Einstein's Dog
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Posts posted by Einstein's Dog
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6 minutes ago, BADOLBILZ said:
No you are thinking about next offseason.
After he has his best season and answers the questions about his value on 3rd down.
That's when Cook would have the leverage to actually earn a top-of-market value contract.
The kind of leverage he has now is probably only capable of yielding about 60% of open market.
While Cook's leverage may not be as good as next season, the motivation to hold out is because his numbers won't be better.
The Bills plan is to use Cook the same as last season, and the same RB room is back intact. TDs are kind of a fluke, and Cook may not get as many as last year. For those who play FF you would not expect much, if any, increase in points.
So the fear for me is if you believe the above ,what is the reason for playing this year? The "hold-in" for 11 games and get the money you would based on last years numbers - should get you over $12m/yr and a big pile of guaranteed money (around $20M). Sacrafice most of the $5M now (and risk of injury) for the payday next year.
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3 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:
Currently the Bills aren't paying either. They are paying the offensive line.
Is an in season trade possible? Maybe. I just don't see a world where the Bills are in sell mode. If they want to add a receiver they will trade picks like last year IMO.
Where I think it is mostly likely to come into play is if J Cook is on an undefined (possibly 11 week) "hold-in" and misses games. And if, during the initial weeks of the "hold-in" R Davis and T Johnson perform admirably, Cooks days could be numbered.
I could see this type of "hold-in" being interpreted as a nuclear, Diggs dimensional diss to our FO and team, where they will not have him suit up as a Bill ever again.
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7 hours ago, GunnerBill said:
I don't know what he is drinking but it has sent him loopy if he thinks anyone other than James Cook is the Bills best back.
There were definitely rumours that the Bills allowed his agent to explore trade options in the spring pre-draft. If there was a deal that made sense for us, another team and Cook it would have happened in that window. It didn't, and I don't think as such there is a trade that makes sense at this point. So he will play.
What about an in-season trade? I would like to get back to where the Bills pay the WR1 and not the RB1.
Trade J Cook for a good WR. Trying to think of possibilities, maybe J Cook for C Olave (Olave shows he's back from injury and after Kamara gets injured) or Cook for G Pickens. Or J Cook for DJ Moore if/when Chicago fails to meet the new lofty expectations. Something like that.
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30 minutes ago, mannc said:
In rugby, when the ball is near the goal line, the team in possession often forms a scrum and simply tries to push the ball over the line by shoving the other team backwards, just like the tush push. As you may recall, until fairly recently, it was a penalty for another offensive player to "aid the runner" by pushing him forward. No idea why or when that ancient rule was changed. And no, a simple pitch play isn't really a rugby play (perhaps more of a Rugby League play), although it certainly happens in Rugby Union, too.
I agree, they had (have?) rules against pulling, rules against pushing seem quite similar.
Also they don't allow the defense credit when they push the runner back - the forward progress thing.
They should not allow forward progress for the offense from someone pushing.
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15 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:
What?
1. We don’t have plays that are hard to officiate? Since when? EVERY QB sneak is hard to spot.
2. Boring? Really? I guess we can’t allow the kneel down.
3. QB is at risk? Then don’t run the play!!!! It’s a choice.
4. Unfair to defense? Right! We can’t have a play that’s hard to defend. Huh?
5. Your final comment is NOT an argument against the tush push. But, as long as you went there, why not allow a player to be thrown over the line. Again, isn’t it the offense’s choice?
Responses:
1. Just because you have some hard to officiate plays does not mean you should have more. Less hard to officiate plays the better. It's a scrum and the officials (and fans at first) have no clue how far the ball went. The real injustice showed in the KC/Bills game where even upon their limited review they still got it wrong.
2. Once again, just because you have some boring plays does not mean you need more. They have a chance to get rid of an ugly boring play - they should do it.
3. Yes, obviously there is a chance the QB gets hurt. Of course you have the option of not running the odds on most successful playt, but that is hard for a coach to opt for. Kind of like when the Bills didn't want to run Josh, the Dorsey offense took a hit for it. Can you imagine the heat McD would have received had he chose to hand the ball off on that 4tth and inches and not gotten it?
