wilcoam

Sorry, I don't see a tank, or a rebuild We've only lost 5/24 starters, that's maybe 1-2 more than any typical year Plus we upgraded at K Plus we will have 2 very high draft picks joining our D this year that did not start last year And we upgraded at FB Sure, now we have to use draft picks to replace the starters lost, S, CB, OLB, OLB, and WR2, and WR3 And we are still missing a quality starting RT, a nickel CB, and WR #4, and depth But its only day one of FA Still lots of time to potentially sign a WR3, a RT, and an OLB As long as it doesn't affect cashing in on a 2018 3rd and 4th rounder we should get for losing Zach, Woods, & Gilmore That would be a travesty That's not saying the 2017 edition of our Bills is a playoff team Just saying it's not a tank or a rebuild either but just normal business of year to year roster changes jc

You ask a good question, while it seems like our Bills are doing alot of great work freeing up cap room, releasing players, and the TT renegotiation, there is no point if they don't use the money freed up to acquire decent starting players Sure, I get that we have to find depth to make up the 53 roster, and they will take up some cap room, but there seems to have been room to have either re-signed one of Zach, Gilmore, or Woods, and or say one bigger ticket FA's to replace one of em Sure, I am in favour of signing less FA's than we lose to get an extra high 3rd round pick in 2018, but at the same time not in favour of losing 4-5 starters this FA, and not replacing some with FA's, because you only have so many draft picks, and all will start I especially would love to see sign one of a starting RT, S, CB, or WR that got released, because that would not affect the 2018 comp pick, Marshall would have been nice and less expensive than Woods, I love the FB signing, he was released, so again no comp pick affect Oh well... jc

At the end of the day, we all knew Gilmore was going to get his 14M per season, since most fans didn't want to pay him that, and Bills mgmt agreed, it doesn't make a difference whom he ended up signing with Yes, a divisional opponent, whom seem to have a never ending stranglehold on 1st place, ends up with a solid CB, but they horribly overpay, hopefully we receive back a 3rd round 2018 draft pick, which will make this a solid football move, in consideration if the pick hits, it's at a per annum salary we can afford for 4 years The real criticism of our Bills, won't be not franchising or giving Gilmore his 14M, it will be if they mess up getting the comp pick, by having released too many players, requiring them to sign too many bit spare part free agents that will nullify the draft pick Thus I question more, releasing NRC and others, for if they are not replaced by draft picks or other released players, it a balance sheet problem, and I question releasing Colton, if they then re-sign him, did that result in a negative one balance? (if it did not, then great) The bottom line is I get the business decisions involved in letting Gilmore, Woods, Zach walk (though I wish like Gilmore we had at least made Woods and Zach offers) but it can end up being a plus long term for our Bills if we get 3 high comp picks in 2018, assuming DW and his staff don't mess it up, which is of real concern, because in the the past our management of comp picks has not been good jc

I would absolutely bring him back jc

I was thinking the exact same thing about the 49'ers, Browns, and Redskins, yet those 3 teams are all supposedly big buyers this spring... jc

I have no issue with Simon's criticism, cleary our Bills have been unsuccessful at building a consistant long term playoff team, but if we had released TT, how would have that been a step forward to a long term run at the SB? You know you can make a shot term move, like retaining TT, and still make the long term moves at the same time.... A better criticism would be, that he has concerns that by keeping TT, it'll put off the long term plan to replace him, I cannot defend that point, I would concur 100% Thus I am hoping long term plan includes getting high comp picks in 2018, either to draft more young players, or have the flexibility to be able to move up in the draft, or we going to use on our our first two picks this year to have 2 capable backups with upside behind TT However keeping TT initself say's nothing about longer term build plans

My take is that we will be losing, at minimum, Woods, Gilmore, and Zach, all 3 of which might get some nice hight comp picks back, if we did not negate it by over signing FA's, which means fans need some patience here, the replacements will come in the draft, and then hopefully a ton of extra draft picks in 2018, that is how you build a winning team, but there will be some short term pain having to sign more released players I hope our lost FA versus singing FA board is just a s big our our April 2017 draft board because the management of FA's is of utmost importance in building a long term successful team jc

