DabillsDaBillsDaBills

Having NINE women come forward, all through the same lawyer, and none of them going to the police makes me MORE skeptical of this story than if it was only 1 woman (or just a few).

The Saints are an interesting case study. You can point to the '14-'16 seasons and say they were bad because they mishandled the cap. You can also make the opposite point and look to the '17-'20 seasons to say that being in cap hell doesn't matter. They've had a minimum of 20mm dead cap in every season since 2017, BUT they've had the best regular season record over that time. Kicking the can down the road did not hurt them the last 4 years. Trading away Graham and Cooks didn't help with their cap situation. Trading players away results in dead cap (they incurred 9mm dead cap when they traded Graham). Those were still good trades and good decisions, but it did not help with cap hell. Has the cap really caught up to the Saints in 2021? Or, with Brees retiring, are they essentially punting on this season to position themselves for success in 2022? There's an accounting concept about this called taking a "big bath". Companies take as many losses as they can in 1 year so their future earnings look better. NFL teams use the same concept (like the Bills did in 2018).

The cap isn't completely meaningless, but I do think Bills fans assign way too much importance to it. You can look around the NFL and see many teams doing creative things to get around the cap. The Saints have been in cap hell for multiple years now. During that time they've been one of the best teams in the league, and a perennial super bowl contender (no SB appearances, but they've had brutal playoff losses). Have they really had to pay for manipulating the cap? If they have I'm not seeing it. Teams will sometimes go into a year realizing they won't be competitive and decide to bite the bullet on bad contracts (see: 2018 Buffalo Bills ). We didn't HAVE to eat 30mm in dead cap by trading away Dareus, Glenn, and Taylor, but we CHOSE to do that to give us more of an advantage in 2019. Teams are only punished by the cap when they chose to be.

I dislike Bojo more than the next guy (I made a thread in 2018 saying we should cut him), but I can't say I'm thrilled with this move. Bojo was pretty good last year. Why suffer through 2 years of bad/inconsistent punter play only to not re-sign the guy after he had a great 3rd season?

Star's dead cap exceeds his active cap so cutting him actually hurts our cap situation. We could ask Tre or Diggs to restructure, but I'm not sure how that would play out. Tre just signed his contract, and Diggs is already underpaid after his all pro season. We'd have to get very very creative with the cap to free up enough space to make an impact with FA. Beane hasn't shown that he's willing to do that. And that's OK. It's not the worst thing to "stay the course" with a team that went 13-3 with AFCCG appearance. Don't expect much of anything to happen in free agency though. 1 mid tier FA and a handful of depth guys seems likeliest.

I'm more worried about Thuney to Chiefs and Dupree to Titans. That's 2 of the top teams in the AFC signing 2 of the best FAs. Spotrac says the Bills have 10 mm in estimated cap space (although I don't see Feliciano on there). With available cap space we could barely afford a WR2 let alone the rest of what OP was hoping we'd sign. Beane's "splash" was keeping Milano, Williams, and Feliciano.

I'd be very interested in Barkley. It all comes down to the cost of acquiring him though. I'd be willing to trade a 3rd for him (toss in Singletary too while we're at it). 2nd or higher is a no from me. I'm not sure why a lot of people in here are concerned with how much Barkley will cost after this season. If he has a fantastic year and is going to cost a lot, then great, there's a decent chance we would win the Superbowl. Let him walk and we should get a 3rd rd comp pick back (provided Beane doesn't continue to thumb his nose at the comp pick formula). I'm more than willing to pay a 3rd for a rental year of Barkley. We're in a championship window with Allen on his rookie deal, and this is a low risk trade that could put us over the top.

How about defensive player of the year Stephon Gilmore? Robert Woods? Shaq Lawson? Jordan Phillips? Beane has pissed away a handful of 3rd round comp picks by handing out UFA contracts to replacement level players. Trading some of those signees away for late round draft picks is still a net loss. I think Beane has done pretty well as GM (who can argue with a 13-3 season and 2 playoff wins?), but he's been absolutely atrocious when it comes to handling comp picks.

It's almost embarrassing how bad Buffalo has been at taking advantage of the comp pick system. We have 0 comp picks with Beane as GM. That's a disturbing lack of planning.

Not a terrible thread for the offseason, but it's way too early for this discussion. Mcdermott needs to win a SB or have 5+ years of sustained success before this could be taken seriously.

I don't know that we need to be in a rush to extend his contract. If we exercise the 5th year option he's under contract through the end of the 2022 season, and we could even franchise tag him for the next 2 seasons after that. I don't see Josh's cap hit changing very much even if he wins league MVP and a SB next season. If he signed a contract today fair value would probably be something like 42mm AAV for 4 years. If he waits until 2022 and wins an MVP/SB this coming season the contract probably looks like 47mm AAV for 10 years. The biggest different would be the length of the contract and guaranteed $$. That being said, I don't see a whole lot of risk to extending Josh now. He was inarguably a top 3 QB this year and carried us to the AFCCG. He makes the occasional play with his legs, but he's not even close to being a run first QB that we would have to worry about his longevity. My only question with regards to Josh's development is how will he look after the mega contract kicks in and we can't spend as much on the rest of the roster? Obviously that can't be answered until AFTER he signs the contract, so that's really not a reason to wait.

Does he weigh the same as a duck ?

I see your Murphy and Coleman and raise you a Benjamin. Trading a 3rd+7th for a worthless WR that we later released and ate 8.5mm dead cap on is pretty darn bad.

