Beck Water

Again, Dude, Please Stop. You've been beating this drum over and over and over again in the Diggs thread, where it's at least topical. Now you're gonna run around the board taking this into other threads? It's an extra $22 million (minus whatever part of the $18.5M fully guaranteed salary the trade partner is willing to accept) at this point PLUS Creating a significant hole on the team by trading the best WR on the team, and the only 1000+ yd, 100 reception+ receiver we've had for the last 4 seasons. This isn't like trading Tyreek Hill where Kelce is Pat Mahomes "guy" anyway. Most people last season felt what the Bills needed was a second receiving target who is on the same or better talent level than Diggs, so "draft a WR who we hope will be good and develop to be a #1" not "replace Diggs with an unproven draft pick and cross your little fingers"

The Browns owe Cooper $20M in salary and if he's traded, that $20M goes with him. You can tell because that's the "Yearly Cash" bucket. The Browns would save all $20M in salary by trading Cooper, it would all go to their trade partner. Void years are a cap tool that divides a signing, restructure, or option bonus into more and smaller pieces. But the bonuses are money already paid, so when the player is traded, they stay with the trading team, not the trade partner. The Dead Cap of $11.328M the Browns would take on if they traded Cooper would be from his $3.776M restructure bonus for 2024, and the 2 void years, accelerating into this season. 3 x $3.776 = $11.328

Since you already "took one for the team" and listened, can you give us a summary of why Boomer Esiason believes this? I don't follow the Jets enough to know who are their key defenders and offensive players, thus who have they lost vs signed? I know they had something like 21 FA and have re-signed like 3 of them while signing 7 FA from other teams, but I don't know whether they're all backups/bit players or what the scoop is, other than signing Tyrod Taylor and Mike Williams and backup DT and former Bill Quinton Jefferson signing in CLE.

Just curious: What do you believe it would take to trade up from #28 to #4 in the first round? IIRC, in 2018, pre-draft, the Bills owned their own #1 pick (#22) and KC's #1 pick in the 1st round. They also had 2 2nd round picks (their own, and LA Rams) Pre draft, the Bills traded Cordy Glenn to Cinncinnati to move up from #21 to #12. So starting LT for 9 spots. During the draft, they traded pick #12 AND both 2nd round picks to move up from #12 to #7 (Bills got back a late 7th) from Tampa. So 2 2nd round picks to move up 5 spots. So to go from #21 to #7 cost a former pro-bowl LT still playing at a high level, and 2 2nd round picks. Now you want them to go from #28 to #4, so what would that take?

I believe it was posted Samuel played 70%-ish from the slot during his career best year to date, with Joe Brady as his OC in CAR

Irrespective of any questions of happiness/unhappiness, I agree that Diggs looks to be at the point where his performance is starting to wane. Which means his ROI for pay vs performance is on its the way to dropping below his cost. But because of the way his contract is structured, I don't see it as possible to move him this season. And if the "chatter" you reference is correct that he's a frustrated unhappy camper playing on a team that's been 13-3, 11-6, 13-3, 11-6 during his tenure and with one of the best QB in the game throwing to him, I would think it would disincline trade partners to line up and bid for him. After all, this would be the second winning team on which he was frustrated and unhappy; the Vikes were 11-5, 13-3, 10-6 3 of his 5 years there, during which he had a top-10 passing QB throwing to him and went to a conf. championship. If you're unhappy in one location on a successful team: maybe it's them, maybe it's you. If you're unhappy in a second location on a second successful team: well, there's one element in common.

