Cash

Seems like the obvious solution is to take Davis' numbers only as a starter, multiply them by 0.8, and call it a day.

FYI, Levitre signed for $7.8 million/year, not $8.5. http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/tennessee-titans/andy-levitre/

I agree with most of this. My first quibble is that I really don't like the idea of taking Barkley at #8, although I would probably talk myself into it after it happened. I'm not hung up on the whole USC thing like it's a curse or anything -- Barkley may well be successful in the NFL. I just can't imagine it happening in Buffalo. To go from being a major LA celebrity at USC to being QB of this moribund Bills team, I dunno. Sanchez worked for the Jets (for a while) because being QB of the Jets is a step up, rockstar-wise, from being QB for USC. If we draft Barkley, I hope I'm wrong. But for the record, I didn't even like Barkley last year, and his numbers took a significant hit this year. My other quibble is that if we do draft a guy in the 2nd, he pretty much needs to start. Maybe not the whole year, and maybe not Day 1, but we need to see at least 6-8 starts out of him to have an idea if he's got anything or not. I don't really disagree with your logic, but it seems to me that you and Kirby are arguing different things. You are advocating for what an NFL team SHOULD do in an ideal world; Kirby is arguing for what an NFL team WILL do in the actual world. I tend to agree with Kirby. I think it might* be great if a team could draft a QB at #8 overall, start him all year, then draft another QB in the top 10 the following year, and have a truly open competition for the starting job. But I don't see it happening any time soon, and especially not with the Bills. If it's anyone, it'll be a team with a rock-solid reputation in the media (the Patriots, Steelers, and Packers come to mind) who can safely pull such a move without getting pilloried in the media. I don't see the Bills as the franchise willing to take the heat for thinking so far outside of the box, or being willing/able to think that far outside the box in the first place. And they certainly haven't earned any benefit of the doubt from the fans/media. If they go against conventional wisdom, they will get ripped for it. *Or it might not be great -- perhaps the need to get practice reps/game time for both would stunt the development of both. Maybe they would usually both struggle during games, like most rookies do, and wind up being juggled in and out of the lineup until both of their confidences were destroyed. Maybe the coaching staff thinks they have a clear winner early on, commits to that guy, and chooses wrongly. Maybe one of the QBs holds out or demands a trade before you can even get them both into training camp. I don't know that any of these things would happen frequently or ever, but I don't know that the experiment would work, either. It would be interesting to see someone try it. If there was ever a good time for it, it was Jacksonville last year after Gabbert's disastrous rookie season. The Packers almost did a similar move after Favre left, when then-inexperienced former first-rounder Aaron Rodgers was poised to take over: They drafted Brian Brohm in the 2nd and Matt Flynn in the 7th, prompting pundits to suggest that they weren't super confident in Rodgers. However, I don't recall anything close to a competition for the starting job -- I think Rodgers was the presumed/unquestioned starter all through camp and preseason. Brohm and Flynn mostly just fought it out for the backup job.

Who?

I'm not very familiar with GB's cap situation or the particulars of Finley's contract, but my guess is that they can afford to (over)pay Finley for this year, and will probably target a TE pretty early in the draft or target a potential FA TE likely to hit the market next year, and plan on cutting Finley after this year unless he plays like a world-beater. (And Finley does have the physical tools to play like a world-beater, except for his hands of stone.) I wouldn't be surprised to see them sign Fred Davis to a multi-year deal, with the logic that he'll recover from his injury this year, they'll get to see a few games of him, and he can come back in 2014 and be a solid starter for them. Of course, it's also possible that the $8mil for Finley hamstrings their attempts to fix their D, and said defensive problems also keep them from drafting a possible replacement, and this looks like a major blunder. But since the Packers have been so consistently good in recent history, I tend to give them the benefit of the doubt that they have a (good) plan OR that they'll be able to come up with a plan to overcome a problem like this. Ultimately, I think the bottom line for the Packers was that Finley is a useful player, and they'd rather overpay for 1 year then lose him for nothing and have an immediate hole to fill. It's not necessarily the correct attitude. Maybe they'd have been better off cutting Finley at the start of the league year and going after Brandon Myers or Dustin Keller? Neither of those guys signed for big money and both are arguably better than Finley. I doubt the combined cap hit of Myers/Keller's contract + Finley's dead money would equal the $8mil they'll wind up paying to Finley this year.

