HappyDays

Have we? According to Over the Cap the expected salary cap in 2024 is $256 million. We currently have $252.5 million in cap hits that year. That's without accounting for any potential restructures and cuts. Just as one example I quickly explored, we could cut Morse and Poyer next offseason to save $14 million against the cap in 2024. I don't know, I don't see even a hint of cap trouble and that's before diving into every possible restructure and other possible cuts. Partly because we haven't drafted that well we don't have any looming major extensions. Maybe Rousseau in 2025 if he continues on his current trajectory but that's it.

How is trading for Hopkins going to stop us from building through the draft? We're talking about at most one 2nd round pick. The cap space issue I at least understand the concern there. As far as the trade compensation itself that's not even a consideration for me. Who really cares? KC spent an offseason trading a 1st round pick for Orlando Brown and giving Joe Thuney a $16 million AAV contract. I agree they have drafted better than us but that's a different conversation. Cincy in a way got lucky because of Burrow's injury. They got Burrow 1st overall then Chase 5th overall and absolutely nailed both picks. They also just gave Orlando Brown a big contract. What does any of this have to do with us possibly trading for Hopkins? Every team that's contended for a championship over the past several years made a few swings to get there. Your thinking is drought era thinking. We don't have to think like that anymore. The real key to long term success is having an elite QB combined with top tier coaching and scouting. I'm not convinced our coaching and scouting are at the same level as the Chiefs and Bengals. That doesn't mean we shouldn't take swings to try and overtake them.

Actually I know for a fact that we are in better future cap shape than the Bengals because we have owners that are willing to spend. Beane has a blank check to use Pegula's money for signing bonuses that push salary into the future. I doubt the Bengals front office has anywhere near that same latitude for spending. I'm not too familiar with Chiefs ownership and their spending habits. I will say they've had a very light offseason all things considered. They were apparently unwilling to cave to Orlando Brown's demands and in the process they ended up paying more for what most analysts consider to be a worse player. If their cap was in great shape they presumably would already have Hopkins given their need at the position, contrary to recent reports that they dropped out of the process entirely. Chiefs fans on Twitter have expressed quite a bit of consternation about the front office's inaction with the WR room this offseason. Yes even after a Super Bowl win they still want more from their front office and are concerned about the state of their salary cap.

Nobody knows the exact dollar figure but it is pretty much set in stone that the yearly cap increase will accelerate substantially over the next few years. I've heard Peter King talk about it a few times, he's as plugged in as anyone. The new TV deals signed with the major networks in 2021 are just going into effect this year. The streaming deal with Google/YouTube will go into effect this year. I heard Peter King say that many around the NFL expect the cap to go up by "leaps and bounds" in 2024 and even moreso in 2025 and beyond because of those new deals. The annual ~$10 million increase we're used to will no longer be the standard. That's why any cap we're pushing all the way to 2026 for example I'm not even remotely worried about it. We can easily keep pushing salary into future years because we have owners with bottomless pockets and we can keep doing that until the day Allen retires.

This is exactly what the Saints did in the last few years of Brees' career. Their mistake has been never taking a 1-2 year reset period to get the cap back in shape after Brees retired. But the philosophy never caused them any issues while he was still there.

This thread has gone on so long I've now been fooled twice by the same poster posting the same fake link taking me to the same picture.

Me too. And I would love that pick, especially if we trade for DeAndre Hopkins before the draft.

That was our last option to find a capable MLB in free agency. At this point Edmunds' replacement is almost certainly coming in the draft, likely with a day one or two pick.

No way we can upgrade the offensive line in 2023 at this point. What we have now is what it's going to be, likely with a couple draft picks added into the mix. What's your preference for adding a true WR2? Right now the available options are Hopkins for Arizona's asking price, Jerry Jeudy for a 1st, or OBJ for whatever salary he's asking for. If reports are true that OBJ wants to play with Aaron Rodgers on the Jets that gives us just Hopkins and Jeudy as the available options. Unless you have someone else in mind?

This is where we differ - I consider WR2 a need. Davis is okay as a WR2. But on a championship caliber offense he isn't good enough. I love him as a WR4. He excelled in that role in 2020. Getting Hopkins would immediately push Davis back into that role. I think the trickle down effect of that is an underrated piece of why this move makes so much sense, just like trading for Diggs also put John Brown in more favorable matchups against #2 CBs. Adding a top tier receiver doesn't just give you the surface level results, it also makes everyone else on offense better. A championship caliber offense, in addition to a top tier QB, needs to have either an elite group of weapons or an elite offensive line. Right now the Bills have neither. There is no chance of us suddenly creating an elite offensive line this offseason. But there is a real chance of us suddenly having one of the best groups of weapons in the league. What you call a "shiny new toy" I call a necessity to put our offense at a championship caliber level. The new players you mentioned only upgraded our depth pieces on offense. I'm happy with every one of those signings but they didn't improve the top end potential of the offense. We still have an average at best offensive line and a very good but not elite group of weapons. We are missing one piece to push us over the top. Our Devonta Smith, or Christian McCaffrey, or Tee Higgins. To me that missing piece is as big a need as any other hole on the roster. Because we're well past the point in our team building cycle where we're just trying to fill holes. We're competing for a championship. That changes the whole conversation.

