RB and WR markets are actually insane.

[Billzgobowlin]

20 hours ago, FireChans said:

There's some market inefficiencies to take advantage of here.

 

First, let's set the stage:

 

In 2018, the salary cap was 177M. In 2025, its 279M.

 

In 2018, one of the best RB's of his era, Todd Gurley, who was second in MVP voting signed a massive extension.

 

That extension was 4 years for 57M.  An AAV of of $14M. 21M guaranteed at signing (with more guarantees later if he made the team). A record setting contract.

 

Those numbers, TODAY, would make him the 4th highest paid running back in the league. So when we are talking about a Cook extension, and how that fits in the salary cap, just remember, he is asking for a little more than 2018 Todd Gurley money with a $100M more in salary cap space.

 

Now, of course, other contracts have been inflated. QBs make more than ever. WR's make more than ever.

 

Odell Beckham set the WR market in 2018. He signed a 5 year, 95M deal, with 18M AAV and 41M in GTD.

 

in 2025, that would make him tied for the 20th highest paid WR, right next to Christian Kirk (who inked his deal in 2022). The guarantees are even close, with Kirk getting $37M over 4 years of his deal.

 

So what conclusions can we draw from this?

 

Nothing that we didn't already know. The NFL at large has decided that running backs aren't valuable and that WR's are crazy valuable.

 

However, I would argue that this points to a strategy to take advantage of NFL decision-making at large. In a league where there is 1 winner and 31 losers, you don't want to follow the pack. 

 

I suggest the Bills SHOULD meet Cook in the middle if he would take $15M AAV.  We don't have a WR worth $30M. We aren't sure we ever will, and we aren't sure that we would pay them even if we did.

 

I would also suggest the Bills should NEVER pay a WR anything ever. There is no point in playing in a market where JAGs or good players are having their value this inflated. I don't know where the WR carousel ends, but I don't want to be on it when it does. 

 

 

The reason the market has been so inflated is because of the RB.  Should not have to pay Cook as a top3 RB if he has not proved it yet.  He needs to show that he can carry the offense without Josh Allen to be in that range.

[BarleyNY]

12 hours ago, FireChans said:

Of course they do.

 

Usually, those projections are based on past performance at the time of signing. Not future performance that is completely unknowable at the time of signing.

 

So saying Darnell Mooney got paid by the Falcons because he had a 1000 yard season with the Falcons is completely nonsensical. 

 

Wow. This is pretty rudimentary stuff. I’m surprised to see you have so much trouble with it. You have a terrible misunderstanding of how NFL scouting works if you think pro personnel scouts simply look a WR’s previous yardage totals to determine their value. They look at film to determine how well that player is doing their job, independent of how those around them perform. They saw that Mooney, for example, was performing well even though his QB wasn’t and the offense he was in was a joke. So they paid him like a 1k WR - and lo and behold - that what he turned out to be for them in their offense. 

[FireChans]

1 minute ago, BarleyNY said:

 

Wow. This is pretty rudimentary stuff. I’m surprised to see you have so much trouble with it. You have a terrible misunderstanding of how NFL scouting works if you think pro personnel scouts simply look a WR’s previous yardage totals to determine their value. They look at film to determine how well that player is doing their job, independent of how those around them perform. They saw that Mooney, for example, was performing well even though his QB wasn’t and the offense he was in was a joke. So they paid him like a 1k WR - and lo and behold - that what he turned out to be for them in their offense. 

No one said they just looked at yardage.

 

what we both know they didn’t look at is what they did AFTER they signed the contract. Same thing with Ridley. 

[BarleyNY]

16 minutes ago, FireChans said:

No one said they just looked at yardage.

 

what we both know they didn’t look at is what they did AFTER they signed the contract. Same thing with Ridley. 

Then why do you keep brining up their previous yardage as support for your argument that teams overpaid them? One of us realizes that teams properly evaluated those players and paid them accordingly. Obviously their performances with their new teams supports that. 

[FireChans]

5 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

Then why do you keep brining up their previous yardage as support for your argument that teams overpaid them? One of us realizes that teams properly evaluated those players and paid them accordingly. Obviously their performances with their new teams supports that. 

