D-Line Contracts (good news?)

[colin]

good stuff Oppie.

 

so, i was somewhat aghast with what we were paying for who we were paying, their age, and that we let younger at least somewhat proven performers go.

 

i think these deals were all just structured as one year rentals, taking advantage of the excess cap we had.  in that case, i'm less disgusted with what we did.  we will have money (unless cap capsizes, which will mess up a ton of teams and maybe create opportunities) to sign a real guy to a long term contract.

[Mango]

8 hours ago, JGMcD2 said:

How is it going to be a problem that takes a few year to rebound? The post laid out there's fairly minimal dead cap when compared to the savings from releasing certain players.

It's nothing like the Walker and Dockery signings at all. 

 

EDIT: Re: Walker and Dockery

 

Maybe performance wise, but not in the sense that it's going to handicap the franchise. Dead money is normal.

In order to fix the DL you need to basically cut half to 3/4 of them. Then replace them. All the while you also need help at CB2 and nobody knows what the hell is going on at either LB position. 
 

So sure you can “fix it” by taking some dead cap. But you then don’t actually have a DL and you have to replace them. Like I said, you can’t just cut everybody and generically say, “oh well FA and the draft”. We have the highest paid DL in the league with minimal performance. That’s not just a cut and replace a guy situation. 

[BarleyNY]

12 hours ago, without a drought said:

If he sticks around for 2021, I would expect them to use the potential out before 2022.

I agree

[BarleyNY]

10 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Star has done his job consistently, and has proved to be a very good signing. He'll be here the whole length of his contract unless they manage to draft at least one excellent space eating 1-tech.

 

And the defense will be "unexplainably" better.

 

The reason the dead cap hit is large is that the Bills, in exchange for the $1.75 mill cut from his $50 mill salary, guaranteed a year and a half of his salary. They did this because they want him here.

I never liked the Star signing.  Actually I hated it.  I thought they massively overpaid him at the time and he’s done nothing since but support that opinion.  Even with the reworked contract he’s still way overpaid IMO.  It’s an easy narrative to say the defense is worse because he’s not here, but that doesn’t make it true.  Correlation does not equal causality.  He hasn’t been good since before he got here, he wouldn’t be much help this season and he won’t be much help next.  He’s a serviceable, one dimensional IDL who is average to below average and is paid like he’s a difference maker.  It’s been ridiculous.

[mjt328]

13 hours ago, Rigotz said:

We obviously don't feel great about some of the recent D-Line signings, but I was encouraged by some of the opt-out clauses that can help save us IF we decide to start over.

 

Trent Murphy - $9,775,000 - this comes off the books at the end of the year, no penalty

Mario Addison - $9,968,75 - two years left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $4M penalty

Jerry Hughes - $9,500,000 - one year left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $2.1M penalty

Vernon Butler - $7,368,750, one year left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $1M penalty

Quinton Jefferson - $6,906,250, one year left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $1.5M penalty

 

So, as bad as some of these guys have looked, we aren't completely stuck with any of them.

It's  incredible to see that we have $43.5 Million tied up in these guys per year... but we can completely hit the reset button if we want by eating only $8.6M in dead cap.

 

Not saying we should cut every one of these players. I just thought this was a nice silver lining to what seems to be a few bad signings.

 

 

This is why it's always important to look at the contract details before judging a contract.

On the surface, some fans like criticizing Brandon Beane on overpaying for players.  But at the end of the day, many of them are only 1-2 year rentals.

 

Beane seems to be taking a similar approach with the D-Line as he did last year with the O-Line.  Sign a bunch of veterans to short-term deals.  Then see which one are a good fit and which ones are not.  Move on from the rest.  

 

 

[SoCal Deek]

I’m praying that the light bulb went on in the second half against the Jets. There’s still time for these guys to turn it around and figure it out, before everyone writes them off. Sometimes it just takes a bit of success to see yourself succeeding. The coaching staff needs to beat this into them this week. 

[ROCBillsBeliever]

11 hours ago, Ed_Formerly_of_Roch said:

So what three players at a minimum are you going to sign with limited money and likely not drafting until at least the upper teens if not lower that is going to actually improve things?

