maryland-bills-fan

Ahem. If you haven't been in the playoffs for 15 years, maybe its time to look back and see where you screwed up.

I'm sure that the Bills .cc draft predictors all their attempted trades for everyone to find out about. I'm sure that the other teams reveal all the offers that they have been made. Of course these other teams still want to deal with them and trust them. I'm sure that if I like my doctor, I can keep my doctor. Period. Here this piece of paper is Peace in Our Time. I have looked into Herr Hitler's eyes and he is a man who can be trusted. etc.

That's my gameplan as well.

I like it. Do we have enought rookie salary cap for this?

Please provide the source for this. I find that about this time of the year several things happen. Football fans start making multiple wild predictions in the hope that one will pan out and make them look like a wise, cagy insider. Another is that people start rumors for the fun of it and these pass through multiple hands. The fact that multiple people are saying the same thing than takes on an aria of reality and becomes a "fact". I raised 3 daughters and I have heard idle speculation turn into hard fact after 4-5 telephone conversations.

Funny thing though,,,,, look at any draft pick trade done in the last 15 years and you will see that that old chart is still a pretty good predictor. It is still active and published. If there is a better chart, please tell me and the rest of the world about it. There isn't. I'm a bit surprised about that because with all the mathematical computer tools and trained people out there, it seems that somebody would have eagerly published an improved version.

Trading up. My feeling is that even with the free agency upgrades, we have definite holes at right offensive tackle, defensive end and linebacker and could use upgrades at defensive back, offensive guard and wide receiver. We need three picks in the first three or two rounds. Trading up would not fix this, so it is not an option- regardless of the shiny toy or Madden video game winning strategy. What would it take to move up to various slots? In draft chart values it would be: pick....points ============ 1...........1650 2...........1250 3.............850 4.............450 5.............350 6.............250 7.............150 8...............50 9................0 In terms of what the Bills would have to give up in picks it would be: pick.......give up ===================================== 1........... entire draft 2014 and 2015 plus a 2nd in 2016? 2... ..........1st, 2nd, & 4th this year, next year's 1st 3.............1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th round picks 4.............1st, 2nd round and 5th round pick 5.............1st, 3rd and 4th round pick 6.............1st, 3rd and 7th round pick 7.............1st, 4th, 5th and 7th round pick 8.............1st, 5th and 7th round pick 9................nothing Or, alternately, in terms of what we would have left in the way of picks in the draft Here's what we have left if we trade up 1........... #1 and nothing and nothing next year and no first in 2016 2........... #2, #73, 5th 7th, LOSE next year’s 1st round pick 3.............#3, 5th, 7th 4.............#4, #73 4th, 7th 5.............#5, #41, 5th 7th 6.............#6, #41, 4th, 5th 7.............#7, #41, #73 8.............#8, #41, #73, 4th 9.............#9, #41, #73, 4th, 5th, 7th pick........have left To meet my criteria of having at least 3 good shots (I’ll say being able to draft a top 100 player) to fill those 3 holes, we could only move up in the first round to the #7 player- that would give us 3 picks in the draft and a mass of undrafted free agents. That is just not worth it. We might expect some quality even in the 4th round this year so a trade up to the #6 slot might work. Frankly, we are not going to be able to get the top defensive end nor the top wide receiver that way. If you want to go for that, your draft is going to be one top player, a few 2nd and 3rd tier scrubs who might have a prayer of making an NFL roster and a bunch of training camp fodder. Welcome back to the last 15 years. That would not be smart and would set the progress of the team back. We need to work in the opposite direction in a deep draft.

Naw, check my posts. You will be able to tell that on most of them I spend so much time researching that I'm not trolling. I do think that talk of trading up to a top 3 pick is really not very sensible, so its just throwing stuff on the wall to see if it sticks. That's okay and some fun, but not well thought out. By the way, what and who are these "multiple sources" that say the Bills are "actively" trying to trade up? The presser by Whaley just said that the Bills might do anything in the world- exactly what nearly every other GM is saying at this time of year. What are the other sources,,, or is that just trolling?

cornerback in the fifth round

Sorry, but you seem to just gloss over any facts that might bother you. Byrd held out (took the entire preseason off, with a new defense being put in) and then took 6 (?) games off because his "feesises hurt" (somehow this did not heal over an entire summer offseason), and didn't come back to help the Bills when they were struggling with several other DB's out. It would take an idiot to say that we should franchise this guy and pay him nearly top money for him to do this AGAIN to out team. Get a grip, look at his agent.