I can't read it (must be something on the page my browser doesn't like) I like what I found on Wiki better Washington Football Team / Commanders[edit] On October 14, 2020, Toohill was claimed off waivers by the Washington Football Team.[6] In Week 6 of the 2021 season, Toohill recorded his first career sack on Kansas City Chiefs' quarterback, Patrick Mahomes.[7] He had his first career start in Week 11 against the Carolina Panthers in place of Chase Young, who was placed on the team's injured reserve. On December 11, 2021, he was placed on COVID-19 reserve list; Toohill was forced to sit out the Week 14 game against the Dallas Cowboys, but reactivated a week later.[8] In Week 10 of the 2022 season, Toohill scored his first career touchdown in a victory over the then-undefeated Eagles; he recovered the ball in a failed lateral pass from Eagles' receiver DeVonta Smith and returned it 1 yard to the end zone in the final play of the game.[9] In the 2023 season, Toohill was elevated in the defense's starting lineup before Week 9; following Week 8, the Commanders had traded both of their original starting defensive ends, Chase Young and Montez Sweat.[10] 6'5", 250 lb, 4.62 s 40-time. 39" vertical. Started 8 games last season, had 5 sacks 7 QB hits, a PD, and 26 tackles (17 solo), in 45% of the defensive snaps. NFL Draft Profile: Assuming he signed for cheap, sounds like a guy who could have some potential to develop, at least as depth. What I like about this, is per his draft scouting report coming out, he showed some promise as a pass rusher but was weak against the run. Seems to me there is some good run defense in there.

When you say "too much smoke for it to be nothing", are you talking about trade rumors? Or are you talking about rumors that all is not joy and sunshine in Dealing with Diggs at One Bills Drive?

It has happened that a QB caught his own pass, but it's very very rare - and usually doesn't go for much gain.

Well, I'm kind of glad that a draft pundit is predicting it....other than QB (which was, Durr....) when have the draftniks been correct in their predictions.?

On the one hand....if a team is legitimately putting out feelers to shop a player, I imagine it's hard to keep a lid on it and it sounds like you have a good source. On the other hand....Beane and the Bills are apparently notoriously close-mouthed and close-to-the-vest about trades, and Beane has said a lot of times when they are linked as being interested in a trade, it may have come to a couple "due diligence" type "hey would you be interested in...." "hey is this player available?..." type phone calls.

And I "get" the arguments for your perspective. It can be argued that yards/reception have a lot to do with how he was being used, especially the 2nd half of the season. But in addition to yards per game, I pointed out upthread some other metrics where he doesn't rank in the top 10 - drop%, YAC, etc. Time Will Tell. The point is that Diggs thinks he's a top-10 WR and his agents can make objective arguments to back that up, and find exculpatory reasons for the not so good metrics. So I don't think we'll be seeing Diggs re-negotiating his contract any time soon to facilitate a trade OR improve the Bills cap space situation.

That's the fundamental question, Bill: what are we all missing? I think it's pretty common for top WR to be Diva-like and for uber-competitive players to not be best-behaved on the sideline during key games (Kelce bumping into Reid etc etc). So if all there is, is what we saw in public, Eh. On the other hand, if it's the tip of an iceberg and there's more and worse where that came from.... Teammates genuinely seem to speak well of Diggs. There are people on this board who have some connections and have evidently heard some stuff, which means there are enough former Bills players and assistant coaches roaming around the league right now that if there are stories to tell, they're probably out there. I think we just don't know.

You left out this quote from the article you linked: "Ultimately, the Bills are a Super Bowl contender, and there is almost no realistic scenario where they trade or release Diggs since they would be quarterback Josh Allen's No. 1 target and taking significant dead money in the process." Regarding the article's comment about the Bills $7.4M cap space, that doesn't include Taron Johnson's recently announced contract extension, or Tre' White's contract coming off the books after June 1, giving an additional ~$10M. Diggs has thrown down on social media that he considers himself a top-5 WR since coming to Buffalo and it's pretty doubtful he would want to re-negotiate his contract. That's the difference between Knox and Von Miller vs. Diggs: Both Knox and Miller had an objective fall-off in their performance that made them poor value for their contracts. Objectively Von Miller wasn't close to the best DE on the team, and by several metrics Knox wasn't close to the best TE (for blocking, yes). Objectively, Diggs WAS the best receiver on the Bills and arguably top 10 in the league.

