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It will be really challenging for Beane to fill the roster for this season, particularly on defense, with the limited cap space that will be available to sign free agents. At DE and DT, the Bills have the following free agents: Epenesa, Floyd, Ford, Jones, Lawson, Phillips, Settle and Joseph. One would think that between the draft and free agency, the Bills will need to fill at least six spots on the D-lline. At safety, the Bills will need to replace Hyde and Rapp, and at LB, Dodson and Matakevich. As a result, I expect the draft for the Bills to be heavily focused on defense, but we will need to sign a significant number of free agents as well to fill all of the holes. I think this means that the Bills will need to open more cap space than maybe some are projecting at this point. It appears that the defensive roster will undergo a significant re-making this offseason.

Given our cap situation, I do think, as others have suggested, that we are going to need to do a basic restructure of the Diggs contract for the cap savings it will represent (approximately $13 million).

1. Elam is traded in the offseason for a fourth round pick in the draft. 2. Bills select a defensive lineman with their first round pick. 3. Bills lose Epenesa, Jones and Floyd in free agency because of salary cap constraints.

Would feel it to be more of a possibility if we had cap space to add some free agents and re-sign some of our own free agents. Without that flexibility, I don't really see how the overall team roster will be better next season or have the depth that we have had over the last couple of years.

I know there are other ways to get there with releases and extensions, but I am wondering if Beane will need to do the simple restructure of Diggs' contract to get under the cap this offseason and have limited space to sign and re-sign free agents. $13 million in cap savings for a restructure (according to Over the Cap) is significant when the team is $50 million plus over the cap and the only other easy restructure is Allen.

I also thought his responses were better today, certainly better than I expected. I have a feeling this may be his way of sending a message to Beane that he will not accept a pay cut to play for the Bills next season.

Don't usually see such a negative response to the hiring of a position coach for the Bills. Would have thought based on his resume that he would have been more likely to be the assistant DB coach. Surprised there was not better candidates available, at least in terms of NFL experience and reputation. I guess we will see.

Who knows what Diggs is communicating to his agent and the Bills front office about his future with the Bills, but he is putting the Bills in a bind because I doubt the Bills will want to do a simple contract restructuring providing cap savings for the current year under current circumstances. If there is a break-up between the Bills and Diggs, it seems the only real option would be a post-June 1st release designation, which would provide significant cap savings for the Bills. Not sure a trade would work unless it happened after June 1st.

I assume we now need new d-line, LB and QB coaches. Wonder if one of both of the guys we interviewed for DC (Desai and Caldwell) fill the available defensive assistant coach positions.

Maybe I missed this, but interesting that we have not been hearing about any requests to interview Brady for open OC positions. Does this potentially mean that he is turning down requests or, less likely in my view, that he is not getting any traction?

What else can Beane say about Diggs other than what he said? He knows that Diggs is mercurial and can't be traded or cut in the near-term, so how would it help to say that he is not a #1 WR?

I like McDermott and Beane (I like Beane more than McDermott), but, assuming McDermott and Beane are back, I will have no hopes of next year somehow yielding a different result than the past four seasons. I don't know if it is coaching, the players, injuries, a combination of all of these things or something else. It does not matter, because I have no confidence that next year will be any different.

The Bills have a lot of free agents and we will not be able to sign all of them (or even most of them). Adding in players that will need to be cut for salary cap reasons, and the Bills definitely will have a younger roster next year.

KC had their best game in two months because they were playing the Bills defense, which they never seem to have difficulties with in the playoffs when it matters. Yes, our defense was depleted because of injuries, but would it have mattered if it was not? I am not sure given our past experiences plus our d-line was relatively healthy in this match-up and was held without a sack and could not stop KC's rushing attack.

The defense was disappointing overall. KC's offense was significantly weaker this season compared to previous seasons, but they probably had their best game against our defense, which is a poor reflection on our defense. I get it that we had injuries, but our inability to stop KC's rushing attack was surprising. Our d-line had a bad game, which is particularly frustrating given the resources that have been devoted to that group in terms of draft picks and free agents.

Understanding that we would lose home field advantage which can be significant, I would be fine if the game was moved to a domed stadium at a neutral site because it would strongly favor our offense over their defense, particularly with Watt out, and possibly reduce the effectiveness of their rushing attack compared to a cold weather game.

Daboll has a bunch of open spots on his staff, including defensive coordinator, but who would want to join his staff given these reports, recent history of coaches being fired or resigning, and poor performance of the team this year, which could mean he may not make it through his third year as coach of the Giants.

Amazing that someone else went after the guy who caught on fire.

Sharkir quietly has been very clutch this season, making big catches at critical points in time for the Bills. He has developed nicely from his rookie season.

I would have thought Joseph would be active today since I expect the Pats to try to run the ball a lot today and Jones is returning from an injury and may not be back at full-strength yet.

Will the game be on the YouTube NFL Ticket, or do I need to get Peacock to watch the game?

Not ignoring the seriousness of the situation, but this seems to be putting the Bills in a very difficult spot. I assume the Bills will want the League office to lead any efforts to suspend Von for alleged violations of personal conduct policies. Further complicating this situation are the potential cap ramifications if the Bills will want to release Von and how the players are reacting to all of this (and how they would react if Von was released). I do wonder if team players would expect the Bills to be supportive of Von throughout this situation (given his girlfriend's recent statements) or not, or maybe a mix among the views of players. Just seems to be a very messy and complicated situation.

They are good enough to go 5-0, but even a very good team would have difficulty accomplishing this given the quality of opponents (including KC, Dallas and Miami) and all of the other things that are not within their control, such as officiating, weather and further injuries.

Bills never make it easy, that is for sure.

Refs are killing us today