Adam727

Spotrac has the Bills at 5.8mil under the projected cap next year. That's before accounting for this year's rookies, next year's rookies, with only 38 players on the roster, and without re-signing Spencer Brown and Rasul Douglas if they are part of the Bills' plans going forward. It's better than this year was but unless I'm missing something, next year isn't great either. 2026 currently looks ok.

Only if they think he's a starting CB in the NFL. The Bills are in salary cap jail for the next few years, early picks should be WR, DLine, OT, CB. If he's the best player left on their board and they think he'll translate to CB in the NFL it wouldn't be my first choice but I wouldn't hate it. Safeties are cheap enough in FA that even though it's a big need, I'd be disappointed with a Safety in round 1.

If Chicago also added their 1st and 2nd round pics every year from now through 2031 I'd have to think about it.

I like the idea of a trade down to the early 2nd round and grabbing two WRs. I don't think trading for one of the top 3 WRs is realistic. Or at least not a good idea. If the Bills give up 28, 60, 2025 1, 2 how do they fix the rest of the team? Our DEs are Rousseau and Von. Next year we pay $13mil for Rousseau if we want to keep him. After that he probably costs $20mil/year and gets a Tremaine Edmunds type contract for someone I think is a good player who is going to get paid like an all pro. We are going to need at least 1 probably 2 starting DEs. Our safeties are Rapp & Edwards. We have no O-line or CB depth. We have $5mil in cap space next year with only 38 players on the roster, 2024/2025 rookies not accounted for, and Rasul Douglas & Spencer Brown as free agents we might want to re-sign. If we trade up to the top of the draft for a WR and have no 1st or 2nd round picks and no cap space how do we even start fixing the defense until 2026/2027?

DE Safety WR2 Center/IOL

5 years $160mil is my guess.

I would fix any holes in the O-line, get one top notch receiver, a RB, draft a QB at 3 and save the rest of the money for next year. Keep drafting QBs high if needed, wait until you have a franchise QB then go on a massive spending spree.

I'd sign him for vet minimum. If he can get more than that somewhere else I think that's more than we can afford at that position right now.

I'd want him back at 3 yr / $21 mil but think he'll probably get a 5 yr $60-70mil contract somewhere else.

I don't agree with everything McDermott does. I'll never forget that he tried to start Nathan Peterman TWICE the year Tyrod got us into the playoffs. But how many coaches in the last 40 years have the Bills had better than McDermott? His clock management skills are bad. His player evaluation is not always the best. But he's still one of the top 2 or 3 coaches we've had in decades. The grass isn't always greener..

I think the Bills already have the talent to win it all. Last year they had to overcome a lot of adversity just to get to Cincinnati and for whatever reason they came out flat. The year before they either deserved to beat KC or at the very least played just as good as KC did and lost (in addition to 13 seconds) because of a coin toss. The Bills just need to keep the window of opportunity open as long as possible to get the maximum number of chances and sooner than later they'll win one with this team. You can argue who's better between KC, Cincinnati, Bills, Eagles, but IMO they are all pretty close and no one of those teams is going to beat the other more than 6 out of 10 times. So the Bills just needs to keep putting themselves in a position to win and one of these years they are going to.

Is this a list of single best years or is this cumulative year to year? Weird to see Byrd over Allen, but Byrd did have one year for the Bills where I remember he played out of his mind. Something like an interception a game for 8 or 9 games or something insane.

I didn't want to read through all 52 pages to see if it had been said before, but basically this. I didn't like the numbers when I first saw them, after seeing the contract details, IMO great deal for both sides, especially the Bills.

I don't usually like to start threads but I can't find a good answer to this question, and it's the off-season... According to Spotrac, the Bills are currently $35 million over the projected salary cap next year. Micah Hyde, Gabe Davis, Daquan Jones, Ed Oliver, Jordan Phillips, Shaq Lawson, Poona Ford, Dane Jackson are all free agents along with a number of other less expensive role players. The Bills have already spent about $20mil/year from future years cap space for the next several years in void years / restructures, so even though they can choose to keep pushing some money into future years at some point doing this too much will probably catch up with them and would mean we'd be dealing with some rebuilding year or years right as Josh is in the middle of his prime as a QB, and Beane has said numerous times he's always trying to balance building for now and building for the future. I see $8million in relatively easy cuts in Hines/Neal. The Bills can probably save some money next near by extending Taron Johnson. After that it starts becoming much more difficult to see where the Bills save money. Has anyone else looked at 2024 yet and what does this roster look like next year? Who can the Bills afford to bring back and who might be on the chopping block for cap reasons?

All good points. The reason I would be willing to downgrade the Dline this year is that according to Spotrac, the Bills are really far over the cap next year already and they have several high priced free agents to worry about. In my opinion, a DT rotation of Ford/Jones/Phillips/Settle/5th guy signed for Vet min is solid. Ford essentially takes Oliver's roster spot. With the state of the Bills cap next year, the high likelihood Oliver won't be able to be re-signed next year, his salary, and the % of snaps he is likely to play with the Bills' heavy emphasis on D-line rotation, his contract seems like a poor value to me even though I really like him as a player and I would rather see that money rolled forward into next year. I don't think it's likely to happen, that's just what I would do. I do agree our situation at MLB makes DT even more important and understand why Oliver will probably be on the team one more year. Which isn't the worst thing given that he is probably our second best player on the D-line.