4. The unfairness to the defense was exposed in the WA game, where they had a defense of sending a person over the top at the snap of the ball. They mis-timed it a few times and were told that the next time the offense would be awarded a TD - that was ridiculous.
5. Allowing a person to be thrown over a pile would be a terrible move for the sport of football, kind of like the tush-push is now. It was an example of the sport needing to put a rule in for something they did not foresee.
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30 minutes ago, Paup 1995MVP said:
Jeudy had Jameis Winston throwing to him. He will let it rip all day long. Yes he will throw some picks, but he gets his receivers lots of yards. Jeudy had a huge game against the Broncos last year on MNF w Jameis throwing him the ball.
I for one have no idea why Jameis doesn’t get more love around the NFL. He signs w the Giants and then they sign Wilson and draft Dart. And look at the crap the Saints are throwing out there this year at QB. Winston is a leader and loves the game of football. He is the black Fitzie and a poor man’s Favre. I would love him to be our backup over Trubisky.
The game is so controlled by coaches today. A guy like Winston who just goes out and throws it all over the yard is not what most coaching staffs want. (Including I would imagine the Bills) The guy is just a breath of fresh air.
A couple of comments from me - one, Winston is not a leader. He comes off as kind of stupid, the whole eat a "W" thing was bizarre. And lately he has had this religious thing going on.
Secondly, IMO, the Bills would not want Winston as the backup. The Bills do not have a good WR core and IMO that is what Winston needs. The Tampa Winston teams had Evans and Godwin and Winston still threw a boatload of INTs.
But I do think Winston is better than what a lot of other teams have at QB, and plays a more exciting brand of ball.
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1 hour ago, BullBuchanan said:
Didn't Coleman already outperform Hollins last year?
Well, I mean Coleman will need to pick up the stats left behind with the departure of Hollins in addition to what Coleman did last year.
Hollins had a lot of snaps and did a good job blocking - the hope is Coleman can help take over and fill that void while improving on the receiving duties.
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4 hours ago, SoCal Deek said:
What’s the problem with this play? I see nothing wrong with it.
There are a ton of problems:
1. Extremely hard to officiate/mark the ball. See Bills KC. Officials just generally mark first down for most except unlucky few.
2. Boring, ugly play. Looks like a scrum in rugby
3. Puts QB at risk. Tons of things could happen. And officials take blind eye to some (see Josh having people take a swing at him)
4. Unfair to Defenses. When the defense like in the one game was sending players over the top, the officials actually said one more and they would award a TD - ridiculous.
5. What's next, instead of pushing forward the player they shoot a smaller player skyward - throw him over the pile for a first down?
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11 hours ago, Doc Brown said:
Palmer's biggest knock on him coming out of college was his limited production. That continued in the NFL before Roman got there. Plus, McKonkey seemed fine in Roman's offense. I think Palmer is who he is at this point. I'd be happy if he's a slight upgrade over Hollins who should be able to get open against man better than Mack could.
I think we need Palmer to do better than what Cooper did- possible since Cooper underperformed expectations IMO.
The Hollins upgrade needs to come from K Coleman. That is a large, but doable, jump.
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I seem to be in the minority with not liking the Hollins schtick. Didn't bother me to see that gimmick go out the door. Although I did think they would be bringing in someone better, so that kind of disappointed me - I consider Palmer the A Cooper replacement.
As to the OP, I liked the TO thing at the time. I didn't like see Pete Metzelaars leave - but I guess he was a multi-year player.
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7 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:
If Tampa is like Buffalo, tickets will be going for $6 days before kickoff.
Tampa's fanbase is much worse so tickets should be even cheaper. I'm definitely holding out.
Becomes a question of whether starters will play at all or not. Used to be last preseason none played, but now with just 3 games the routine may be different. It is two weeks before the season.
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Looks like there is a preseason Bills at Tampa game on Saturday 8/23/25 at 7:30.
Ticketmaster has tickets priced $100+. I'm obviously not falling for that, but how much do you reasonably expect to pay for something like this?
