Brad Smith and releasing him to get cap room to sign a FA receiver

[8-8 Forever?]

I have a feeling they'll bring Nelson back on the cheap. He's been on the market for a while now, and to my knowledge, hasn't garnered any interest.

because he is not very good?. if the Bills cut someone and they are not picked up, that tells you a great deal. There is all kinds of film on these guys, you can study them to death. and no one wants him. The litmus test for the Bills is how many of their FAs are signed by other teams. Its actually getting better. there was a time that if you were cut by the Bills, your career was over. no THAT says a lot about the talent state of a team.

 

frankly, there is quite a game of cat and mouse going on this year with FAs.. teams are almost colluding with each other, creating anxiety among the FAs looking for jobs... this may stay this way until after the draft.. interesting...

 

I cannot believe the lack of respect for Brad Smith on this board...

I think Brad Smith is a good player. Big body. Fast. Hard to bring down. Knows how to play the game. We need good players. Is he a great player? No. but he probably plays a lot of WR this year if we don't pick someone up.

Edited March 23, 2013 by 8and8Forever

[chris heff]

As much as I would love to see Brad Smith released, we simply can't afford to lose any more WR's until we start replacing them.

Yup

[Malazan]

This is an extremely important point and I think that most people don't understand the ramifications of how it effects future cap planning.

Having all of that rollover money looks exciting, but the reality is it could easily become a cap-trap that destroys a roster.

 

 

Effectively this means that if a team spends above the cap(into their rollover).......they will have no rollover money the following year. If the cap increase for the following season is similar to recent times(2%), this likely will place teams in a tenuous position in regards to the cap for future years as teams will be going from a higher cap situation to a lower cap the following year......and as player contracts are usually structured in a manner where the cap hits increase each year throughout the contract, this would place the team in a very difficult position.

 

 

Looking at the Bills(for example).....

At the moment we have spent 109m(top 51).....which we will get back 4.5m for Fitz contract in a few months. We also have a dead cap number of 6m......and 5.5m for rookie contracts............bringing the total spend to.....116m.

 

The base cap figure is 123m.

The Bills' rollover amount is 10m.

 

This means that we are 7m under the cap.......and 17m under the adjusted rollover cap.

 

Ignoring any adjustment for Byrd(leaving his cap hit at 6.9m).....if we don't spend any more money on FAs, we will take a 7m rollover into the 2014 season.

 

 

Placing a base 6.9m cap hit for Byrd, our 2014 cap situation is currently 111m. Assuming there is only a 2% increase in the cap in 2014.....the 2014 cap figure will be 125m. This would leave us with 14m(plus 7m rollover) to re-sign Wood, Chandler, Carrington, Moats, 2nd & 3rd string QB & a raft of other FAs (13 more players).

 

If we chose to sign another 2 FAs this year(total cost 7m/year, same through each year)......this would mean we would only have 7m(with no rollover) to sign all of our own FAs in 2014.

 

Obviously, if we chose to spend into our current rollover we would need to either re-structure major players, cut more players, or not be able to re-sign anybody who is worth keeping.

 

 

With a new coach, it seems logical to progress through a season for him to see what he has.....and what he can get out of the current players, before mortgaging the future with relatively expensive FAs.

 

EDIT: Those 2014 numbers didn't include the 2013 rookie class.....likely will be a solid 4m higher 2014 cap number because of it......plus the need to sign the 2014 rookies.

 

This should be stickied at the top and made required reading before posting on Free Agents. Excellent Post.

[first_and_ten]

This is an extremely important point and I think that most people don't understand the ramifications of how it effects future cap planning.

Having all of that rollover money looks exciting, but the reality is it could easily become a cap-trap that destroys a roster.

 

 

Effectively this means that if a team spends above the cap(into their rollover).......they will have no rollover money the following year. If the cap increase for the following season is similar to recent times(2%), this likely will place teams in a tenuous position in regards to the cap for future years as teams will be going from a higher cap situation to a lower cap the following year......and as player contracts are usually structured in a manner where the cap hits increase each year throughout the contract, this would place the team in a very difficult position.

 

 

Looking at the Bills(for example).....

At the moment we have spent 109m(top 51).....which we will get back 4.5m for Fitz contract in a few months. We also have a dead cap number of 6m......and 5.5m for rookie contracts............bringing the total spend to.....116m.

 

The base cap figure is 123m.

The Bills' rollover amount is 10m.

 

This means that we are 7m under the cap.......and 17m under the adjusted rollover cap.