Well, I always thought TT was staying put, so glad its over with, for now, and happy we got his deal restructured Nice little signing bonus there jc

I concur, I have to see the totality of the Bills 1st day FA signings, but yes, I'd rather get a 3rd round and 4th round comps in 2018 than sign a bunch of minor low producing 2017 FA's that negate Gilmore, Woods, Zach all potentially signing with other teams You do realize managing the comp picks is one of the ways in NE trumps alot of other teams in creating its roster, now Elway in Denver is doing the same thing, but hey should we emulate that, we've been managing just fine? Lol jc

I'm disappointed it looks like we haven't even made an offer to Woods, nevertheless, we will now be down 2 starting WR's Yes, I liked the idea of Brandon cos having been released he would have not have counted towards 2018 comp picks And clearly he a quality starting NFL WR Now I am hoping we get WR2 in the draft and a potential 4th round comp pick for Woods However that gets potentially negated if we sign a WR#3 FA Its the same thing with Gilmore, in 2 days we will be down 2 starting CB's, a nickel and outside Same thing, hoping we land one in the draft, and Seymour becomes the nickel Still now you have to replace Seymour so hoping that's not a FA singing but another released player Hoping for a 3rd round comp for Gilmore jc

I don;t agree, first we had that game changer at DE, second that 2014 GB game was a pretty significant win, and we've had many key late season games the past 3 years, unfort we lost most of them, usually by being run over, so I'd say its that game changer at MLB and QB that we lack the most, but if I had to key on one thing we've been missing, it's a strong team D run scheme, and of course a passing game jc

Former players are even more entitled to spout off, look I'm not saying he's right or wrong, but when you don;t make the playoffs for 17 years, its hard to say the team even has a seat at the checkers table, let alone threatening anybodies queen Think about all the moves, the trades, the draft picks, we ourselves defended to death on these boards over the years, if you take a step away, and a breath, none of them have worked, either short term or long term, I can't disagree with Steve, except, on the sole basis of having 3 consecutive .500 type seasons, we seem to be at least taking some opponent chess pieces away, sure we ain't close to getting to the next level of the tournament, but I would not say we're only playing checkers either, food for thought, on 2 days b4 we lose a whack of players..... jc

If true, it doesn't surprise me, I've said all along they were either renegotiating with him, or just picking it up Of course that does not mean he can't be traded after the fact And it does not mean we are not taking a young backup QB in the 2017 draft jc

Those PFF ratings are correct except Graham was top 15 pretty much most of the year until the last 2-3 games Guess PFF blamed him for some off the long runs Yes, NRC was our highest rated CB pretty well the entire year though Gilmore has a great second half jc

Not sure, but IMO he's the nickel back now But wow with White and Gilmore to FA, Williams injured, and RC released, we are uber razor thin in the secondary Obviously we are drafting some rookies However beyond that we will need to sign some other released players or FA's Man I hope Mgmt doesn't negate Gilmore leaving and foolishly replace all our FA's with other FA's jc

I liked the way RC played for us and he appeared to want to play here So I'm sad to see him released But I assume he no longer fits the scheme and the powers that be think we can upgrade Great Pretty sure Seymour will be that guy And a high draft pick will replace Gilmore The question is who will replace Seymour? I'm just hope its not a FA Cos everytime you release a player and replace him with a FA it counts as a negative against the comp picks And one of the the reasons we didn't get any this year is because we signed too many FA bit parts Especially in the secondary So here's to filling Seymour's roster spot with another released player jc

