BarleyNY

Marino is off-seasoning hard. TBF making lists like this is pretty much what every NFL podcaster is doing. Nothing happening this time of year - and that’s the best case scenario for any NFL team. No complaints from me.

Not sure why Torry Holt hasn’t made it yet. I’d put him in.

I looked at this again. The cap implications of a post 6/1 cut of Miller (which he’d obviously be at this point) are actually manageable. His 2024 cap hit would reduce by $280k. The full contract details have not worked their way out into the public so there might be some guarantees for him to be on the roster this year. But from what is known it looks like cutting him this season might actually be feasible.

I took this to be a challenge to correctly guess the most surprising cut that actually happens, or at least has a chance to happen. Von Miller realistically can’t be cut due to cap implications. If that weren’t the case, then the Bills would have already cut him. If he comes in lazy, lost, spent, then he’ll be inactive or, more likely, they’ll find an excuse to IR him as a face-saving measure for both sides. Edit: see update below

I can't see it from a cap perspective. His cap hit this season goes UP by over $8M if he's cut. Plus we'd have to roster a replacement which would add to the cap. Even if he isn't physically right to play, they can't cut him until next offseason without some offsetting cap moves.

As @NoSaint mentioned, Dorsey is the OC in Cleveland. Hines was brought in because he wanted him. It’ll be interesting to see if/how he’s utilized there. As for 2 TE sets, Dorsey doesn’t use them very often. Stefanski and the analytics crowd loves 12 personnel so the prevailing opinion in Cleveland is that Dorsey was selected as OC to help the Browns move to more 11. Njoku is pretty much the only TE of any note they have on the team so that fits the narrative. They’ve had a good TE2 and decent TE3 in the past. Not this year.

Vet minimum plus incentives.

Seems like something that the parents should be held responsible for.

While Buffalo is definitely a Bills town, it’s much more a hockey town than football town. Other than the Bills the city doesn’t much care about football at other levels. Hockey has huge grass roots support. It’s big from pee wee to the NHL. The only reason it isn’t bigger is that the Sabres are perpetually hopeless.

That question was asked on this board and a surprisingly high percentage of posters answered that they either exclusively or almost exclusively watch Bills games. That context explains a lot of posts here so I try to keep it in mind.

1. Samuel is at least as good of a player as Davis IMO. Davis just got paid more than Samuel so (some) NFL GM’s apparently think differently. Also I always saw Samuel as more of a Diggs replacement (and posted that when we signed him). He’s obviously not been on Diggs’ level. 2. I’d be a lot happier with Diggs here one more season - especially if he was still “on board”. But alas, that wasn’t an option. He’s no longer a top 4 or 8 WR as he was in his prime. But even if he’s in the 16-24 range this season he’d be our best WR. 3. Depth quality is TBD. It very well may be better than last season (when it was pretty poor), but every season people get excited about new additions and they don’t always work out. The WRs just shown the door were thought by many to be quality players just a year or two ago. Agree that filling the void left by Diggs is what all the discussion boils down to. Let’s face it, sometimes navigating a difficult situation is, well, difficult. Sometimes a step back is necessary. That doesn’t always equate to a failure or mistake. As for Diggs, the guy who was a problem here and got traded away is the same guy we acquired via trade. Same movie. And I knew that was a possibility, but I was fully on board with acquiring him because of the upside. But this was the risk. If there was a real mistake made in the process it was the extension. I was against that. The rumblings were there already and we knew his history. Handing someone like that more money at that point is never the answer.

Why did you ask one question in the title, but a different one in the poll?

This season - his age 35 season - was my main concern when the Bills signed him to the contract they did. I understand why they did it and don’t want to rehash that. I’m very glad that Beane and Von worked out the modified contract they did. At his age and after that injury it would be a major accomplishment for him to get back to being an above average DE this season. If he’s able to do that then he deserves some real respect for it.

Well, we sure could use a slot WR.

Von fell out of the running for me because there’s no long term benefit. Sure it’d be great to have a good (or better) 2024 season from him, but I don’t think there’s any way he’s here in 2025. It would be more meaningful for a youngster like Coleman to hit and be productive for the Bills for a decade.

Coleman - easy kid to root for. I saw a lot more potential than finished product on his college tape, but he’s young. Here’s hoping he makes a great transition to the NFL and the potential develops into performance.

I said nothing of the sort. Nor am I particularly optimistic with McDermott at the helm. As evidenced by your last few responses, you seem to be having a very tough time with reading comprehension so I’ll leave you to your loser mentality and bow out.

Nope. That’s not what I think. I think the Bills could be coached better and be a team on par with KC. I want them to be better and know that they can. And it ticks me off to see them founder unnecessarily. But, hey, enjoy your loser mentality of “we’re pretty good and maybe we’ll get lucky”.

Eli and the Giants were up to the task twice. They didn’t lay down. But what about KC and the Bills though? You don’t think that Allen is right there with Mahomes? I sure do.

Not denying anything. You typed a lot of words, but failed to refute one single point I made. You just returned to advocating for your loser mentality and why you think it’s okay for the Bills to be an also-ran team. I certainly hope that the Bills’ players and staff don’t share that mentality. KC has a phenomenal QB and a fantastic HC. And the Bills have a phenomenal QB as well. But that is where that comparison ends. A better HC would put the Bills on par with KC. Who knows? Maybe we could even surpass them. McDermott is a good HC who did a good job bringing the Bills up from a below average team to an above average one. But more of the credit for that should go to Allen. There are countless coaches that could get one playoff win against an also-ran team with Allen at QB every season. He has accomplished as little as any decent coach could with a QB as talented as Allen. Nothing is going to happen now, but I’d love to see the Bills improve and not waste Allen’s career. You’re welcome to pretend that there’s nothing the Bills can do about KC because they’re so good or to get better themselves, but none of that is true.

Except that it’s not accurate either. You are pretending that we live in a world where the Bills would be winning SB after SB if not for those darn Chiefs beating us every year en route to another championship. But that has only happened once - this past season. McDermott’s Bills teams are 5-6 in the playoffs. 5-0 against 5-7 seeds and 0-6 against 1-4 seeds. The team that beat the Bills lost their very next game 5 of 6 times. So only once under McDermott have the Bills lost in the playoffs to the best team that season.

This attitude is disgraceful. Playing for second place is a loser’s mentality - even if you tack on the hope of getting lucky once in a while. Eli Manning and the Giants didn’t accept that Brady and the Patriots were the best QB and team in the NFL and relegate themselves to being happy to just make the SB. Twice in the SB they played arguably the greatest QB-HC duo in the midst of their dynasty and beat them twice. That’s what can happen with a winner’s mentality.

But most of the “core” of the team is still here. The Bills only parted ways with the older, more expensive, injured and/or disgruntled players. The starting offense is the same except for two WRs and Morse. The defense is only flipping the safeties and a CB who has been injured. You put forth a narrative that may be appealing, but it is not at all accurate. As for the Pegulas appetite for spending as the team moves forward, I hope it is big. But it’s TBD.

Reid with the likes of Alex Smith and Chase Daniel at QB had the same level of success as McDermott has had with Josh Allen. If you can’t see how that’s different then I don’t know what to tell you.

Not unfounded though. The reduction in the team’s cash spend this season didn’t have to be this severe. The Bills still could have structured many of the contracts more aggressively and made more room than they did. Had they done more of that then I wouldn’t be worried.