Stupid. We have multiple holes. Losing 4-5 top picks for one player is not going to do anything. Some jerk trolling for fame.

No. Stupid. A dumn idiot trying for credit.

and take 10 games off?

Extracting from an earlier post, here is a list (walter football)of where they think cornerbacks might be drafted. I have added in the Bills picks and the players the Bills have brought in for a visit. What I see is that the Bills brought in a CB who might be expected to be there around where their first 3 picks are. And they brought in a bunch of guys around where their 5th round pick is. I think the Bills have the biggest holes at offensive tackle, defensive end and linebacker. I see the first 3 picks going at those positions, although they should trade down and get 4 picks in the first 3 rounds. In that case Breeland could very well be our third round pick. We will pretty clearly take a DB in the 5th. I think the visits of CB's who are first and second round type players is a smokescreen and an attempt to trigger a trade to gather more draft picks. round/overall pick CB selected in draft ..................................................#9 Bills 1st round pick 1/11 1/13 Roby(Ohio State)....BILLS BROUGHT HIM IN 1/24 2/46 2/34 Fuller(V Tech)....BILLS BROUGHT HIM IN ..................................................#41 Bills 2nd round pick 2/51 2/56 ..................................................#73 Bills 3rd round pick 3/73 Breeland....BILLS BROUGH HIM IN 3/86 3/89 3/90 3/99 ..................................................#109 Bills 4th round pick 4/125[/b] 4/126 4/134 ..................................................#149 Bills 5th round pick 5/159....Aikens (Liberty)....BILLS BROUGH HIM IN 5/168....Cockrell (Duke)...BILLS BROUGH HIM IN 5/174 5/176...Gaines (Rice).....BILLS BROUGH HIM IN other Bills picks (185) 224

I disagree. Do you really honestly think that football coaches have just figured out, within the last 2 months or 15 minutes, that it is better to have TWO good defensive ends than only ONE good defensive end? Gee, maybe if we signed two Bruce Smiths we would have a better defense than only one Bruce Smith. Your argument is that this gem of wisdom is a new discovery and teams haven't yet responded to this by making the salaries of the ROT the same as the LOF. Your view is pretty implausible. What has been true and will remain true is that most QB's are right handed and throw the ball better to their right than across their body to their left. They also move better to their right than their left and on the run, throw better to their right than to their left. It will continue to be true that the best way for a DE to get to the QB will be from the "blind" side, because the QB's attention and vision is more to his right. Therefore the best DE will spend most of his time rushing from the QB's left, and the best offensive tackle will be on the left to counter this. If there were a surplus of extra good defensive ends and extra good offensive tackles, then it would be simple to be symmetric and have equal players on both sides. However, in the real universe that the rest of us live on, there is a shortage of the best players and us groundlings will have to make a decision as to where to put the better player and where to put the not as good player.

"........New Orleans safety Jairus Byrd received a six-year, $54 million deal in free agency, when the Saints plucked Byrd away from Buffalo in March. Byrd’s contract has $26.3 million in guaranteed money........" http://overthecap.com/teamcap.php?Team=Bills&Year=2014 Mario Williams $18,800,000 ======>>>>>$9,000,000 would fit in right here Steve Johnson $8,500,000 Marcell Dareus $6,493,232 Kyle Williams $6,250,000 Eric Wood $5,950,000 CJ Spiller $5,916,666 Leodis McKelvin $4,575,000 Aaron Williams $4,231,209 Would you want to have your second highest paid player be a guy who takes off 5 games a year?

,,,,and of course about 10% of the top 10 players never live up to their billing and about 20% of the next 20

Actually, the Bills are not really a "small market" team. You have to consider the other areas, maybe halfway between Buffalo and an nearby NFL city to get the region that the Bills draw from. So Toronto is in. So western NY and central NY is in. So a bit a PA is also in. If you do the math on these additional metro areas, the Bills are something like in the 25's for the NFL regions.

The smart thing to do is to talk like we ARE going to take that top LEFT offensive tackle. Those guys are rare and hard to get and we have the luxury of having a quite good one already. All the teams that don't have one, need one and we should be able to trade down and get the best RIGHT offensive tackle in the draft as well as another top 75 player.