Yeah, they were right, and the Jags were wrong. They could have been wrong and the Jags right. NONE of them knew it at the time.

 

That doesn’t make the market any less wild for a guy with back to back 400 yard seasons. That’s Josh Palmer production.
 

FWIW, I liked Mooney as an offseason target, and thought he would be overlooked because of how putrid Justin Fields is, but he got the same deal that a twice as productive WR on a Super Bowl contender got. 
 

To me, that’s evidence the WR market is kinda nuts. Maybe you disagree. That’s cool

[Coach Tuesday]

What it means is that the Bills (and all other teams) should be loading up on receivers in every draft, because it’s an arbitrage opportunity - if any of them hit, you get guaranteed cheap labor at an expensive premium position.  And by the same token, they should stop wasting draft picks on RBs every year (except this one), because you can find decent options in the $1 CD bin.

Edited 11 hours ago by Coach Tuesday

[Shaw66]

38 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

Then why do you keep brining up their previous yardage as support for your argument that teams overpaid them? One of us realizes that teams properly evaluated those players and paid them accordingly. Obviously their performances with their new teams supports that. 

I've been looking at this thread off and on. You're correct about what you're saying, and it even goes beyond that and.

 

It isn't simply about evaluating film of the player in question, and it certainly isn't about paying for past performance.  It's about how a team wants its offense to work and what kind of talent best fits that offensive philosophy. How much more poorly will the offense perform, for example, with Davis carrying the load at running back rather than Cook.

 

And it even goes beyond that. It's also about how best to spend the limited dollars that are available. The real question is how much better will my team perform per dollar invested in any particular player. That's why quarterbacks get more dollars than other positions, because the quality of the quarterback has a bigger impact on the quality of the teams play than the quality of the running back. That's why left tackles get paid more than guards.

 

I think in the Bills case they have made it very clear that at least relative to other teams, they think the quality of the team is best improved by spending dollars on positions other than wide receiver and running back. All of this means that discussions that view Cook in a vacuum and that look simply about how good he is and how much the Bills need to pay to keep him are more simplistic than the actual conversations that are taking place at One Bills Drive.

[BarleyNY]

32 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Yeah, they were right, and the Jags were wrong. They could have been wrong and the Jags right. NONE of them knew it at the time.

 

That doesn’t make the market any less wild for a guy with back to back 400 yard seasons. That’s Josh Palmer production.
 

FWIW, I liked Mooney as an offseason target, and thought he would be overlooked because of how putrid Justin Fields is, but he got the same deal that a twice as productive WR on a Super Bowl contender got. 
 

To me, that’s evidence the WR market is kinda nuts. Maybe you disagree. That’s cool

 

I see that you are still bringing up previous seasons’ yardage as your only argument wrt to these WR contracts. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

 

As for Davis, I said it was a terrible contract at the time. That was based on watching him play every NFL game he had played to that point - not his yardage. So, yes, the Jags made a big mistake. The brass there probably felt pressured to make a move at WR because they were all on the chopping block. That’s a prime place for market inefficiencies to show up. But it isn’t indicative of the broader market. It’s an outlier. 

[FireChans]

8 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

 

I see that you are still bringing up previous seasons’ yardage as your only argument wrt to these WR contracts. I can explain it to you, but I can’t understand it for you.

 

As for Davis, I said it was a terrible contract at the time. That was based on watching him play every NFL game he had played to that point - not his yardage. So, yes, the Jags made a big mistake. The brass there probably felt pressured to make a move at WR because they were all on the chopping block. That’s a prime place for market inefficiencies to show up. But it isn’t indicative of the broader market. It’s an outlier. 

Aieee.

 

If Darnell Mooney had better QB play in 2023 and put up 800 yards and 7 TDs, would he have gotten more or less money than he did?

 

Are we pretending like teams don’t care about production at all?

 

Like I said, for the 10th time, obviously the evaluation for a player like Mooney went beyond his production. Otherwise he would have gotten less money. 