Yeah, pretty much. As to the original post, I don't care for it. Yeah, no one's perfect. So what? I'm supposed to feel better about the sad-sack Bills because the eternally-good Packers are overpaying for their TE this year? Is that the equalizer that's going to put our teams on the same level? Besides, if Finley ever fixes his dropsies, he'll actually be worth that paycheck. And if he doesn't, they'll just cut him next year. Big whoop. I think you might have found a different reaction to your OP if it had been titled differently. As it stood, many of us (me included) interpreted it as meaning something along the lines of, "see, the Bills aren't so bad, even the Packers screw up sometimes!" My apologies for misreading your intent, but I do think the subject line was misleading in that regard.

The prevailing logic for most of the "draft 2 QBs" crowd is that drafting 2 increases the likelihood of at least 1 being good. (And if both wind up being good, so much the better.) My main problem with that is that it's hard to tell if a QB will be good after 1 year, especially if he didn't play all year. No one wants to give up on the next Steve Young (seriously, go look at his Tampa Bay stats his first two years -- they stink), but no one wants to keep starting Heath Shuler year after year. To use a more recent example, how about Josh Freeman or Sam Bradford? Both put up "decent for a rookie" stats their first years*, and both looked like they were developing into excellent starters as you watched them as rookies. Now, a few years later, it's not too late for either, but Bucs/Rams fans can't be feeling too great about their QB situation. This is a difficult-enough prospect with 1 rookie QB, but adding a second into the mix only makes things tougher. Not necessarily much tougher, especially if one of them wins (or is given) the job early on, but definitely not easier. Do you really think the Bills should or will draft another QB in round 1 in 2014 if whomever we draft at #8 puts up a middling stat line? (And by the way, based on a quick check of pro-football-reference for some random bust QBs and stud QBs who popped into my head, most of the stat lines were pretty similar: completion percentage between 53-60%, about the same number of TDs & INTs within a couple either way, 200-250 yards/game... there's not a lot to differentiate between busts and Hall of Famers through 1 year, at least to the naked eye.) *On further review, Freeman's rookie stats were pretty bad in 9 starts, but I remember watching a bunch of those games and thinking he looked promising. His 2nd year stats were very good, so I guess I conflated the two seasons in my head. Bradford's rookie stats held up as "pretty good for a rookie" upon further review.

Important question: Why did the Bills roll over $7mil of Fitz's cap hit to next year? Theoretically it would be to spend the money this year, right? But aside from a possible front-loaded extension for Byrd, there don't appear to be many spending opportunities for the Bills this offseason.

Who's saying he sucks? Seems to me that this thread is about hating on Kraft, not saying he's incompetent.

Agreed. And not just sign 15-20 UDFAs, but actively plan on 5-10 making the team. That's kind of scary. The more Nix talks, the less impressed I get, and the less sense I get that the Bills have a coherent plan (or that they've shared it with their GM). I get the rationale that with a glutted market of veterans and no championship hopes this year anyway (which is pathetic in year 4 of a rebuild), you want to wait out the market and get bargains. But I don't see anything beyond fan speculation that says the Bills will be doing that. The 1 signing they made, while not crazy money, was an immediate "we really want this guy specifically" signing (called him at 12:01am on first day of negotiation period, e.g.), and wasn't a bargain contract. Lawson didn't get star money, but his contract is decidedly middle to upper-middle class for an NFL LB. The Bills may very well have a plan, AND that plan may be a good one. (Let's hope so!) And if so, they're probably wise to play it close to the vest. But if that plan was "wait out the big-money signings, then fill holes with undervalued bargain contracts," we probably would've already seen 3-4 signings by now. No one at 1 Bills Drive has even mentioned the fact that we lost our starting LG and his primary backup, and we haven't heard any rumors of the Bills meeting/negotiating with a possible replacement for either. Prior to the start of FA, we heard a lot of speculation about Pettine wanting a bunch of (available) veterans who knew his defense, but we haven't heard any rumors of the Bills interested in any of them since FA actually began. Agents usually leak negotiation info to drive up their clients' market, so even if the Bills are running a tight ship, leaks should still be getting out on the other end. I really have no idea what the Bills are doing or whether they have a plan or not. I just can't give them the benefit of the doubt after so many years of ineptness. I won't assume that they're competent, I need to actually see signs of planning/competence before I can trust them. One of my worries is that the Bills DO want to sign a bunch of guys (including re-signing Byrd, Moore, McIntyre, etc.), but they're legitimately so busy with draft scouting (Nix, Whaley, etc.) and a combo of roster evaluation/playbook building (Marrone, Hackett, Pettine, et al.) that they aren't able to get to it. I don't know. It sounds like Nix plans to draft a WR high (great, now just get 2 more), draft a QB high, and sign no one until September. I'm not optimistic right now.

