Einstein

You’re misreading that stat.

The odd thing about the defense is that they can play very well all game, but as soon as you need 1 critical stop, with the game on the line, they will fold. That's the most frustrating part, in my opinion. The injuries don't keep them from playing like a top 10 defense for 58 minutes. Just those last 2 minutes.

You are brave. Hope you have a great time.

Yep, that's exactly right. Cutting Poyer, Morse, Harty and HInes gets us to $-19,246,528. Restructuring Allen to $1M base brings us to -$245,528. Then with negative cap, you have to get a new starting SS and Center (or start a guy who is a backup on the current roster). Plus sign all your draft picks. Plus get free agents. I'm guessing they will extend several players (like Dawkins, Douglas, etc) to give them some cap relief next year. But that, again, creates some cap space this year, while deflating next year. Problems for the future Continuously restructuring Allen's contract creates issues going forward, because his contract is only 5 more years. He doesnt have a Mahomes 12 year contract to spread the restructured money out. Restructuring Allen this offseason will create the following cap hits going forward. 2025: Original: $56,556,281 + Additional $4,000,000 (prorated bonus) = New Cap Hit: $60,556,281 2026: Original: $52,256,281 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $56,256,281 2027: Original: $45,284,000 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $49,284,000 We are trading a $28M cap hit this year, for a $60M cap hit next year. The money never goes away - we just keep kicking it down the road and making his cap hit incredibly high later on. .

Are you aware of how restructuring works? It’s not magic free money. Restructuring Diggs and Oliver makes little sense to me. 1) Diggs only has 3 years left on his contract after next season. Restructuring makes those last 3 years nearly impossible. We could free up $14M in cap space this off-season but then Diggs cap would be well over $30 million after that. His cap hit would be $31M in 2025, $32M in 2026 and $26M in 2027. Then what? And he would be untradeable and impossible to cut (ever), since his dead cap would be more than $20M every single year going forward. I can almost guarantee the Bills don’t do this. 2) You said you want to restructure Oliver. Doing so would only save $1.6M. I guess we could do this, but it would be paltry. Allen is the only reasonable restructure from the players you mentioned. With this plan, we need at least 6 new starters. SS, FS, C, NCB, DT, DE. Realistically, Diggs and Milano dead cap is too high ($20+M each).

ahh, you're right. I completely forget about that one. Well, mods can of course merge. My mistake.

This is because OTC is using a wrong starting number ($29M) instead of the correct number ($42M). OTC's numbers are always shaky (Use Spotrac for official numbers). It's just math. Try again here: https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/2024/ For those who don't know, OTC is just ran by a fan. It used to be a Jets cap website. Spotrac is a partner of USA Today.

That's an interesting point.

How do you restructure a player that has only 1 effective year left? That would move his 2025 cap hit (final year) to $36 million, OR you spread that across the void years and we will end up having to pay for Von Miller for 3 years after he is gone/retired. Either scenario is yuck. I'd be shocked if they did this. It just doesn't work this way. Your plan of restructuring everyone would end in the teams cap space imploding the next 2 years. Restructuring isn't free money. It just moves it prorated to the following years of the contract. .

You're right. This could be a very defensive draft again.

Right, but say we reduce his cap hit from $16M to $4M (void years, signing bonus, yada yada), we are still $30M over the cap. I guess what im trying to say is we need to make many more moves than that.

Allen has a base salary next year of $23M. Say we move $20M of that to a signing bonus, saving $16M next year. That reduces our -$42M to -$26M. Keep in mind that restructuring simply kicks the can down the road. For example, restructuring this last offseason made Allen's 2025 cap hit $56 million. This would put $20M more onto his cap hit for the final 3 years of his contract, making his cap numbers: 2025: Original: $56,556,281 + Additional $4,000,000 (prorated bonus) = New Cap Hit: $60,556,281 2026: Original: $52,256,281 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $56,256,281 2027: Original: $45,284,000 + Additional $4,000,000 = New Cap Hit: $49,284,000 So that would make Allen's cap hit over the next 3 years, totals over $165.9 Million. Something to keep in mind (they cant keep doing this).