Let's talk cap numbers on offensive tackles. I like the expression, "money talks, BS walks". People and the "market" set a value on how important or valuable or rare something is by setting a dollar value on it. If you need a pickup truck for your construction business, you might go whole hog and spend $60K on a truck. NOT spend $400K on a truck. The $400K pick up will not carry cement any better than the $60K truck. If you are into car racing, then you might spend a couple of hundred thousand dollars, but that is for buying something else. You can tell how the NFL teams value the different positions by how much they spend on the players. The existence of free agency allows the marketplace to seek the accurate level. A free agent LEFT offensive tackle or RIGHT offensive tackle will go where he can get the most money, and counterbalancing this is that teams will not give away any more money then they have to. cf: http://overthecap.com/top-player-salaries-cap.php?Position=RT&Year=2013 LEFT offensive tackle top 5 guys, average cap hit is $12.8M RIGHT offensive tackle top 5 guys, average cap hit is $ 5.4M LEFT offensive tackle top 10 guys, average cap hit is $8.0M RIGHT offensive tackle top 10 guys, average cap hit is $5.0M LEFT offensive tackle guys 10 to 20, average cap hit is $5.2M RIGHT offensive tackle guys 10 to 20, average cap hit is $2.4M ..........A couple of things to note: the top 5 LEFT OT's get paid TWICE as much as the top 5 RIGHT offensive tackles. You are wasting resources if you pay LEFT OT money for a RIGHT OT. Your team will be much weaker elsewhere, where you didn't have the money to pay a very good player. On the Bills, this extra money paid is the same as the 6th or 7th highest paid player on the team. A second thing is that once you get past the top 10 players, the difference is less, but RIGHT offensive tackles still get about $2.5M less than the LEFT offensive tackles. Rookies are under a rookie salary cap/control allocation that goes by draft position. The first rounders sign a 4 year contract with an possible extension to a fifth year. For the first 4 years the cap it is $3.4M. That would be about what the 10th RIGHT offensive tackle gets paid or about what the 20th LEFT offensive tackle gets paid. Expect your #9 pick offensive tackle to bolt from the team ASAP and go elsewhere, as he has been being underpaid by about $9M a year.

You are so right!!! I am surprised that the draft pundits have ignored the lack of depth at defensive end for the Bills. Most of the other early positions of weakness or lack of depth have been addressed by bringing in some veteran free agents, (OG, WR, LB, DB, TE) except for RIGHT offensive tackle and defensive end. I'm really wondering why the Bills have not brought in anybody except Scott Crichton for a look see. Are they planning on just picking up a veteran FA later, is Crichton going to get drafted with a reach,(so we know he will be there at our pick), is Lawson going to put on 50pounds? are the Bills playing it so cool and planning on surprising everybody with using a high pick and don't want to tip their hand? or do they have some hidden gem lined up that they will draft in the 7th round and will start as a rookie? This is strange- they have a hole and apparently are not addressing it.

I respectfully disagree. If you noticed last year, we got eaten alive by tight ends catching the ball. The strong safety is not the only one who has this responsibility- it varies by what defensive scheme is being used for each play. Byrd made a strong showing by bunching his interceptions in games where the opponent was trying to come from behind or the QB was inept or under high pressure. Freelanceing gets you in highlight reels and gets you interceptions on deflections and from "what is he doing there". Too often in the case of Byrd "what is he doing here" came at the expense of "why didn't the other DB get the help he was expecting". They don't show highlight films with a ghost representing the missing FS. These days with 3 and 4 wide receiver sets, there is less stereotyped roles for the traditional 2CB, SS, FS backfield defense, which was predicated on the pass receivers being "a wide out, a split end, a tight end and once in a while a halfback (who would be covered by a linebacker.)" It is not 1950 anymore. Grahm becomes our other starting DB.

First of all, because this is America, you have to pay tax, and can not give things away for free. If the francise cost $25K originally and is now appraised at $702.5 million, there is a net gain of $700M. If you sell it, you pay a long term capital gain type tax. If you give it away for $1 or $25K, somebody is going to pay a gift tax on $7M, which is the same amount of money as the first case. There is a floor amount that you can gift to somebody else (say leaving $ to one of your children) without paying tax but this is something like $5K a year. If you have surplus money or assets (like stock or a NFL franchise) I believe that you can give it to the charity, and get an income deduction on the original purchase price (for the Bills franchise example $25K) and nobody (the charity nor you) pays tax on the increase in value ($700M). I doubt that the NFL owners would allow the franchise to be given to a charity or non-profit- they closed the door to that except for the grandfathered Packers. The trustees of the will have to follow the intent of the will to the extent that the will is legally valid. I don not know what is in the will.

We probably could trade our #9 pick for somebody else's 1st and 2nd or 3d. Is this WR that much better than Woods that he is worth two starters? Is he worth an upgrade at TE and an upgrade at LEFT offensive tackle? No.