1. Smith 2. Barkley, Manuel 3. Any except Mike Glennon

Great post. Kraft is a total douche. But for some reason, everyone in the media is so enamored with his two-tone shirts that they treat him with awe and reverence. Most prominent men would be skewered for making a huge deal of their wives' deaths, then shacking up with a woman half their age a couple months later. Not Kraft.

My guess is that if one of these QBs turns out to be the real deal at the pro level, his receivers will look a lot worse in hindsight. I.e., maybe Tavon Austin becomes another Roscoe Parrish and Steadman Bailey washes out of the league in 2 years and goes back to hanging with Oprah. Having said that, one of the reasons I don't like Bray is because I really believe in the WR talent he had, and I think his numbers should've been WAY better with those targets to throw to. At least Geno & Barkley put up sick numbers throwing to good WRs.

Empty words leave me cold. Not hating on Marrone -- it's a nice speech and all, and there's no games for him to win yet -- but I'm sick of speeches about how we're going to turn it around. I've heard enough of them with no results. Odds are that eventually someone will turn it around, (hopefully Marrone!) and when that happens, I'll be fired up. But I'm done with being fired up from empty words with nothing to back them up. And I mean NOTHING. Even if the Bills eventually dip back into free agency and sign some value/bargain players (who have been signing for several days now, by the way -- all the crazy deals were done by day 2 of free agency), there won't be anything to get excited about until the draft.

Bingo. Especially since there are a number of cosmetic differences between Nix and Whaley -- age/generation, skin color, accent/regional culture, and insider/outsider status. Nix was head scout for the Bills under Polian & Butler, and definitely counts as a "Ralph" hire, whereas Whaley not so much.

I hear the Bills are planning on playing their cap space at left guard.

I'm with you on the snowy thing -- there's rarely more than 1-2 snow games a year, especially since we never have home playoff games any more. But the wind is legit. I'd say at least half of Bills home games have significant wind that can cause problems for a QB. I don't know how much of the solution is pure arm strength (though obviously a stronger arm is always better). It seems like there's a lot of technique stuff that goes into it -- having a tight spiral, extra good timing w/ receivers, etc.

I heard he used to give swirlies to Welker on a regular basis, and that's why Welker left.

Dude, Geno is totally a pocket QB, more so than Aaron Rodgers. Rodgers is pretty much the ideal/prototype QB at this point -- mobility/athleticism/scrambling ability is enough to be very dangerous, but his primary option is usually to destroy teams from the pocket with his elite arm & accuracy. Since becoming the starter (5 years), he's rushed between 54-64 times every year, for at least 200 yards every year, and over 250 four of the five years. He's had 7 runs of 20+ yards in that stretch. He could absolutely run the read option if Mike McCarthy wanted. Geno is a comparable athlete in terms of foot speed and arm strength, but obviously isn't nearly as good at this point of their careers. The comparison of running numbers isn't apples to apples, because in college, sacks count as runs for negative yardage, whereas in the NFL, they don't count as rushing attempts, and the yardage comes off the team's passing total, not the player/team's rushing total. But last year, Geno "ran" 66 times (47 actual runs, assuming the OP's figure of 19 sacks is correct) for 151 yards. The year before, he "ran" 56 times for -33 yards. Geno is pretty fast for a QB (nowhere near Vick or RG3 though), but he's not a scrambler. He's a pocket passer who is fast enough to get some yards when he tucks and runs.

Thank you. Not to mention that most or all of Jones' best games in the past 2 years were against the Pats, and he killed them last year. Nelson doesn't have any good performances fresh in anyone's mind.

You guys are right -- we should give the Bills' FO the benefit of the doubt based on their awesome track record and consistent history of winning. Obviously they have a plan in place and obviously it's a good one, because all the moves they've made to date have been part of a coherent & consistent plan, and have usually panned out. How many straight winning seasons have they produced again?

Shouldn't #14 say that Walker signed with the Titans, not the 49ers?

Not necessarily. The NFL typically won't give you a comp pick unless you have a net loss of free agents (players who were cut don't count). We probably won't lose anyone else besides Levitre, unless maybe someone signs McIntyre or Nelson. (Actually, I'm not even sure if Nelson would count, since we declined to tender him.) So if we sign even 2 UFAs who weren't cut by their former teams, we're ineligible for any comp picks, even if we signed those guys to low-end deals. And given that we have a new coaching staff who will want to bring in "their guys" -- especially on defense -- I think it's pretty likely that we sign 4-5 UFAs to low/mid money deals.

No, two random 20-year-olds did that. Deadspin posted the recording, which may or may not also be illegal.

Interesting, thanks for posting. Good offer for the Bills, and if Fitz thinks he can really start somewhere else, I see why he turned it down. Probably for the best all around.