 

@Ed_Formerly_of_Roch I guess the silver lining, here, is that pass-rushing DT's are drafted early. Run-stuffing behemoths, with little statistical impact, tend to drop to later rounds. We may be fortunate in that we have guys like Oliver and Jefferson, who are more pass-rushing DT-capable, and our need is in a less-draft-expensive role: run-stuffing two-gappers. Just a note of positivity in the sea of negativity we've been swimming in. 

[GunnerBill]

10 hours ago, GoBills808 said:

Epenesa 

 

And Darryl Johnson. He is still here, right?

 

I mean it is very young and inexperienced. I expect Jefferson to stick at this stage and probably one (but not both) of Hughes and Addison. Butler I feel was always basically a 1 year rental.

[GunnerBill]

59 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

I never liked the Star signing.  Actually I hated it.  I thought they massively overpaid him at the time and he’s done nothing since but support that opinion.  Even with the reworked contract he’s still way overpaid IMO.  It’s an easy narrative to say the defense is worse because he’s not here, but that doesn’t make it true.  Correlation does not equal causality.  He hasn’t been good since before he got here, he wouldn’t be much help this season and he won’t be much help next.  He’s a serviceable, one dimensional IDL who is average to below average and is paid like he’s a difference maker.  It’s been ridiculous.

 

Agree. And the run D had plenty of horrible games with Star in the lineup too. Who can forget "inside left zone" vs the Eagles last year.

 

None of which is to say we don't miss Star. We do. He is a solid, starting level NFL 1 tech (just paid like a high end one). The only other 1 tech we had on the roster was a 3rd round pick three years ago, coming off an injury, who we were pinning a lot of hope on because of 4 good games as a rotational player at the start of 2019. Turns out that was insufficient and we have paid the penalty. The defense IS worse because he's not there, but we don't miss Star because he is great, we miss him because the drop off to the next best player at that position on the roster is significant. I think they thought Butler could do some 1 tech (and he did do a bit in Carolina) but he has been woeful there. So much so that against the Chiefs they asked the guy they spent the #9 overall pick in the draft (to collapse the pocket) on to play as the 1 tech and take on the double teams.

Edited October 29, 2020 by GunnerBill

[The Jokeman]

14 hours ago, Rigotz said:

We obviously don't feel great about some of the recent D-Line signings, but I was encouraged by some of the opt-out clauses that can help save us IF we decide to start over.

 

Trent Murphy - $9,775,000 - this comes off the books at the end of the year, no penalty

Mario Addison - $9,968,75 - two years left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $4M penalty

Jerry Hughes - $9,500,000 - one year left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $2.1M penalty

Vernon Butler - $7,368,750, one year left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $1M penalty

Quinton Jefferson - $6,906,250, one year left after this year, but we can terminate his contract with only $1.5M penalty

 

So, as bad as some of these guys have looked, we aren't completely stuck with any of them.

It's  incredible to see that we have $43.5 Million tied up in these guys per year... but we can completely hit the reset button if we want by eating only $8.6M in dead cap.

 

Not saying we should cut every one of these players. I just thought this was a nice silver lining to what seems to be a few bad signings.

 

Murphy is good as gone and If I'm Beane I let Butler walk too. 

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

10 hours ago, Mango said:

 

I have a feeling that the swing and a miss in all that cash on the DL from last off season will be a problem that will take a few years to rebound. It’s a Beane failure compounded by some uncertainty around what to/if you pay Edmunds/Milano plus a new Allen contract. 
 

Cash to performance wise, this DL sort of reminds me of the Walker Dockery signings from like 15 years ago. 

 

From what I recall Dockery, Walker, etc were signed to big $$ contracts and failed.  And when one failed one year they'd sign another to replace him just as bad and for just as much money.  Here we have individually relatively small contract, together adds up to a lot of money.

 

Was mentioned in another thread yesterday by a couple of us in a somewhat unrelated thread, but the issue may be:

 

The year prior Beane did a similar thing with  with the O line, signed mid level, excluding Morse, no name with players and it worked out pretty well.  This year not so well, what's been different, no off season/pre-season to get the new players together to jell.  In hindsight if Beane had to do it over again AND if he knew there wasn't going to be much of an off season, maybe he would have instead resigned Lawson and Phillips.  Throw in Star opting out, certainly didn't help the continuity any there either.