Would this be preseason game #2 or #3? Any chance of any starters?
The 7:30 start time seems a little tricky, leaving around 10 after tailgating for hours but such is life - otherwise there would be some serious heat to deal with. Good opportunity to practice some day drinking/tailgating prior to Miami for us older Floridian fans.
I'm thinking about doing this, any suggestions and tips?
Thanks.
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1 hour ago, BillsFanForever19 said:
Performance to date isn't the only thing that matters when it comes to contract. Often times, it's not even the most important thing. Age, injury history, and envisioned increased role from signing team from original team (ie there will be teams that view Cook as a 3 Down Back) play into money just as much and more all things considered. If Henry were Cook's age and had Cook's clean bill of health, he'd be surpassing Barkley's price of 21m per.
I've said it once, i'll say it a million times. it's fair to say you personally wouldn't pay a RB what Cook is going to get in the open market. But it's ridiculous for people to simply point at one thing or another in a vacuum to argue he's worth less. If many of you get your wish and he ends up signing elsewhere, it's not going to be anywhere near what some of you argue his market value is.
What we're concerned with is what the Bills should be paying him. If the Bills plan to continue to use him as a 50% snap RB, which is what it looks like with the current stable of RBs being the same as last year, then the Bills would want to pay him for that role.
It's not many of us wish that he signs elsewhere, it may be a lot of posters wish that Cook would embrace the role he has.
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1 hour ago, Ethan in Cleveland said:
If Elway took Allen instead of a LB, Beane and McDermott would have been gone a long long time ago. The entire history of the NFL would have been rewritten with Mahomes and Allen in the same division.
Beane can use whatever revisionist history he wants, but at the end of the day he needed Cleveland, Jets, and Broncos to make fatal errors.
Still wonder if it was Buffalo that leaked the text messages the day before the draft. Has anyone ever learned where that story came from?
This is a made up myth that keeps being repeated. How do you know how the Bills wouldn't have taken Lamar? We do know the Bills weren't satisfied with what they had at QB even after making the playoffs.
If you put Lamar and D Henry on the current Bills they would still be favorites to win the AFCE.
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17 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
CAP FIGURES ARE ALL THAT MATTER
No one cares about how much is actually hitting the player's bank account and when. ALL that matters is how it affects the team's cap space and ability to sign other players. Right?
Or is this that personal for you? Why would you care about anything else but cap numbers? I thought that's the whole point of not paying him too much was because we need to be able to spend elsewhere?
Make it make sense
Cap figures are not all that Matter! The substance of the transaction matters!!
Eventually the substance must be accounted for. You can manipulate individual years but eventually the cap needs to be considered. Baltimore clearly manipulated the 2024 cap figure for D Henry because they were probably tight to the cap. They gave Henry the $7,790,000 signing bonus but manipulated the cap figure to only be $5M. The difference must be accounted for in the future.
The substance of the transaction, the $16M matters, because Balt is going to have to account for it in the future. This is like you saying "oh, they're paying D Henry a lot because the cap figure is $13M this year". No, they are making up some of what they hadn't claimed the year before. The amount to D Henry had always been paying him $16M for 2 years.
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16 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
Just because you have beef with Cook does not make this true.
Every year the cap goes up. Every year contracts go up. Numbers go up. That is a fact. It's why there were a number of "lesser" QBs making more than Josh over the past few years.
Barkley reset the RB market with a $20M+ contract. Whether you believe he is close to Barkley or not does not matter. No one is saying he should be paid as much as Barkley. BUT, if Cook does have another year like last year, then he will be known as an integral part of the best Offense in football. If he hits the market, other teams will not care whether he is a 2-down back. With 2 seasons in a row like that, he will absolutely get $15-17M on the open market next offseason.
His tag number will be $13-14M, and if that's the case, Beane will tag him. Heck, he might tag him anyways since it's essentially a 5th year option.
Two seasons in a row like what? An exciting 1,000 rushing, +300 yds receiving, who plays 50% of the snaps? Someone is going to give $15-17M for that? When was the last time that happened?