Brown/Doyle/Bates isn't ideal but I can live with it for this season. You can't upgrade every position in one season and whoever plays RT will hopefully benefit from improved interior OL play. I wouldn't mind a veteran if Beane can find someone for vet minimum but wouldn't want to pay $5mil for someone like Wynn.

$11mil in free cap space that we can hopefully use to re-sign Micah Hyde next year. And probably a day 3 draft pick. I like Oliver I just don't think the Bills can afford him right now.

I'm not worried about the draft picks. When a team is as good as the Bills have been, you can't afford to pay everybody. I am worried about the salary. I thought they should have traded Edmunds last year and used that pick to draft his replacement. I think they should trade Oliver this year even if they can't get much for him. If both players had played their 5th year elsewhere, that would've saved collectively $20+million on the salary cap. Instead, the Bills are $20million over the estimated cap next year according to spotrac. That's before paying for the 2023/2024 draft classes & filling up an additional 11 or so spots on the roster. That's also before trying to re-sign any of Daquan Jones, Micah Hyde, Ed Oliver, Gabe Davis, Jordan Phillips, Shaq Lawson, Dane Jackson set to become Free Agents and all the easy restructures are already done. I don't see a situation where Ed Oliver is back with the Bills after this year because no matter what happens, they can't afford to pay him. And I'd rather take the money going to him this year and use it to pay some combination of Jones/Hyde/Davis next year. Or if we really have to spend it this year I'd rather see it go to Hopkins instead.

If Beane wanted to get future value out of pick #27, the NFL already offers a way to do this because future draft picks are devalued in trades. Beane could try to trade #27 for a 3rd round this year and 1st round next year. (or whatever the draft chart says is fair compensation this year) Then try to trade the higher of the 1st round picks next year for a #2 in 2024 and #1 in 2025. Trade the extra #2 in 2024 straight up for a 1st round pick in 2025. By moving from #27 to round 3 in 2023, in that scenario the Bills would wind up with a total of 3 1st round picks in 2025. (The Bills original plus the two new ones) Any trade would require willing trading partners and I'm sure not all of that would end up working out exactly that way but there are better ways to get future value than paying $4-$5mil a year for a backup QB who hopefully never sees the field during the regular season in the hopes of maybe getting a team to give up multiple picks based on what they see from him in pre-season / mop up duty.

If anything I could see a scenario like last year where he's prepared to move up a few spots to grab the last player they have a 1st round grade on. The idea that Beane made a few phone calls to do some due diligence and something leaked would be plausible. The idea that anyone would know what position he'd be trading up for I don't see how that could be anything more than a guess by the writer.

I'd rather the Bills draft a WR, but because of the strength of the TE class, I'd rather they draft a TE they have rated higher than reach for a WR if that's the way the draft falls.

Completely agree. Given the current limited resources I would be ok with Basham competing with a rookie for playing time as DT #4 for a year. I don't see him being a part of the long term plan unless some kind of light switch goes off for him.. The back-up DT position would be a work in progress a little but in exchange my hope would be that the cap savings could be enough to re-sign Micah Hyde next year when the Bills are up against even tougher cap constraints than they were this year.

I would trade Oliver & use the draft pick to draft his replacement, move Basham inside next year, and re-sign Jordan Phillips to hopefully a cheap contract. I understand Oliver is probably only worth a later round pick, but you can get a big DT in the later rounds and we would be looking for someone to compete with Basham for the 4th DT spot. Jones/Phillips/Settle/Basham/draft pick. Saves hopefully ~$7-8 million against the cap compared to our current line. Draft another DT in the 2nd or 3rd next year and hopefully extend/re-sign Jones.

He didn't fit under the cap for us this year and was a better gadget receiver than a full time slot, but he was one of my favorite people on the team. I usually don't root for Bills players after they move on to other teams but I hope he goes on to have a solid career.

Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way. When Beane got here we weren't a great team. Then we were a fringe playoff team that I did not expect would have a chance against teams like KC. The last two years I think Beane closed the talent gap and the Bills are as good (or almost as good) as any team in the AFC. Everyone remembers two years ago for 13 seconds.. the single thing I'll remember it for above all else is we lost to a coin toss. Last year, despite major injuries at important positions all across the roster, the Bills held their own destiny to the #1 spot and lost it due to no fault of anyone's when their teammate almost died on the field. I think maybe the first round of the playoffs you can get a bye or get lucky and play a team like NE that didn't deserve to be there. But after that I view the last two playoff games and superbowl as almost coin tosses no matter how good you are. At that point you're playing against equally good teams and anyone can beat anyone on any given day. Maybe I'm being too much of a homer but I think the Bills already have the talent to win it all and Beane's focus should shift a little to making sure he keeps that window open for as long as possible because some of it comes down to luck and the best way to defend against that is to give the team as many opportunities as possible.