 

Ignoring any adjustment for Byrd(leaving his cap hit at 6.9m).....if we don't spend any more money on FAs, we will take a 7m rollover into the 2014 season.

 

 

Placing a base 6.9m cap hit for Byrd, our 2014 cap situation is currently 111m. Assuming there is only a 2% increase in the cap in 2014.....the 2014 cap figure will be 125m. This would leave us with 14m(plus 7m rollover) to re-sign Wood, Chandler, Carrington, Moats, 2nd & 3rd string QB & a raft of other FAs (13 more players).

 

If we chose to sign another 2 FAs this year(total cost 7m/year, same through each year)......this would mean we would only have 7m(with no rollover) to sign all of our own FAs in 2014.

 

Obviously, if we chose to spend into our current rollover we would need to either re-structure major players, cut more players, or not be able to re-sign anybody who is worth keeping.

 

 

With a new coach, it seems logical to progress through a season for him to see what he has.....and what he can get out of the current players, before mortgaging the future with relatively expensive FAs.

 

EDIT: Those 2014 numbers didn't include the 2013 rookie class.....likely will be a solid 4m higher 2014 cap number because of it......plus the need to sign the 2014 rookies.

 

Makes one wonder how any team can keep a decent roster. Seems the only solution is a Great Quarterback who has a high cap number and a team filled with mostly reasonable priced very good players. This places a premium on drafting good players and then winning during their first contracts before they hit that second contract and want big money. Also, I have to say, for what the Bills have and most likely will get out of Mario Williams, the contact is a cap albatross. With the cap situation in the game today, a team cannot have their biggest cap hits being defensive ends who do not dominate and are not game changers. It takes a savvy general mangager to run a team and I'm not sure the Bills that.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

We have cap room to sign any receiver on the market.

 

This.

 

Plus, the Bills seem to have taken the pruning shears to the roster. The natural conclusion is, if someone is left they believe he fits into their plans and has value.

Pettine got an up-close look at Brad Smith in his time in NY. He may feel Smith has been wrongly utilized (and under-utilized).

 

With Chan as HC, I always felt the Bills roster was somewhat like a jackdaw's nest, full of bright shiny objects picked up 'cuz they might be valuable but that somehow never saw all that much use from day to day (Dickerson, Smith both Lee and Brad, etc) to justify the space they filled up.

 

The new regime seems to see value in some of these guys, so I'll wait to see how they use them.

[Dibs]

This should be stickied at the top and made required reading before posting on Free Agents. Excellent Post.

 

I decided to rework some of it and started a new thread....

http://forums.twobillsdrive.com/topic/156765-the-reason-for-lack-of-fa-action/

[KD in CA]

I decided to rework some of it and started a new thread....

http://forums.twobil...k-of-fa-action/

 

Good post, but I still want you to change your avatar to the real Dibs:

 

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&sugexp=epsugrccpqgame&gs_rn=7&gs_ri=psy-ab&pq=dibs&cp=5&gs_id=8&xhr=t&q=dibs+in+search+of+self&bav=on.2,or.r_qf.&bvm=bv.44158598,d.dmQ&biw=1366&bih=596&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=e8xNUayoBbHI0gGS1YCYBw

[Hapless Bills Fan]

This is an extremely important point and I think that most people don't understand the ramifications of how it effects future cap planning.

Having all of that rollover money looks exciting, but the reality is it could easily become a cap-trap that destroys a roster.

 

 

Effectively this means that if a team spends above the cap(into their rollover).......they will have no rollover money the following year. If the cap increase for the following season is similar to recent times(2%), this likely will place teams in a tenuous position in regards to the cap for future years as teams will be going from a higher cap situation to a lower cap the following year......and as player contracts are usually structured in a manner where the cap hits increase each year throughout the contract, this would place the team in a very difficult position.

 

 

Looking at the Bills(for example).....

At the moment we have spent 109m(top 51).....which we will get back 4.5m for Fitz contract in a few months. We also have a dead cap number of 6m......and 5.5m for rookie contracts............bringing the total spend to.....116m.

 

The base cap figure is 123m.

The Bills' rollover amount is 10m.

 

This means that we are 7m under the cap.......and 17m under the adjusted rollover cap.

 

Ignoring any adjustment for Byrd(leaving his cap hit at 6.9m).....if we don't spend any more money on FAs, we will take a 7m rollover into the 2014 season.

 

 

Placing a base 6.9m cap hit for Byrd, our 2014 cap situation is currently 111m. Assuming there is only a 2% increase in the cap in 2014.....the 2014 cap figure will be 125m. This would leave us with 14m(plus 7m rollover) to re-sign Wood, Chandler, Carrington, Moats, 2nd & 3rd string QB & a raft of other FAs (13 more players).