Cook may mean more to the Bills than some other teams because of the lack of other explosive weapons. So Beane might be tempted to overpay and tag Cook - but I'm not sure, remember Beane let D Henry go to Balt for under $10M. And the more Cook slides into Diggs type territory the less likely it becomes.
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4 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
It was a prove it year.
He signed a 2/$16M contract. The first year his cap hit was only $5M. It was a $5M prove it year, because this year not only does his number go up to $13M, but they could cut him for less than $5M in dead cap, and save $8M if he was washed.
I bolded the part of what you pasted that shows what I am saying.
You are bolding the cap figures. We've been trying to tell you those are extremely manipulative.
D Henry had a $7,790,000 signing bonus for 2024, with $9M guaranteed. D Henry received more money than what Balt used for a cap hit - those are the games you can play with the cap. This year D Henry will get the remaining portion of the $16M (don't get confused by what they do with the cap).
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5 hours ago, DrDawkinstein said:
Not only that, but it was never "$8M/yr".
The first year was a prove-it year where he only made a few mil because he was already over 30 years old. This year he is set to make $13M (as a 31 yr old RB), and Baltimore is now collectively the highest spending team at the RB position.
So good teams do spend on RBs. And contracts in the teens are not out of norm.
Dang, you guys are DEVIOUS!
The best leverage he has is to show up and put up a season just like last year's.
If he does, I fully believe Beane will get to his number. The only problem is, if he does put up another good season, his number probably goes up to closer to $17M next year. The tag is definitely in play at that point.
Yes, it was $8M/yr for D Henry. Cap numbers can be manipulated. The first year was not a "prove-it" year.
From Spotrac:
Derrick Henry signed a 2 year, $16,000,000 contract with the Baltimore Ravens, including $7,790,000 signing bonus, $9,000,000 guaranteed, and an average annual salary of $8,000,000. In 2025, Henry will earn a base salary of $6,000,000 and a roster bonus of $1,000,000, while carrying a cap hit of $12,895,000 and a dead cap value of $4,895,000.
Cook does not want to be paid for what he has done, he wants market price for what he thinks he could do. Cook has 2 season with about 1,000 yds rushing and 300 receiving. This is C Hubbard/D Swift/D Henry $8.5M/yr territory. Putting up a season like he did last year does not get Cook to $17m, let alone making it worth tagging him. $17M? What are you thinking?
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8 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
We'll see. Beane knows what Cook is after and has already mentioned a few times that they can still get a deal done during the season/before next offseason.
I have some previous posts where I stated being against using the Tag because it usually makes the relationship even worse.
However, in the meantime, someone somewhere made a good point that changed my perspective a bit and especially in this case.
That point being, for a talent like Cook who ended up being a 2nd rounder, the tag can be used to essentially recreate the "5th year option" we would have got by picking him in the 1st.
If it can be leveraged that way, and as long as it doesnt completely burn the bridge, then I'm on board tagging him in a worst case scenario.
Of course, the funniest part there is the RB tag number will be around $14M+, so we might as well just get him on a real deal.
I do want to backstep a bit and reiterate that I think Cook is an exciting RB. He has really come on and IMO is close to top 5. While everyone seems to dread the Lamar/D Henry combo I thought there was a little disrespect to the Josh/Cook dynamic - it's that much of a factor.
I would prefer an extension, and for more years than several on this thread (just not at $15M/yr). I think the 200ish carries will preserve Cook and he has several good years left.
Unfortunately I guess I don't like seeing the negotiations playing out in front of me. It makes me fear things have gone South.
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2 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
Says you building your team.
I think you will see that this is also the opinion of Beane.
But at least the odds are we get Cook this year - and if Cook hasn't peaked- maybe franchise tag him the year after.
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19 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:
I've mentioned it numerous times in this thread and others.
That is strictly on the coaches making yet another bad decision in KC. Why wasnt Cook on the field? You think he held himself out? Cook was their best personnel. He had the best game out of anyone on Offense. Him not being out there was a clear mistake made by coaches.