Theoretically, any player is available for "the right price". The question is whether "the right price" for the seller, and "the right price" for the buyer, have any realistic overlap. At this point, the potential trade partner needs to be willing to give up something of great enough value to compensate the Bills for losing the talents of a legit top-10 WR in the league (even last season by most metrics - targets, receptions, TD, 1D) - who is clearly still the best WR on the team and it isn't close. And they need to be willing to take on $19M of financial obligation this year including $18.5M of guaranteed salary. $19M per year slots Diggs in as #17 or 18 for active WR contracts which sounds like good value, but consider that roughly half of the top-20 WR are actually on their first contracts so are actually better value. And then set the fact that Diggs age of 31 next season and there are significant metrics where he wasn't top-10: yards (13 for a WR), YAC (something like 51 for WR), drop% (something like 27th for WR). Then there are the rumors about Diggs being a bit of a headache - the stuff we see in the public like not showing up for OTAs and a meeting that led McDermott to say he was "very concerned"; arms raised yelling at Josh on the sideline during the Bengals playoff game; dipping out of the locker room and away from the press after two successive playoff losses; and any inside rumors there might be of stunts he's pulled behind the scenes or behavior in the locker room that's not the best. If nothing else, a trade partner has to ask "if the Bills are willing to incur a cap hit and trade the best WR on the team, Why?"

Of course they do. But they also likely "are what they are". My experience from this and other venues: 80% of people are nice, reasonable, well-doing people. Another 15% can get easily upset, but will calm down and will then listen to other points of view. There's about 3% that are reactive and pugnacious and need to bang their head into a wall some, to decide maybe the wall won't relocate for the benefit of their skull. Then there's the remaining 2% who are just not able or willing to interact with any POV but their own. They "are what they are". Caveat: I am regularly shocked by some of the well-sourced info @SDS used to bring up (maybe still does) in the Shoutbox about how many Americans believe Q or other conspiracy theories, so maybe my past experience is Out Of Date and it should be remembered that 95% of statistics are made up.

Not following this. "Blackmon is 25, which makes him about Poyer's age"....Poyer is 32, almost 33. Did you mean Poyer's age when he came to Buffalo, 26? I think Blackmon would be a very good add.

That 1 time salary guarantee has no relevance here. It's a 1 time clause that if a veteran player is on a team the 1st day of the regular season, his salary for that season is guaranteed. Teams aren't and don't start paying salaries until they start playing regular season games. None of Tre's 2024 salary was guaranteed. Yes, 2 players per season can be cut now (thus we don't owe them roster or workout bonus, and any new guarantees void). The released player can sign with a new team at any time, but the team that has cut him keeps his salary on the books counting against the cap, until after June 1, then they take this year's amortized bonus money onto this year's (2024) cap, and next year's and all subsequent years bonus money onto next year's cap. Post-June 1 cuts also don't count in the comp pick calculation formula. It's one of the wrinkles that makes NFL capology head spinning when fans start down that road.

Agree, we had to make a hard choice to keep either Rasul Douglas or Tre White. Rasul was healthy and cost way less, and Tre had large uncertainties around if he'd come back to himself and when.

Seems like a wise and erudite take(tm) Like Josh Allen going from 110 degrees in Fresno to Laramie, Wyoming? As he said "I guess I'm going to have to get used to it". It gets cold in Oklahoma and Colorado and even Kansas and Baltimore during football season It stays warm in Detroit inside that dome. You either have the mindset that "I'm going to get used to it, Football is Football" or you don't.

If you hover over the link, it's a Fox News story. Always hover before you click.