I'm going to guess Milano gets a prove it contract with 1-2 years at 12-13 per. He's had pretty bad luck in the final year of his rookie contract. He was injured most of the year (and not great even when healthy), and he's signing this next contract in the COVID offseason with the cap going down.

Mahomes called out the WR unit and the O-line unit as a whole, but not as individuals. I don't think any individual KC player would get too worked up over it. A little bothered is exactly right, and they should be. They played like trash and deserve to be called out on it. I can't recall TB12 ever doing something like that, although I know Arians called out TB12 a couple of different times this season in post-game pressers. Coach calling out a player is a bit different I guess

If there was one lesson I came away with from watching this game it's how important generating consistent pressure while rushing 4 guys is. The Chiefs finished with 17 rushes for 107 yards. The Bucs had 33 rushes for 145 yards. It's not like the Chiefs had a lot of garbage time rushing yards either. They were pretty effective at running the ball all night. Their offense sputtered because Mahomes was running for his life almost every play

The Eagles want 2 firsts for Wentz? His fall off was significantly worse than Goff, and the Rams had to give value to the Lions to unload Goff. With how bad Wentz was this year (and that contract) I thought the Eagles would have to give away at least a 1st rd pick to get him off the team.

I'm not seeing how throwing a punch at a guys head after the whistle is a "part of football". Jones absolutely should've been ejected and I think that would've really reigned in a lot of the chippiness. Props to the Chiefs for altering how they played to take advantage of the unofficial playoff rulebook, where defensive holding is only called if it's obviously blatant, and dirty/late hits are just "playing physical"

I like this camera angle. It shows the ref staring directly at the incident, and ignoring the call which would've ejected Jones from the match (and possibly Feliciano). I love Jones reaction. You can tell his immediate thought was "Oh god I can't believe I just punched that guy in the head, I'm going to get ejected from the AFC Championship Game" Then he slowly looks at the ref to see if he calls it or not. It pays to be a star player I guess. The ref ignored it when it happened, and the league continues to ignore it now. I couldn't believe how little coverage this got during the game and the halftime show. The Chiefs best defensive player should've been ejected in the 1st half, and the halftime show didn't even mention it.

I disagree that it would require draft capital from the Rams to trade Goff away. Sure, he's a bit overpaid, but I hardly think that contract is a detriment to the point that the Rams would need to pay someone to take him on. He has the 10th highest cap hit for QB in 2021, and I said in my original post that I think he's the ~15th best QB. There's not enough of a gap there for the Rams to have to unload picks to trade him away. As far as guaranteed money goes....who cares? Unless the owner is a cheapskate I don't see how that is more important than the cap hit I agree that the Rams will be better with Stafford (but still not good enough to contend for a SB). Is it really worthwhile to trade 2x1sts+ for a guy that's a slight upgrade?

This is the most lopsided trade I've seen since....the Hopkins deal (ok that was only 10 months ago, but this trade is pretty darn bad). If I'm rating how good Stafford and Goff are, I'd say that Stafford is the 10th best QB in the league and Goff is closer to 15th. I think both of them are closer to being average than they are to being elite. I don't see either of these guys ever winning a superbowl (maybe they could catch fire in the playoffs like Eli Manning). The Rams are giving up 2x firsts and 1x third for a slight upgrade at QB. A soon to be 33 year old QB that has a lot of wear and tear on his body. It's insane. It's the worst QB trade since Carson Palmer

This reads more like attempted murder than "just" domestic violence. Given than this guy was a backup player I'd be surprised if he is not facing significant jail time, and if he ever plays in the NFL again.

Comprehensive list of WRs with a cap hit greater than 20m Hopkins 27.25 Jones 22 Allen 20.025 Cooper 20 I don't think we're suddenly going to see a ton of 20+mm cap hits for WRs, especially with the cap (probably) going down this coming season. Diggs is the 16th highest cap hit at WR, which isn't low enough to be insulting. I predict he'd play out at least 1 more season before trying to restructure. Josh's (hopefully soon to come) mega deal won't kick in until the 22-23 season (at the earliest). Beane is surely aware of this and it will effect the batch of UFA signings this off-season, but we're hardly in cap trouble. A small bit of planning will make it very easy to retain Diggs and Allen without destroying our cap.

This loss has been easy to get over, but I would say the Jaguars would be the easiest. 2017 I was just ecstatic we broke the drought. That was a pretty mediocre Bills team that lucked into a playoff spot. While we had a small chance of beating the Jaguars, we had NO chance to beat the Patriots in the divisional round (let alone make a SB run). This year I have a sour taste in my mouth that we were dominated so thoroughly, but the fact it was so lopsided makes the game easy to get over (I won't be tormented by "what ifs").

I'm having a hard time putting much trust in a stat that says the Bills had the 4th best draft of 2019. Oliver, Ford, Singletary, and Knox are all starters, but I don't think any of them are difference makers. I can't rate any of them as better than replacement level. I don't think this was mentioned in your post, but how do you handle players that were drafted by the Bills, and then went to play for another team? I'm thinking of Wyatt Teller in particular, who was a great value 5th rd draft pick.....but he's playing for a different team. Personally I've been a bit critical of Beane's drafting. I'll normally start with "if we ignore White and Allen...." which I guess really isn't fair. He certainly deserves a ton of credit for drafting an all-pro QB, and for drafting an all pro CB (I don't really care if it was McD vs Beane for that selection).