He should have been out there in crunch time. Take it up with McD. Or better yet, pay him so it forces McD out of making these same dumb mistakes.
Spotrac market value is like Zillow market value for homes, and they clearly state they have a +/- of 30% (which is a huge swing!).
McD thought different personnel were better suited to play on the critical drive at crunch time than Cook. That does not reflect well on Cook. You call it a clear mistake that Cook wasn't out there but yet you don't know why.
I don't know why McD did not have Cook out there, but I'm extremely confident McD wanted to win. And McD thought his best way to win at that time was with different players than Cook out there.
While Spotrac is just one service giving their evaluation at $10.2M, it should help some understand why many think the $15M claim was ridiculous.
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2 hours ago, H2o said:
Cook is a good RB. He is way better than D'Andre Swift. Trying to compare the two just doesn't make sense, to me at least. Their body types are different. Their style of play is different. Swift is like a little bowling ball at 5'9" and 215lbs. James Cook is 5'11" and, at best, 195lbs. Cook is lightening quick and has a burst that Swift does not. I would compare Swift more to someone like David Montgomery, and Swift is not even on his level. Yes they are different players, but Cook is a legitimate homerun threat at the RB position where Swift is not.
I know I have my opinions about how he and his camp have handled situation entirely from the jump, and I still think his brother is a complete idiot, but our current team would be weaker without him. It would put more strain on Josh to carry the load if Cook were not here, more so than he already does, and that is not what we want or need at this stage in Josh's career. The hits do start to add up and take their toll. Cook is someone that other teams do have to gameplan for because he is that homerun threat. With the position not being addressed in the draft, and a trade not being made at the same time, I think that pretty much settles he will be here this year. And he better be ready to ball out if he wants to get that big contract he's looking for.
I think the D Swift comparisons are more about the stats - the worth of a somewhat young player who has 200 carries, 1,000ish yds + approx 40 receptions for 300 yds with a good OL in front of them. Swift got 3yrs $24M with $15M guaranteed.
Spotrac has J Cook's market value listed at $10.2M/yr (4yrs $40.8M).
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1 hour ago, DrDawkinstein said:
This entire 2-down/3-down back argument is the fanbase grasping at straws to try to devalue him after being offended by some innocuous posts on social media
Doesnt make any sense for anyone who has watched him play, saw his performance last year, and still wants to comment on what he brings.
Like I pointed out up-thread, he was still the most productive/used player outside of Josh. No one else comes close to his number of touches. Regardless of what downs they came on.
How about we just look at the market price of a 200 carry 1,000 yd-ish back - (+ 50 rec for 300 yds) because that is what he has been, and that is the role the Bills have in mind for him. And that is not a $15M role.
The useless bit of information about Cook's relative usage on our team is irrelevant. Without Cook someone else would be the second most productive player. And if that player got 200 carries and around 1,000 yards they too would not get $15M, no matter how exciting they look doing it.
While you can downplay the 2 v 3 downs, you don't mention Cook not being out there during the crunch drive vs KC. Lets not pretend the coaches didn't want their best personnel out there - and Cook was not on the field. A $15M player should be out there in crunch time.
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6 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:
You say it is ridiculous amount. I don't. I say it's the top end of his market, sure. But ridiculous? Not for me. I don't think any of the other guys that renewed this offseason did. But Diggs and Poyer got new deals after playing the social media game in previous seasons.
To me it's a ridiculous amount, and I think to most fans it looks unreasonable - at the time it was $3M more than Barkley. And it's beyond the top end of the 2 down RB market. It signifies Cook wants to be paid at the top tier of the 3 down workhorse RB market - which he is not currently in (thus the Shakir example).
I still can't figure out why Cook's team put that out there - what good did they think could come from it. As for social media games, the Diggs thing turned the Bills fanbase against him. And Poyer's wasn't much better, seemingly orchestrated by his wife.
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Is Cook worth it?
in The Stadium Wall
Posted
Except in Cook's situation he may not be able to improve his stats, so why bother?
His FA market right now is higher than what the Bills intend to pay.