called lip service, and a fair amount of people are eating it up. Regardless of what is being said, it was his intent to test FA all along. And no, we couldn't have "locked him up" last year either without overpaying.

What does signing a FA MLB have to do with the Redskins? Nobody said anything about trying to build a team solely through FA.

Newsome said they wouldn't use the franchise tag on anyone after Flacco. They have until 4PM today, let's see if he was serious.

That site looks a little sketchy. It also says we offered Byrd a 5yr $38M contract 2 weeks ago. It sounds like they are just reporting things they hear on message boards.

You're right, my bad, this went way off the subject (but that's easy to do). The franchising of Byrd is a great move and I'm very confident we will get a 5-6 year deal worked out with him before training camp. I'll carry my torch for Nix in another thread.

You did? You are going to have to help me out John, I had no clue what Jauron was doing. I always felt he was trying to build a small, fast team built to play in a dome. Nix's plan is blatantly obvious -build the lines. Re-sign Kyle WIlliams, draft Dareus/Carrington, bring in Mario/Anderson. Urbik, Pears, Reinhart, Hairston, Cordy Glenn. And I agree 100% with this philosophy. And as crazy as this sounds, (and I know I will be mocked), he has done a good job building the lines (yes I know we win 6 games every year). Maybe I have been drinking too much Kool-aid, but if Nix decides to let Levitre walk, I'm actually going to defer to his judgement on this one.

I somewhat agree with you about the pulling, but Reinhart was very good when he played LG for us (when we were moving Levitre around). I completely disagree with you about the significant loss of output. Of course not. We have a lot of holes and a finite amount of money to spend. Would you rather spend $8M on a G and $2M on a WR, or $8M on a WR and $2M on a guard? Dwayne Bowe and Matt Slauson or Andy Levitre and Brandon Gibson? Put your money into the skill positions first! The panic over losing an above-average guard is silly.

Yeah, let's not make our back-up SS, CB, entire LB corp, hurt TE, WR2, WR3 a priority. We really have to nail down this guard!

If Reinhart played a game at LG wearing Levitre's jersey 95% of the fans wouldn't be able to tell the difference lol. Yet there are posters here acting like losing the 10th best guard would be the end of days. The hysteria is hysterical.

DING

Well I never said they could, I was just explaining the reasons why a player might choose not to hang it up after spending the last decade here. And I'm certain any team will first have him examined by a physician, who can no doubt assess the condition of his knees better than you or I.

The best cap/contract site just got better

That "little bit of coin" could easily be more than the average person makes in a lifetime. Also, maybe the guy wants to feel what it would be like to suit up for a playoff game.

Ahhh I did not know they requested the full $9.8M. So tack that onto the $13M estimate and all of a sudden you have $23M available in cash to cap dollars. This might be an interesting FA season after all!

I didn't include it. Have the Bills requested that $9.8M? I didn't hear anything unless I missed it. I believe they have until 2 weeks before the season starts to request it...which would have been yesterday.

That's what I get. They have us at $103M - $30M prorated bonuses giving us about $73M in cash expenses. So with a cap of $123M, yeah, about $50M to spend. Before anyone goes bananas, remember that's cash to cap accounting. Watch how fast it goes... Last year's #8 pick got a $7.6M signing bonus with a base salary for a total hit of $8M Our 2nd round pick with get about a $2M signing bonus with a base salary for a total hit of around $2.5M There will be a slight increase this year and then factor in all the other draft picks. So estimate we will need to spend about $15M just on draft picks. Subtract that from our $50M and we are left with $35M. Now let's say we re-sign both Byrd and Levitre. Say we get Byrd at 5yrs $35M and Levitre at 6yrs $40M (guessing). Both will want guarantees of about $15-$18M with a signing bonus of at least $10M. Even with back-loaded contracts that only pay $1M each this season, combine that with their $10M signing bonuses and it adds up to $22M. So that's a generous estimate IMO but subtract that from $35M and we are quickly left with only $13M to spend. And we haven't signed any outside free agents yet. Could we land a FA like Bowe or Jennings or Kruger? Possible but not likely. I'd say lower tier FAs like Dustin Keller and Mike DeVito are much more realistic. (that is, if we re-sign both Levitre and Byrd - and of course we may not be done cutting everyone yet)

lol so true, some are just happiest when complaining. People were wondering who the next whipping boy will be after Kelsey? Here's your answer!

Last day to tag players is Monday March 4th. Expect to get a text soon that says "The Buffalo Bills have applied the franchise tag designation to FS Jarius Byrd. Reply HELP for help, STOP to cancel-Msg&data rates may apply" Even under the tag I still think they will be able to get a long term deal done, but it will be necessary for insurance & leverage.