BillsFanForever19

Frank Gore Jr. chimes in with "U deserve it". Jonathan Taylor makes 14m per and Saquon Barkley makes 12.5m per. 15 is a wild ask. I hope we aren't setting up for an offseason holdout. Update:

Feels like putting a 2nd Round Pick into a Safety last season and then signing the most expensive Safety on the market this season is a lot of resources put into that position group. But if they feel Cole Bishop needs another year after missing Training Camp last season (and looking overwhelmed as a Rookie) and the plan is to move on from Taylor Rapp after this year and have Cole Bishop replace him then - it could make some sense. We do need a replacement and upgrade from Damar Hamlin. Though Holland would be a lot of money and I'd definitely be prioritizing the starting replacements at WR and CB and upgrades at DE and 1T DT first.

Oh, trust me, like I said in the OP - I'd prefer something more than Hollywood Brown. If it were up to me, calling around about a Trade for a True #1 WR and then going all in on Tee Higgins (if he wasn't franchised) if the calls around got us nowhere would be my first priority. I'm just saying that if it is true that there's interest in Hollywood - it could be that they're looking at cheaper options than even Amari Cooper bc they plan on their big spending going elsewhere. Even if we did tab Hollywood for Cooper's roster spot - I'd want us to carry 6 WR's this year and Draft a WR somewhere as further insurance.

Quality of WR overall, i'd agree with you that Hollywood Brown is not an upgrade from Amari Cooper. But he is a different type of WR than Cooper and has a skillset that we're missing that Cooper doesn't possess in speed. More importantly than that though, he will be cheaper than Amari Cooper. And if they choose to focus on Defense with a big move like Myles Garrett, as well as finding replacements for Rasul Douglas, Daquan Jones, and Damar Hamlin - retaining Amari Cooper (along with Mack Hollins) may be out of our price range.

Courtland Sutton isn't a Free Agent.

That doesn't mean we should just rely on average WR's bc Josh can get the best out of them. Many of us believe that neglecting the WR position with average targets outside of Diggs has been doing both Josh and the team a disservice. Especially this year when we didn't even have Diggs. I understand not being wow'ed by a Hollywood Brown signing in 2025. And Samuel will be here regardless. We signed him to a 3 year deal and moving on from him this season would result in an 11+m Dead Cap hit. But as I said, I can't agree with *relying* on Coleman & Kincaid to step up. Hope for it? Sure. But we cannot simply just roll it back without contingencies in place in the very real scenario that it doesn't happen. And if they do and you have added talent on top of it, now you're really talking. And just Drafting a WR to replace is not enough. This isn't a great WR class and even in a great one like last season, the odds that you're getting impact from a Rookie WR at the end of Round 2 (as most expect the 1 will be used on a Defender, Veteran or Rookie) is slim to none.

No veteran WR is "super cheap". But as I was saying to Noggin, he's coming off of a year where he was injured in the offseason and on IR until Week 17 - under a 6.5m contract. I don't see any way he's signing to anything big or getting a raise from that 6.5. Likely less.

I'd say that's the bare minimum. I and some others are of the mind that they should be looking at obtaining a True #1 WR from Trade or get in on the Tee Higgins race if he isn't tagged. Hollywood is coming off of a 1 year, 7m contract with 6.5m guaranteed - that saw him make his debut with the team in Week 17. So I don't think "Hollywood money" is going to be much and wouldn't be anything more than a 1 year deal - if there's anything to this report. Our lack of guys who could create separation and our general lack of talent at the pass catching positions was as big of a reason we didn't advance in the Playoffs as any, in my opinion. In the Playoffs, we had to rely on James Cook entirely too much. We have to replace Amari Cooper's spot on the 53 anyways - so we'll be adding at least 1 regardless. I'd prefer to roll with 6 this year, especially if they were going with a question mark like Brown for that position. But either way - simply running it back with Shakir, Coleman, Hollins, and Samuel and relying on Kincaid and Coleman showing growth would be simply unacceptable in my eyes. Regardless of what they do on Defense. If it were just them pondering the fit and saying they could see it happening, I'd agree with you. But citing people they talked to specifically from the Chiefs lends me to believe that it happened. Fowler and Graziano are pretty big reporters at ESPN and quoting people from a specific organization that never happened seems a stretch. The real question to me is whether or not whomever they spoke to at the Chiefs have actual Intel on Josh's feelings towards Brown or if they were just spitballing to Fowler and Graziano.