Then he'll be an idiot. Twitter (now X) - all social media these days - is pretty much a sewer. You can meet the dregs of humanity on there. If I choose to go walk in a sewer and throw leftover steak around to lure out the rats, when I could instead take a stroll through the beautiful park that is life off social media and look at the beautiful flowering trees and bulbs, watch little bunnies nibbling and see squirrels and deer and look for owls perched in trees, I'd be an idiot. I'd be even more of an idiot if I conclude, based on my sewer walk choice, that all animals are rats (or that all Bills fans are horrible). And I could go further than that. In the sewer of X, if Diggs chose to post positive content like he did when he first came to Buffalo and posted videos of himself doing incredible sprint workouts where he got up to peak speeds of 21 or 22 mph, or doing catching drills hauling in off-target balls while standing on 1 foot on a balance ball, he'd draw out the well-dressed and best behaved 'rats' to say nice things to him. But he doesn't, so the well-dressed and best behaved X'er fans have no reason to look at his content and interact, they're frustrated by the obscure "ready for watever" breadcrumbs he tosses down and they leave him alone.

You don't necessarily have to be that rural to have feral dogs, and they don't necessarily make the news. (Sometimes they aren't truly feral, they're pets that irresponsible bahstahd owners let loose at night to have a run, and they join up in packs before innocently heading home) We have a city park I used to run in after work with some colleagues. We were minding our own business passing through a wooded portion of the trail and the pack came out of a culvert towards us. The guy I was running with yelled stomped his feet and they ran off into the woods while we beat feet into open ground (but kept a careful listen). Wished I'd had pepper spray. The park has deer, rabbits, ground hogs - all kinds of dog food. A bit later, the feral dogs in the park did make the news when they got into the zoo somehow and killed several African antelope. Poor antelope were penned up, didn't have a chance. After that the city Got Real about dog trapping. Don't know if they're still there. I do see dog-ish poo with hair in it sometimes and we occasionally smell Long Dead Critters while we're walking our pup.

I'll give it a go to explain. Please excuse me if I describe stuff you know, but nothing will make sense unless the basics are known. NFL contracts are divided into roughly two bins: bonus money, and yearly cash. Yearly cash is stuff like salary (paid per game), workout bonuses, and roster bonuses. Salary may or may not be guaranteed. Bonus money includes signing bonus paid when the contract is signed, but also option bonuses which can be written into the contract to pay later and restructure bonuses which are when the yearly salary is dropped to vet minimum and the rest is paid out as a restructure bonus. Here's the thing: the team can chop bonuses up into pieces corresponding to the length of the contract, and a piece assigned to each year of the contract (amortized) So the cap hit for a player on the roster consists of yearly cash, and the bonus money pieces assigned to that year. With me so far? For Diggs, that number is about $27.8M, of which ~$19M is his salary, roster and workout bonuses, and ~$8.8M is the chunk of his signing, option, and restructure bonuses assigned to 2024. Now here's the next part. When a player is cut or traded, the team doesn't owe his salary, workout, and roster bonuses any more (unless they are guaranteed). If he's traded, that money gets paid by the new team. BUT, all of the player's amortized signing, option and restructure bonuses for this year and subsequent contract years all get added together and lobbed onto this year's cap. For Diggs, that number would be $31M - about $ Now here's the catch: if a player is cut and designated "post June 1", OR if a player is traded after June 1, only the portion of his bonus money assigned to this year count against the cap this year. The rest is deferred to next year. So, we would get "cap relief" this year if Diggs were traded, by handing off his ~$19M salary workout and roster money to his new team, and only counting this year's bonuses of $8.8M against this years cap. BUT, the rest of the bonuses ($22.3M) would count against the 2025 salary cap. That's what people mean by "cap relief" if he's traded after June 1, AND the trade partner agrees to take on his salary and workout and roster bonuses. Of course, you have to find a trade partner who is willing to do that. That really ought to be what Allen says to Diggs whenever Diggs yells. Catch the damned ball, Stefon.

I believe Kurt Warner has Entered the Chat Here's a link to the Pittsburgh Beat Writer article quoted in that - trust the beat writer more than Florio https://sports.yahoo.com/steelers-beat-writer-shares-insight-200750586.html I guess if Tomlin "promised Pickett he'd get a chance to compete" then he learns about Wilson being signed and told Wilson is in "Pole Position" that could lead to unhappiness.