I am of the opposite opinion, from what I am reading none of the 2017 draft class are starters, so we are potentially just wasting a pick on a future Geno or EJM, rinse and repeat, the smarter long term move is acquiring extra draft picks for 2018 and using them to move up to grab that QB To do that you have to allow more FA's to depart than signing back to ensure at least one extra 3rd round compensatory pick, plus trading down this year to get another high extra pick next year, hopefully giving you 5 picks in the first 3 rounds Now I could handle sucking with Brian Hoyer if DW executes that plan, but its gonna be very painful if our Bills instead draft one of the QB's, still has them sit behind Hoyer Then again neither of us fans are right or wrong, who knows how this will play out and what the right football moves really are... jc

Great post Logic however I want to be cautious about making predictions about D rankings after the last two years fiasco I'd settle for finishing top 20 vs the run as that would be a marked improvement over the Rex years Also unless we trade down and acquire an extra high draft pick we just can't find solutions for all our holes I do hope we grab a Corner and a FS but you can't get that ILB and a QB and a WR At the same time fans have to stop cutting the likes of the Graham's, Clay's, Kyle's Leshean, and others The last thing we need is even more holes And for every player you release and have to sign a FA to replace it affects the balance sheet of 2018 Comp picks jc

I can't see Adolphus playing alot of DT, thus I do not see him replacing Kyle, I see him more of rotational depth for Shaq and Hughes, and eventually replacing Hughes, but I could be wrong I think you will see our Bills move away from OLB/ILB's and sign a couple of DT's and DE's this off season as part of the formation change, and eventually use a high draft pick on a future 4-3 DT in 2018 but we will see jc

Well stated but unfort you are preaching never signing any of your draft picks and sorry but that is also not a good way to build a winning football team And our Bills agree, they certainly have been trying to re-sign Gilmore, just a much as they are walking away because the don;t see the value in overpaying even more than they were willing to do I also think we will badly miss Gilmore, but the timing is right in terms of depth of this draft, if you make the right selection, and you are not chasing future QB's, whom adversely affect your ability to replace FA's, thus the reasonable argument of trading down to be able to use that extra pick... jc

No, it means all the OLB we had to sign last year, while releasing DE and DT's, to deal with the change in formation and a new HC, means now with yet another formation change, and another HC, that we will be releasing more OLB's/ILB's, and signing more DE's and DT's He would back up Hughes..... jc

I'm not sure any team can guarantee a tank after a slow start For example the Bills worst season in the last decade was in 2010 when they went 4-12 If you remember they started 0-8 I guess you're saying they should have thrown in the towel and kept losing games But they didn't They actually played .500 in the 2nd half and went 4-4 They were tough to beat, lol And in doing so they lost the opportunity to draft Cam Newton and or Von Miller jc

I'm fine with getting a 3rd for Gilmore, but as I pointed out, we won't if DW has to replace our FA's by signing other FA's, the result is no compensatory picks, unless DW signs released players, and or draft picks make the 53 man roster So by not tagging Gilmore, and or not being able to resign him to a more team friendly contract there is still no automatic guarantee we are getting a 3rd pick back jc

I hate to be a debbie downer but I have a singing feeling by about mid March our Bills will have major holes all over the roster Except for RB, TE, G, and LT, every position is wide open at #10 CB, S, ILB, OLB, WR, QB, honestly, it doesn't really make a difference Except if its QB we will down one potential major impact starter because I'm thinking he's likely to be backup I'm pulling for one of Hooker, Adams, Foster, Lattimore, Davis, or Williams One or two is bound to be left by the time we choose What I really hope for is a trade down that gets us an extra 2nd That seems to be the Jets objective as well jc

It was painful watching our Bills not stop the run last yet of the issue And outside of Rex's non successful schemeI have to think our LB corps was the major reason Ok I'm hoping Ragland is a large part of the puzzle in fixing this along with the change back to 4-3 Now I don't to claim to know much about Foster Except most folks claim he's a top 10 pick and the bast ILB in the draft However If he can stop the run I'd love to see him play in a Buffalo Bills uniform over the next 5 years Because that's likely good to 2 more wins alone in 2017 jc