Negotiating With Free Agents

[Danny]

The Buffalo Bills are in a pretty interesting situation as far as signing free agents this year... Stevie IMO is a no brainer as far as getting him signed... If he wants top ten money he should get it for the stats and effort he's put in. You can't let a productive player like him leave the team but now with Roscoe I have an interesting proposal for. He clearly said he wants to be in Buffalo and I'm at a position where I love the guy as a player and his skills but he keeps getting injured. Any team can use a guy like Roscoe but being that we're used to not having him a full season anyway, it wouldn't hurt us to lose him.

 

Here comes my negotiating strategy for those guys that you would like to re-sign but aren't afraid to lose to free agency and also that say that they want to be back with the team:

 

If I'm Buddy this is what I tell Roscoe. "Roscoe look, we love you. We want you back, but you haven't given us a full season yet. I don't wanna give you a price and maybe disrespect you on what you believe you're worth so this is what I'm gonna do. Since you said you want to be back and we said publicly that we want you back, I want you to hit the market and go interview with other teams and whatever is the highest bid on you, I promise you we'll match that and pay you what they offered. Deal?"

 

That way if he signs with another team Buddy can publicly tell the media the offer that was made and that the player felt like he really didn't want to be a Bill which would end speculation on why players leave teams. If it's for money or that they just don't want to be a part of the organization. What do you guys think?

 

 

The reason i dont think this will work is because you are assuming that Roscoe's agent will come back and tell you the truth about how much other teams have offered. I don't think he would. His job is to get Roscoe the best deal possible and i doubt he has any reservations about lying to do so. So what does Nix do when he is told that Roscoe was offered 2.5 mil? He can't exactly go ask the team who supposedly made the offer because any team who is trying to sign Roscoe isnt about to tell the Bills how much they are willing to spend. Why help the competition?

 

Another thing to consider would be that if a team does make a crazy offer the Bills would look bad for not keeping their word and matching it.

 

I really like Roscoe and think if he was ever on a team which knew how to utilize his talents that he could be successful. But due to his inability to stay healthy i also think that its time for the Bills to part ways. Especially since they have some good young wide recievers who need more playing time next year if they are going to develop into the players we need them to be.