https://billswire.usatoday.com/2025/02/10/buffalo-bills-josh-allen-wants-play-kansas-city-chiefs-hollyood-marquise-brown-nfl/ It's an interesting quote. I'm not sure if there's legs to it or not. If Josh has "long" wanted him on the team - why didn't they push to sign him last year when they paid more for Curtis Samuel? I suppose it's possible that the Chiefs' contract he signed was something he settled for after asking for too much early in Free Agency and the music had pretty much stopped in the WR musical chairs - including us signing Samuel for his spot. Hollywood Brown coming off of a season long injury this season does seem like a Brandon Beane low risk, potential high reward budget type signing though. Brown definitely has speed and field stretching ability. But his injury history is a definite risk. Honestly, I'd hope for something more at the WR position. But if the 1st pick and large amounts of cap are designated to acquiring big pieces on Defense - something like Brown with a 2nd Round Pick and re-signing Hollins, to go along with Shakir, Coleman, and Samuel might be the play they go with. Though they'd better hope that Brown stayed healthy, Samuel had a better year without getting hurt, the pick provides impact, and/or Coleman answers the gut check they issued him at the year end presser.

We would have gotten stomped. Maybe not as badly, as I think Josh would have protected the ball better. But just as likely, the result would have been the same - or possibly even worse. We'd have been rolling out Kaiir Elam again. There's no way, even with 2 weeks, that the NFL would have cleared Benford after taking two concussions in a week's time. Who knows if Rapp would have been ready or not either. AJ Brown and Devonta Smith would have eaten us for lunch. And while our Offensive Line may have handled Phili's Defensive Line better (maybe), I doubt we'd have handled stopping Saquon Barkley as well as KC's D-Line and Linebackers did. Especially when we'd be trying to support the broken down Secondary in coverage. The 2024 Eagles are the definition of a Super Bowl roster. Loaded at every spot. The 2024 Bills were an overachieving team, mostly due to the MVP play of Josh Allen, with a Roster in soft rebuild mode - dealing with injuries in the Secondary. We couldn't handle the team that got mollywhopped by the Eagles. You're kidding yourself if you think we'd have stood a chance tonight.

While there's truth to this - you'd have to be a serious homer to think we would win this game with how the Eagles are playing. Especially without Christian Benford and rolling Elam back out there. Ain't no way even with 2 weeks that they'd have cleared him after a 2nd concussion a week removed from his first. It stings slightly less to realize that even if we had won last week, we'd have been signing up for our 5th Super Bowl loss. The Eagles are a Super Bowl winning roster. Jalen Hurts, Saquon Barkley, AJ Brown and Devonta Smith on the Outside. A very good Defense. And they're all playing their best ball.

This is how you beat the Chiefs. Offense. Elite firepower. Run up the score on them.

A pretty good return is an understatment. It would be like a QB trade. If Garrett's price starts at 2 #1's - i'd imagine Parsons would start at 3 #1's.

This would be entirely shocking. I tend to believe this is probably Dallas posturing in his contract negotiations, that will surely make him the highest paid Defensive player in NFL history. Leaking out that they'd possiby trade him, as he's made it known he wants to be a Cowboy for life to try and get him to get closer to the number they want. I don't believe he'll actually be traded. But if Dallas decided that they could do more to help their team by saving the money and getting a boatload of picks - that would be WILD. I cannot even fathom what the price tag would be. It would be Myles Garrett's asking price on crack with Parsons being 25.

That's more to do with the guys who went 4, 6, and 9 than the guys we had a shot at. The most I'd be willing to rake him over the coals for is deciding to get more picks was more important than trying to trade up to 22 to get Brian Thomas Jr. Everyone who was available from 28 to where we picked Coleman - thus far I'm not upset that we passed on them. Worthy is a Slot/Outside, Gadget tweener. He played 17 games to Coleman's 13 and only managed 82 more receiving yards than Coleman. Ricky Pearsall and Ladd McConkey were Slots. We needed a guy who could replace Diggs or Davis' spot Outside at all times. All of those guys would have served to take Shakir off the field. Xavier Legette, who I was high on, was worse than Coleman. And everyone taken after Coleman didn't out perform him. The truth is that thus far, outside of the guys who weren't available at 28, no one has really impressed. https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/nfl-rookie-receiving-yards-leaders-2024

The Rich Hill model is more accurate. It's kind of odd to me that they haven't switched to that as their main one when they themselves even say that it's more in line with recent trades than the old Jimmy Johnson one. https://www.drafttek.com/NFL-Trade-Value-Chart-Rich-Hill.asp The highest the Trade Chart would get us is around 10. But that's just the Trade Chart. It's not very often you're going to get someone to move down 20 Picks. This is considered a pretty weak class. I don't know that there's really anyone worth giving up 3 players where we'll be picking for 1 at the 10 spot. If we could get Travis Hunter, sure. But he'll be gone in the first 2 or 3 picks.