 

One of the things thought would help the team this year with a very limited off season was the fact that we brought back so many players from last season, not much change.  However most of our new players are all concentrated in one position group, the D line!  Will be interesting to see if as they continue to play together, will there be improvement there by season end?

[Rigotz]

12 hours ago, Weatherman said:

Jerry Hughes has no business being on that list just like all the others on it have no business being on this roster. 

 

Perhaps you missed the part where I wrote in bold that I do not think all of those players should be cut.

Edited October 29, 2020 by Rigotz

[formerlyofCtown]

13 hours ago, Thurman#1 said:

 

 

Star has done his job consistently, and has proved to be a very good signing. He'll be here the whole length of his contract unless they manage to draft at least one excellent space eating 1-tech.

 

And the defense will be "unexplainably" better.

 

The reason the dead cap hit is large is that the Bills, in exchange for the $1.75 mill cut from his $50 mill salary, guaranteed a year and a half of his salary. They did this because they want him here.

You would think that it would be very apparent to people that Star does his job.  Especially this season when he isn't playing they should see what he has done.  This D misses him.

[formerlyofCtown]

2 hours ago, colin said:

good stuff Oppie.

 

so, i was somewhat aghast with what we were paying for who we were paying, their age, and that we let younger at least somewhat proven performers go.

 

i think these deals were all just structured as one year rentals, taking advantage of the excess cap we had.  in that case, i'm less disgusted with what we did.  we will have money (unless cap capsizes, which will mess up a ton of teams and maybe create opportunities) to sign a real guy to a long term contract.

We could have kept Phillips but Shaq said some things they made me believe he wanted to move on and Shaq is who I would have wanted to keep.. Star opting out is the biggest problem with our line.

[formerlyofCtown]

15 hours ago, GunnerBill said:

Jefferson is the only one I'd keep and I'd use him in the hybrid role he was originally brought here to fill. A guy who plays as a 7 tech then kicks inside in pass rush sets. Not a guy who features heavily in the base DT rotation. 

It really depends on if the league desired to make legal offensive holding the norm.  If so then we need to go with larger DEs.  If not then we are fine with who we have once Star returns next season.  The tape don't lie.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't look for possible upgrades.

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, formerlyofCtown said:

It really depends on if the league desired to make legal offensive holding the norm.  If so then we need to go with larger DEs.  If not then we are fine with who we have once Star returns next season.  The tape don't lie.

That doesn't mean we shouldn't look for possible upgrades.

 

Larger than who?

[formerlyofCtown]

13 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

Larger than who?

Stronger is probably the better word.  Guys that can break away from the OL having his arm tucked up under theirs with the jersey wrapped around their fist as I have seen a ton this season.

[GunnerBill]

1 minute ago, formerlyofCtown said:

Stronger is probably the better word.  Guys that can break away from the OL having his arm tucked up under theirs with the jersey wrapped around their fist as I have seen a ton this season.

 

I think at edge rusher we just need better. Whether that is bigger, stronger, larger, faster.... I don't think it matters. We are not good enough at that spot. Jerry is still our best edge rusher and he is 33. Tells you everything.

 

[formerlyofCtown]

1 minute ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I think at edge rusher we just need better. Whether that is bigger, stronger, larger, faster.... I don't think it matters. We are not good enough at that spot. Jerry is still our best edge rusher and he is 33. Tells you everything.

 

Jerry is still one of the best edge rushers in the league so 33 means nothing.  I don't think our ends are the problem.

[GunnerBill]

Just now, formerlyofCtown said:

Jerry is still one of the best edge rushers in the league so 33 means nothing.  I don't think our ends are the problem.

 

I'm not sure he is still one of the best in the league, but Jerry can still play, I'm not slating him. You said you thought we needed larger ends like 4 posts ago. I'm not a fan of our other edge players. Jefferson I think can play the "big end" role but has ended up in the rotation at DT, Addison is meh and Trent is garbage.