For a number of reasons. First, players that get traded a 2nd time don't get the same value. Jalen Ramsey went from two 1st round picks to a 3rd round pick. Brandin Cooks has been acquired for less value each time he's been traded. Hopkins was originally acquired by the Cardinals for a 2nd round pick. It stands to reason they won't get more back for him. Second, he's past the age of 30, he's a two year rental for the team that acquires him, and he's coming off a year with a PED suspension. These factors combined lower his value as a player. Third, and probably most importantly, he costs a lot against the cap and the Cardinals are apparently unwilling to retain much if any of the salary. Personally I would instead use our 1st rounder to acquire Jeudy if that was the asking price. He's younger with more upside and wouldn't cause the same cap issues in 2023 or 2024. Using a 1st rounder on a 24 year old still on his rookie deal makes sense.

No, I was going to mention that Cook is the one player on that list where the jury is still out, but my post was getting long enough so I left it out. But considering Cook is a RB he would have to have a great career, something approaching Saquon Barkley, or at worst Ezekiel Elliott, for me to consider his career value greater than a couple years of DeAndre Hopkins. My overall point is that a 2nd round pick isn't nearly as valuable as all the hemming and hawing over it would have you believe. The cap space issue I am a little more sensitive to.

I'm not saying Davis singlehandedly cost us the #1 seed. But we're talking about upgradeable spots on the team. Allen isn't upgradeable. Dorsey isn't getting replaced. Frazier is already gone. I'm not complaining about Davis just to complain. We have a real opportunity to upgrade a part of the offense that was a major factor in why we fell short last year. Playing the blame game is missing the point. I'm focusing on something the Bills can actually control.

In terms of actual unpopular opinions on here, I'm happy that the Bills prioritize special teams players. Giving the opponent worse starting field position is an underrated advantage. I don't think devoting a decent amount of cap space to those players has caused us to miss out on any meaningful upgrades at other positions.

That quote isn't exactly right. He posts the actual video in the tweet below: Jeremy Fowler says Arizona is asking for "a 2nd round pick and more." He uses the McCaffrey trade as an example, he does not say Arizona wants a 2nd and a 3rd. So this isn't new information. The report all along has been that Hopkins is available for a 2nd rounder plus a conditional pick. As I said earlier if Beane is playing a game of chicken and waiting until Arizona drops their asking price closer to the draft, that's fine. But if he ultimately has to lose the game of chicken to acquire a true WR2 then he should just do it. A brief history of Bills 2nd round picks in the McDermott era: James Cook Boogie Basham AJ Epenesa Cody Ford Zay Jones Dion Dawkins Dawkins is the only player on that list where you would take his career with the Bills over two years of DeAndre Hopkins. This hasn't been said enough - does everyone realize Gabe Davis cost us the #1 seed last year? He dropped a TD in the Dolphins loss. He dropped that ridiculous 70 yard pass on 4th and 21 in the Jets loss which at the very least put us into position to tie the game. And then against the Bengals in the playoffs when we still had a fighting chance he dropped a 3rd down deep throw which effectively ended the game for us. All of that plus he had trouble separating most of the year. So just know if you don't want the Bills to give up a 2nd for Hopkins, you're signing up for another year of that. I don't get it.

I don't disagree with your conclusion, but any analytics tool that has Diontae Johnson as the 5th best pass catcher in football can safely be ignored.

The stupid thing is that this move really wouldn't even mortgage the future. We're not the Rams trading away every high pick we have several years in a row. We're talking about at most a 2nd round pick in a weak draft class and maybe a couple salary dumps of our own. That's not mortgaging the future. The 2nd round pick in my eyes is meaningless. The salary cap is going to explode in the next couple years so I'm not remotely worried about that part of it either. We all know the trade is possible. The ways of getting the cap space necessary to bring Hopkins in have been discussed ad nauseum. Beane just has to pull the trigger. What I don't get about Beane's apparent reluctance to just make a move is that the first time he did it, trading a 1st round pick for Diggs, it was unquestionably a great move. It took us from wildcard contender to the landslide divisional favorite. Did that trade mortgage the future? No. You'd think such a wild success the first time around would encourage him to do it again when we're so close to being championship caliber. Maybe we're just playing a game of chicken and waiting for the Cardinals GM to fold closer to the draft. If that's the case I'm obviously fine with it. I just hope Beane hasn't drawn a hard line in the sand for the three available WR upgrades. Lose the game of chicken if that's what it takes. Because if we're sitting here next January talking about how a critical Gabe Davis drop cost us the #1 seed, or another playoff game, I don't know what argument there would be for Beane to keep his job at that point.

Maybe just once Beane should cross his line. He missed out on Von Miller in 2021 and Christian McCaffrey last year. If it takes a 2nd rounder so be it. We aren't likely to draft a franchise changing player at pick 59. I would trade every player we've picked in the 2nd round since McDermott took over for two years of DeAndre Hopkins. I hope he doesn't pinch pennies over a move that could push us over the hump.

I hadn't considered this. But maybe our line could be Dawkins - McGovern - Bates - Edwards - Brown with a draft pick or two added into the mix. Cutting Morse saves us $5.3 million against the cap in 2023 with no dead cap beyond this year. This is an idea out of left field but I could see it working.

Yeah the only way we could take on the whole cap hit is if we trade Oliver. There was a report earlier in the offseason that Hopkins would be willing to be flexible with his contract on his new team. If true I'm sure we can make it work, just a matter of working out the details.

This guy had the David Edwards signing a day before anyone else, but still take it with a grain of salt:

My one area of skepticism with this whole thing is that Aaron Wilson's source is almost certainly Hopkins' agent. Aaron Wilson on Twitter is usually putting out contract details before they're announced by others which means agents are most likely his sources. It would be in Hopkins' agent's best interest to use the Bills purported interest as leverage to get other teams to increase their offers. I've seen the Bills used in that manner in the past.

Good sleuthing, but Hopkins was in Dallas as of Thursday according to his IG, and there's an owners' meeting in Phoenix this weekend.