I don't get all the talk about Malcolm Koonce. He has a total of 11 starts in 3 years and is coming off a torn ACL where he hasn't played a down since 12/31/23. If the guy didn't go to UB, no one would be mentioning him.

Hopefully this isn't an indication that he's been told he isn't going anywhere.... https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/maxx-crosby-ive-had-doubts-in-past-but-this-is-the-most-optimistic-ive-been-about-raiders

Yes on the 2026 Draft being when we get compensated for Cooper, but no on a 3rd. As i've mentioned a couple times already and is cited here: https://overthecap.com/the-basics-and-methodology-of-projecting-the-nfls-compensatory-draft-picks "Players who have ten or more accrued seasons may only yield a maximum of a 5th round compensatory pick, even if their actual value would otherwise be assigned higher. However, App. V, §4 revealed that this rule does not apply to quarterbacks." Unforunately, Amari Cooper was in his 10th season in the league when we acquired him and (obviously) isn't a QB. So the ceiling on the pick will be a 5th.

That's not how comp picks work. We lost out on a 3rd last year for two reasons. They changed the formula qualifications to include money in deals that they hadn't before. Before that, teams (like us) would carefully construct contracts with void years and incentives that wouldn't effect the cap number and skirt the formula. So when they changed that on a dime, contracts like we did with Floyd were taken into account more than we expected. The other was that Tremaine Edmunds missed time due to injury. Under the new rules, a 4th is what we were owed. It sucks they changed the qualifications, but they did and we got what we should have under them. We were far from the only team that fell victim to the new rules. As for this year, last years qualifications have been accounted for by prognasticators (and i'd doubt they change them again). It was going to be a 4 for Davis, but will fall to a 5 because of him going on IR at about the halfway mark of the year. Floyd is a 5th. It will be 2 5th's. There's no qualification in the formula for calculating an individual players compensatory worth based on fans perceived slights in previous years. Nope. Any FA that signs this offseason won't be compensated until next season. This year is for last year's Free Agent losses of Gabe Davis and Leonard Floyd. And as I said earlier, veterans with 10 or more seasons accrued qualify for a maximum compensation of a 5th Round Pick. This was Amari Cooper's 10th season, so we can't get any more than a 5 next offseason if we lose him this offseason.

I don't know if you've looked at Tee Higgins' performance over the past couple seasons - but he's been pretty dominant.

You are aware that while you can lower the cap figure of Year 1 with signing bonuses (that you can spread out) - that you can't just make the cap hit 0 or whatever you'd like, right? All 4 of them, even with a lower year 1 number, are going to have substantial hits. You can only lower it to a certain percentage. For example, last year's biggest WR contract was Calvin Ridley. His Year 1 number was about a 3rd of the rest of the years. That number was still 10. And Higgins is going to be a much bigger contract than Ridley. Xavier McKinney was the top contract for a Safety. Again, Year 1 was lower than the following years - it was stil 8 million. Holland is going to be about the same. And that's not taking Garrett or Reed into account. We're at 10+m over right now. We'll come up with space. And we can hopefully do 1 of those big moves. But enough to do all of those? No way. And that's not even taking into account how it would torpedo the cap in future years. Which you can argue he shouldn't worry about - but that's not how Beane operates.

I posted a handful of posts above yours, but this is the definitive look at what we'll be rolling with: Round 1 - Pick 30 Round 2 - Pick 56 (from HOU/MIN for Diggs & 5th) Round 2 - Pick 62 Round 4 (from CHI for 2024 5th) Round 4 Round 5 (Compensatory for Davis) Round 5 (Compensatory for Floyd) Round 6 Round 6 (from NYG for Boogie Basham) Round 6 (from CLE w/Cooper for 2025 3rd)

Correct, it wouldn't come until next year. But we won't get a 3rd or a 4th. The 2024 campaign was his 10th accrued season. And once you've had 10 seasons, your comp pick maxes out at a 5th.