[LEBills]

21 hours ago, FireChans said:

I think at this point, the Bills are not going to chase a $30M WR like DK while Josh is here.

 

I would have less of a problem with an elite WR making elite money, but I think where the rubber meets the road is the "middle class" of WR's, that are also inflated relative to value.

 

The 32nd highest paid WR is making $11M AAV. That's 4% of the cap.

 

I can't easily pull the numbers, but in 2018, it was definitely less. John Brown was making like 2%. 

 

Personally, I would rather have Cook + OL and no Palmer. Just draft guys at WRs.  FA WRs aren't worth it.  See: Samuel, Curtis.

I agree with your OP and this. James Cook should be paid the 15 mil AAV he is looking for by the Bills. 
 

there absolutely is an inefficiency at RB for top running backs, which Cook is one. He accounted for over 20% of our total yards last year and more than 29% of our playoff yardage. At 15 million he would only account for 5.4% of the cap. 

 

In addition to being an exceptional producer, he also was very efficient. He averaged the 6th highest ypc in the league for RBs with the only non-rookie contract players ahead of him being Barkley and Henry. He also is underutilized as a pass catcher, where he ranked 12 overall among running backs in yards per route run (1.86) which was higher than Ty Johnson (1.73). Add to that being very young and having very low use age compared to most of these top backs, I think a second contract for him will be pretty safe and profitable.

 

The argument that you can easily replace running back production I do think is accurate if you have a low end starter. The other aspect to remember is that getting that replacement does cost either cap space or likely draft capital. Beane has shown a willingness to spend day 2 picks on running backs and we had to spend thirds on Singletary and Moss before finally hitting on a good player in Cook in the second round. Signing cook prevents Beane from likely using another premium pick on a replacement running back who likey won’t be as good.

 

As this relates to WR, the market is still very strong with 5 of the top 10 non-QB contracts being WRs. This high end has certainly caused the middle class WRs be getting more than they are worth. Shakir is an amazing contract for us that was a great job by Beane. But it is very unlikely Josh Palmer is going to live up to the 12 million/year in the fans eyes imo (the coaching staff may feel different like they did with Gabe). WRs switching teams via FA rarely do better than they did in their first stop in the modern NFL. 
 

I do think we will see (and are starting to see) a running back-ification of the WR position. There are just so many good WRs in each draft with how much passing has taken over college football that the replaceability of mid tier WRs is easier. Teams like the Packers and Chiefs have already started the process of getting rid of their top WRs and just filling the room with highly drafted rookies. I hope we take adding draft picks to the WR room seriously going forward because that is a multi-year project to stay ahead of this curve. Probably need to draft a top 4 round WR each year going forward since I agree that we likely won’t spend a top tier contract on a WR in the foreseeable future.

[BarleyNY]

39 minutes ago, Shaw66 said:

I've been looking at this thread off and on. You're correct about what you're saying, and it even goes beyond that and.

 

It isn't simply about evaluating film of the player in question, and it certainly isn't about paying for past performance.  It's about how a team wants its offense to work and what kind of talent best fits that offensive philosophy. How much more poorly will the offense perform, for example, with Davis carrying the load at running back rather than Cook.

 

And it even goes beyond that. It's also about how best to spend the limited dollars that are available. The real question is how much better will my team perform per dollar invested in any particular player. That's why quarterbacks get more dollars than other positions, because the quality of the quarterback has a bigger impact on the quality of the teams play than the quality of the running back. That's why left tackles get paid more than guards.

 

I think in the Bills case they have made it very clear that at least relative to other teams, they think the quality of the team is best improved by spending dollars on positions other than wide receiver and running back. All of this means that discussions that view Cook in a vacuum and that look simply about how good he is and how much the Bills need to pay to keep him are more simplistic than the actual conversations that are taking place at One Bills Drive.

 

Well said. And while we all can argue whether the Bills SHOULD be building the team that way, there shouldn’t be any debate about the fact that they ARE building it that way. 

[Shaw66]

6 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

 

And while we all can argue whether the Bills SHOULD be building the team that way, there shouldn’t be any debate about the fact that they ARE building it that way. 