It looks like in your scenario, we keep Dawkins and Morse, and release Tre White, Taron Johnson, Jordan Poyer, Deonte Harty, and Nyheim Hines. That brings our cap space to negative $19M ($19,284,114). This likely brings the cap to negative ($23M) or so, assuming $1M in signing year. Draft picks will cost a little under $6M. We are now at negative ($29M). Calculate for yourself... https://www.spotrac.com/nfl/buffalo-bills/cap/2024/

My cap numbers are including the cap increase. But i don't want to clutter this thread anymore. Please move discussion here:

We were discussing this in the Von Miller thread, but thought maybe it wasn't wise to continue cluttering that thread with cap talk. We are currently $42 million over the cap for next season. That number assumes the NFL increases the salary cap increases, from the current cap of $224.8M to $243.9M (technically we are about $62 million over at the moment), plus rollover. Getting under the cap If we release Dion Dawkins, Tre White, Taron Johnson, Mitch Morse, Jordan Poyer, Deonte Harty, and Nyheim Hines, we can get down to almost $0 (-413,780) cap space. Obviously this doesn't include restructures yet. But we can't just endlessly keep kicking the can down the road. If we do NOT release one of those starters, you can add the following to our cap negative by this amount: Keeping Dawkins: Add $4.8M to cap negative. Keeping White: Add $6.2M to cap negative. Keeping Taron: Add $7.7M to cap negative. Keeping Morse: Add $8.5M to cap negative. Keeping Poyer: Add $5.5M to cap negative. Key players that will have to be re-signed or let walk Micah Hyde: Contract expires this offseason. Daquan Jones: Contract expires this offseason. Leonard Floyd: Contract expires this offseason. Summary We are $42M over the estimated 2024 cap, with Jones, Floyd and Hyde contract expiring. We will need a mixture of releasing starters, and re-structuring current deals, in order to get enough cap to draft players. We are likely going to have to restructure Allen, and then replace a lot of starters with very little money. .

Yes that calculation assumes the NFL salary cap goes up by almost $20M. The $42M under assumes we get a $20M increase in cap space. Technically we are $62M under at the moment.

Not saying we can't. I'm stating that it's tough to swallow the thought of spending even more draft capital to rebuild half the defense. It's what we have been doing for years now. Hyde's contract also expires this year. We also will lose Floyd, unless we sign him again. And their defense was bottom half of the NFL in points allowed. They won because of their offense. So draft 2 WR's and still draft 4 defensive starters? It's a lot to ask for is all i'm saying. A much better RT for one. Likely need a new LT at some point with Dawkins only having 1 year left on his contract (unless we are willing to spend huge money to re-sign Dawkins). A legitimate #2 (and drafted #2 WR's typically take a year or two to develop). If we release Dawkins, White, Johnson, Morse, Poyer, Harty, and Hines we can get down to almost $0 cap space. Then we will have to restructure a few players to get enough room just to sign the draft picks.

And here is the cap space with releasing the 4 starters you want: If we cut Dawkins, White, Johnson, Morse, Poyer, Harty, and Hines we can get down to almost $0 cap space. If you think McD is going to go from not letting Elam even sniff a backup position on gameday, to suddenly being CB3, I have oceanfront property in Kansas to sell you. Then we are back to spending more draft capital on defense, in a league that is dominated by the offense. You also assume rookie players will be ready to start and play well. Are you willing to have another non-playoff season?

Yeah, bad decisions is part of the organizational issues that were mentioned. We are currently $42M over the cap going into 2024. Cutting White saves us $6M. Cutting Morse saves us $8.5M. Cutting Harty saves us $3.9M. Cutting Poyer saves us $5.5M. Cutting Johnson saves us $7.7M. Cutting these players brings us down to $10M over the cap. We then have to replace those 4 starters too: Average starting CB: $6M ($5,388,889) Average starting S: $4M ($4,107,221) Average starting Center: $6.7M Average starting Nickel: $4.3M ($4,328,667) That's $21M in replacements for average players. There is no easy way out of this. This would be a terrible mistake IMO. The center is a pivotal part of the offensive line, both from calling out protections, to his relationship with the QB.

To be honest, many fans of other teams raised an eyebrow at that contract a the time. I tried to be positive about it, because we just got a stud pass rusher! But to be honest, they were always right. JJ Watt retired at the same age that we gave Von Miller a $114M contract.

No you don't. The players are gone on the bye week. They go on vacation. Kelce was in Buenos Aires on the Chiefs bye week, for example. Some players may choose to stay, but they dont have.

Not sure why you are being downvoted. This organization IS a mess right now. We have McD telling Diggs to go home from camp in the offseason, one of the worst cap situations in the league, one of the oldest rosters in the league, a secondary receiving option that is primarily a blocker, and out of 44 draft picks we have only garnered 1 great player. That's a mess. Oh and we have a top 3 NFL QB. That alone should be a ticket to perennial playoffs. Somehow we have screwed that up. .

Statistically flawed in sample, but I really like the conclusion, so amen!! Love Josh Allen.

No you love me.

The Philly game was Diggs highest snap count of the year. Not as a %, but as a total. The odd part was the timing of when he came out. Third downs.