 

If we chose to sign another 2 FAs this year(total cost 7m/year, same through each year)......this would mean we would only have 7m(with no rollover) to sign all of our own FAs in 2014.

 

Obviously, if we chose to spend into our current rollover we would need to either re-structure major players, cut more players, or not be able to re-sign anybody who is worth keeping.

 

 

With a new coach, it seems logical to progress through a season for him to see what he has.....and what he can get out of the current players, before mortgaging the future with relatively expensive FAs.

 

EDIT: Those 2014 numbers didn't include the 2013 rookie class.....likely will be a solid 4m higher 2014 cap number because of it......plus the need to sign the 2014 rookies.

 

Dibs, this is a great post, but won't our dead money cap hits drop substantially in 2014 and after? I'm asking - I've had a look through OvertheCap but not exhaustive.

Also, teams generally like to minimize guaranteed and up front money, but in theory, is there anything that prevents a team from structuring a contract to spend into the rollover then drop?

[Dibs]

Good post, but I still want you to change your avatar to the real Dibs:

 

http://www.google.co...oBbHI0gGS1YCYBw

 

I searched for myself.....but all I could find was a mutant aardvark.

 

Dibs, this is a great post, but won't our dead money cap hits drop substantially in 2014 and after? I'm asking - I've had a look through OvertheCap but not exhaustive.

Also, teams generally like to minimize guaranteed and up front money, but in theory, is there anything that prevents a team from structuring a contract to spend into the rollover then drop?

 

We will have 7m dead money from Fitz in 2014(factored into my 2014 numbers). As far as I can figure it, the numbers I showed are correct.

 

If teams have a good cap situation(particularly for the following year).....then yes, definitely they can front load a contract by using the rollover money. Unfortunately for us(and most teams), we don't have a good cap situation.

Edited March 23, 2013 by Dibs

[Hapless Bills Fan]

Good post, but I still want you to change your avatar to the real Dibs:

 

http://www.google.co...oBbHI0gGS1YCYBw

 

You mean this one:

 

http://www.drumstick.com/nestle/dibs-nestle-crunch.aspx

[NoSaint]

 

 

I searched for myself.....but all I could find was a mutant aardvark.

 

 

 

We will have 7m dead money from Fitz in 2014(factored into my 2014 numbers). As far as I can figure it, the numbers I showed are correct.

 

If teams have a good cap situation(particularly for the following year).....then yes, definitely they can front load a contract by using the rollover money. Unfortunately for us(and most teams), we don't have a good cap situation.

 

I think telling in this offseason will be if they pushed fitzs hit next year and don't spend this year.

 

It would signal one of two things:

 

1) big plans that fell apart (not the end of the world but certainly not good)

 

2) Brandon possibly reigning in spending at the expense of the roster - already hit the 90% this year so lets eat up next years cap preemptively without actually laying out new cash

[KOKBILLS]

So I'm guessing (by all that I've read in this thread) that ideally The Bills will wait it out for some young LB's, WR's, or DB's who will take bargain one year deals...Then fill out the rest of the Roster with Draft picks and UDFA's...Sounds exciting!!!

 

Seriously though, I think there could definitely be some bargains left over the next month or so...We'll see...

[San Jose Bills Fan]

Also, I have to say, for what the Bills have and most likely will get out of Mario Williams, the contact is a cap albatross.

 

At some point in his contract, the numbers will become so compelling that he will be released.

 

Brandon possibly reigning in spending at the expense of the roster - already hit the 90% this year so lets eat up next years cap preemptively without actually laying out new cash

 

The word is raining.

 

Oh wait, never mind.

[Billy in 4C]

We are eyeing the 5th and 6th receivers of non-contenders cut in training camp to be our #2 and #3... just be patient

[djp14150]

Makes one wonder how any team can keep a decent roster. Seems the only solution is a Great Quarterback who has a high cap number and a team filled with mostly reasonable priced very good players. This places a premium on drafting good players and then winning during their first contracts before they hit that second contract and want big money. Also, I have to say, for what the Bills have and most likely will get out of Mario Williams, the contact is a cap albatross. With the cap situation in the game today, a team cannot have their biggest cap hits being defensive ends who do not dominate and are not game changers. It takes a savvy general mangager to run a team and I'm not sure the Bills that.

 

This is what Seattle is trying to do. they have a bunch of starts still on their rookie contracts so they could afford to go out and sign Bennett and Avril on short contracts and then trade for Harvin and sign him.

