BarleyNY

I think at this point we’ve seen his ceiling. Deion Jones and Jaylon Smith are still out there. Jones is still a FA and Smith is on a PS. Neither has had a lot of interest this off-season so I’m not sure how much better they’d be than Kirksey. I haven’t seen them play much though. Maybe it is because Kirksey took the deal we were offering to MLBs. I’d be surprised if it was much more than vet minimum plus incentives.

I got you. I think Kirksey’s ceiling and positive traits are what kept getting him signed to those contracts. However his deficiencies are why he didn’t play out any of them (except his rookie deal). He’s fast in a straight line and can cover ground really, really well. He’s genuinely explosive. Just don’t ask him to change direction or take on blockers. He is not strong so he has to beat an OL to a spot to make a play downhill. It’s over if one gets a hat on him. Likewise once he’s moving, he is in trouble if he has to quickly change direction to make a play. He just can’t. In coverage he will get to a spot or run with a guy really well, but he can’t stay with someone making moves on him. Honestly, he is not a terrible player or anything. But his play can be frustrating at times and his injury issues are frustrating as well. Some (okay, a lot) of my reaction was basically “Oh, ****, not again.” If we had bonafide starter and he got signed to be the backup, I’d be good with it. As it stands he is probably is an improvement at MLB as long as he stays healthy, which speaks to a different frustration.

Kirksey trivia: He was the player in Madden ‘14 or ‘15 that the developers accidentally made 14” tall.

I am originally from Cleveland and still follow the Browns too. I watched Kirksey play for six years. He’s possibly an upgrade to what’s on the Bills roster so I’m not knocking the signing. My comments were aimed at those acting like we just signed Bobby Wagner or that he is an upgrade from Edmunds (or even comparable). Kirksey has been a below average to average MLB to date. And he’s had a lot of injury issues. One big caveat is that he has mostly played on poor defensive squads. He only played with decent talent around him for one season in GB. He may do better here with the talent on this defense. Again, it’s a good signing in that it’s better than what we know we have on the roster. Heck, I wouldn’t knock any PS signing under almost any circumstance anyway. But the reaction by some has been ridiculous.

Fair enough

Not exactly. Teams must spend an average of 89% of the salary cap IN CASH. Proration of signing bonuses allows for a lot of play in the actual cash spent. For example, the Bills are currently set to spend $287M this season. That will increase due to PS signings and injured player replacements. The 2023 cap is $224.8M. 89% of that is $200M. So the Bills are spending $87M - or 43.5% - more this year than they need to. So if an owner could pay a $50M/yr QB half of that, they could easily pocket the $25M/yr. Again, it is extremely naive to think players should take less than they are worth on the word of the team that they’ll spend it on surrounding them with better players. And that’s not even considering the odds that it wouldn’t work anyway. SMH

And yet no team cared to sign him to an active roster. Hmmmm. Those are really weak stats btw. It’s not like he didn’t have plenty of opportunities to make tackles and other plays on the Texans last season. They were on the field a lot. I’ve watched him play enough to know what kind of player he is.

He turns 31 tomorrow and is not a particularly good player. He’s serviceable though. Heck, as of today that might make him the best MLB on the roster. And he’s always seemed to be a good dude - the kind of person you want to root for.

There’s no way Burrow would leave that kind of money in the table - especially when dealing with Mike Brown. Brown would just pocket it. The smart play would be for the QB to get his market value contract. Then if the team got strapped for cash/cap and could make a good case for needing some back for a specific player, then the QB could make a decision about whether or not to do that. You gotta live in the real world. If a team could get away with saying.”Hey, kid, take 50¢ on the dollar and we’ll put a real swell team around you!” then every team would screw over every player that way.

He’s not very good, so probably.

https://nfltraderumors.co/bills-cut-27-players-to-get-down-to-53/ They cut Reid Ferguson. I'm sure he will be back after someone goes to IR.

There is information that teams are privy to that regular fans are not. I think just about anyone would've taken Allen over Rosen if they'd been informed of the things we've heard about Rosen since he was drafted. NFL GMs had that info. As for me, I thought all four QB prospects at the top of that draft had question marks as well as upside - except Darnold. I didn't see any reason to think he had a chance to be good. But I did expect Rosen to be the choice when it got to the Bills because he seemed the safer pick, albeit one with limited upside. I didn't mind them going for the high risk - high upside pick, but I did think Allen was a long shot to hit.

Agreed. He was signed to be Playoff Von. That’s what we need most.

To the bolded. No, Quessenberry just sucks. I’m very happy they think they have better on the roster.

I think Beane has been doing the shopping off of McDermott’s grocery list until possibly this draft. The Bills defense has been built on excellent talent and a scheme that is very solid, but not very innovative. I’ve harped on this until this off-season, but the offense had been at a resource disadvantage to the defense. That’s still the case, but this off-season might be indicative of that changing. I think it needs to to make the Bills more competitive in the playoffs. It’ll also tell us what kind of DC McDermott is when he can’t fix every problem with a $30M/yr FA or first or second round draft pick.

All GMs miss on picks. However it feels very different when a lot of knowledgeable fans are screaming for a player they’re excited fell to them, but instead the GM makes a WTF? pick. And then it works out like this.

For a moment ponder what the Bills would look like and what the prevailing opinion of McDermott and Beane would be had the Browns or Jets selected Allen in that draft.

I think that means that Beane is twice as good as Jones!

Yup. Arizona is already having their fire sale. I think Washington is waiting to see how the season starts. But they’re a good candidate for something near the trade deadline. The Bills taking on salary might be an issue though.

If he’s your starter at DE, then you are desperately trying to upgrade. A career as a rotational/backup DE is respectable. The problem is taking a player like that in the second round. If he was a fifth round pick he’d be well liked and fans would want him kept around to be DE4. But alas…..

It all will come down to how Alan does though

A successful team will almost always lose some of their staff to promotions elsewhere, though promotions only account for half of the cases with the Bills. I have been concerned that they’ve only promoted from within and haven’t seemed to draw much talent in from the outside. All three coordinators (Daboll, Frazier and and Farwell) plus assistant GM Schein are all gone for one reason or another. Every position was filled from within. The only name of note brought in is Al Holcomb as an assistant on the defense. This isn’t a black and white situation. Sometimes promoting from within is the right move. And McDermott taking over as DC could certainly be the right move. It’s not like he isn’t very experienced. But it isn’t like we heard anything about anyone clamoring for the positions either. I’m not even sure the Bills looked. It might be nothing but something just feels odd about it to me.

Yeah. I definitely got the impression that the pressure ratcheted up on them too. As for the extension, I was a little surprised that Pegs didn’t wait another year. But the standard with him seems to be to do extensions with two seasons left. They got him the new stadium so he probably figured they earned it anyway.

Nada on which teams. Sorry.

Big signing and restructure bonuses will do that.