 

 

Most teams function with a cost slotting per position. This is part of the reason Levitre wasnt resigned....he wouldnt have screwed up this costing model.

[CardinalScotts]

Unbelievable that a solid hand like Nelson is gone while this completely worthless player stays for twice the money.

Nelson can't get open against starting corners his only worth was inside the 5....Brad Smith sorry as it is - a better wide receiver and he's not very good

[John from Riverside]

Do people realize that Nelson suffered a pretty severe injury last year and might be gone because he isnt coming along well?

[2020 Our Year For Sure]

I completely disagree with that, CardinalScotts. Nelson is a solid possession receiver who makes for a convenient target for a quarterback on third down, with his size and his sure hands.

 

It's actually not important whether he could beat starting corners, what matters for him is that he could beat linebackers. Remember he was a very strong blocker with nearly TE size. If the D lines up in the nickel, Nelson gives you an advantage running it by serving as another TE. If they line up in the base D, he has a chance to get open over the middle.

 

I do not mean to suggest that DCs lost sleep out of a fear of David Nelson, but this was a nice little thing we had going for us that Gailey did a good job of utilizing.

 

Nelson isn't a guy you want as one of your starters, he's a helpful roll player.

 

All that said, the point others have made about his injury is a fair one. I don't see anyone else rushing to sign him either. But when the time comes I hope we're in play.

Edited March 25, 2013 by Big Bad Boone

[ganesh]

Unbelievable that a solid hand like Nelson is gone while this completely worthless player stays for twice the money.

 

Nelson himself quoted that the Bills probably did not tender him because of medical reasons with regards to his knee.

[WhitewalkerInPhilly]

I think he's a very talented player who was mis-utilized by the Bills.

 

I think that if given the ability to play just one position that he could become an excellent wide receiver (remember that great jump ball TD reception against the Jets?) or an excellent running back. He might even be an effective read option QB. People like to dwell on the ugly interception he threw in his only pass attempt as a Bill but he was a 4-year starter as Missouri's QB and had a very decorated college career.

 

Also his size and measurables place him alongside Adrian Peterson except he's a tad slower.

 

From Wiki:

 

Accomplishments and honors

• First player in division 1-A history to pass for 8,000 yards and run for 4,000 yards in career.
  
• First player in division 1-A history to pass for 2,000 yards and run for 1,000 yards in a season twice in a career.
  
• Second player in division 1-A history to rush for 1,000 yards and pass for 2,000 yards in a season.
  
• Fourth player in division 1-A history to score 200 points and pass for 200 points in a career.
  
• Sixth player in division 1-A history to pass for 200 yards and rush for 200 yards in a single game (vs. Nebraska on October 22, 2005).
  
• Most rushing yards in division 1-A history by a freshman quarterback.
  
• Holds school record for:
  
  • Career rushing yards.
    
  • Career total yards.
    
  • Most points in a game (30) and most touchdowns (5) (vs. Texas Tech on October 25, 2003).
    

  [*]Holds 68 different MU, Big 12 and NCAA game, season and career records (as of 12/2005).

  [*]2006 Independence Bowl MVP.

  [*]2006 Hula Bowl MVP.

  [*]2002 1st-Team Freshman All-American by FWAA, The Sporting News, College Football News, and Rivals.com.

  [*]2002 Honorable Mention All-American by CNNSI.com, College Football News.

  [*]2002 and 2003 honorable mention All-Big 12 by AP.

  [*]2002 and 2004 Honorable Mention All-Big 12 by Coaches.

  [*]2003 4th-Team All-American by College Sports Report.

  [*]2003 3rd-Team All-Big 12 by Coaches.

  [*]2005 Draddy Trophy Finalist.

  [*]2005 Honorable Mention All-Big 12.

  [*]2005 Davey O'Brien Award Semi-Finalist.

  [*]2010 Pudding Pie Award.

• 4.46 40 Yard Dash.
  
• 39½ Inch Vertical.
  
• 7.01 Three-Cone Drill.
  
• 4.33 Short Shuttle.
  
• 10-foot-8 Broad Jump.
  

He's already collected his $2 million signing bonus. Marrone is supposed to be a very good offensive mind so if Marrone sees fit to retain Smith, I'll be excited to see what plans he has for him.

 

 

This *is* rather interesting. You know, I'm not the biggest Wildcat fan, but we always lined up and ran it up the middle on third and short and I've always questioned why, as our WR corps was steadily depleted, we never saw him being used as anything BUT the wildcat QB.

 

In the end, we have tons of cap room, more than we need if we're only going after mid-tier guys.