That's a point I've been trying to make around here for a couple of years now. My own opinion is that the Bills have had so much success in the last 5 years that it's hard for me to argue that their philosophy about how to build a team is wrong. That's not to say that there is no room for argument, because there certainly is. For example, I have said for a long time the same thing several other people say, namely, the bills need a difference maker on the defensive side of the ball and Beane's only attempt to get one, Miller, didn't work out. 

 

But with respect to running back, I think it's quite clear that the Bills philosophy is that it is not wise to spend big dollars for a difference maker at that position. And that was my point in this thread - it isn't enough to say that Cook is worth x million dollars. He may be worth that in the market, but within the Bills system he is not.

Edited 10 hours ago by Shaw66

[BarleyNY]

30 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Aieee.

 

If Darnell Mooney had better QB play in 2023 and put up 800 yards and 7 TDs, would he have gotten more or less money than he did?

 

Are we pretending like teams don’t care about production at all?

 

Like I said, for the 10th time, obviously the evaluation for a player like Mooney went beyond his production. Otherwise he would have gotten less money. 

 

I think his contract would have been about the same. Now, would he be a player for teams to look at and think “Hey, maybe we can get a deal here since his numbers don’t match his actual performance.” But there were obviously enough teams that actually did their homework on him to get his market to where it should have been. 

[FireChans]

31 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

 

I think his contract would have been about the same. Now, would he be a player for teams to look at and think “Hey, maybe we can get a deal here since his numbers don’t match his actual performance.” But there were obviously enough teams that actually did their homework on him to get his market to where it should have been. 

Fair enough.

 

Here are the contracts that I believe were wild over pays the last 3 years.

 

Allen Lazard 4 for 44M

DHop 2 for 26M

OBJ 1 for 15M

Harty 2 for 9.5M

Samuel 3 for 24M

Gabe 3 for 39M

Diggs 3 for 63M (technically less I know)

Adams 2 for 44M

Palmer 3 for 29M

 

I wouldn’t have wanted the Bills to do any of these deals. Agree?

 

These are the majority of big deals signed from 2023 to now. They are mostly bad. I think it’s a bad market.

Edited 9 hours ago by FireChans

[BarleyNY]

50 minutes ago, FireChans said:

Fair enough.

 

Here are the contracts that I believe were wild over pays the last 3 years.

 

Allen Lazard 4 for 44M

DHop 2 for 26M

OBJ 1 for 15M

Harty 2 for 9.5M

Samuel 3 for 24M

Gabe 3 for 39M

Diggs 3 for 63M (technically less I know)

Adams 2 for 44M

Palmer 3 for 29M

 

I wouldn’t have wanted the Bills to do any of these deals. Agree?

 

These are the majority of big deals signed from 2023 to now. They are mostly bad. I think it’s a bad market.

 

I am not going to dig into all of those. But teams usually overpay in free agency - especially at the very start. I do remember being shocked that OBJ got $15M from the Ravens for one season. His one year $3M from Miami is much more in line with what he’s worth now. 

 

I am going to lump the Bills’ signings of Palmer, Samuel and Harty together. I’m on record saying they were all overpays - though with Samuel it was more injury risk than ability. OTOH I think the Elijah Moore contract is a very good deal. The timing of those deals should be noted. The first three were done at the very beginning of free agency. Moore’s was after the market had settled.

 

I think the Bills have been willing to overpay to make sure they fill the roles they want for their offense. They really don’t want to take any chances on taking a step back. They are one of the highest cash spending teams so that mitigates the issues overspending would typically bring. But they aren’t maximizing the use of their spending though. 

[Sierra Foothills]

5 minutes ago, BarleyNY said:

I am going to lump the Bills’ signings of Palmer, Samuel and Harty together. I’m on record saying they were all overpays - though with Samuel it was more injury risk than ability. OTOH I think the Elijah Moore contract is a very good deal. The timing of those deals should be noted. The first three were done at the very beginning of free agency. Moore’s was after the market had settled. I think the Bills have been willing to overpay to make sure they fill the roles they want for their offense. They really don’t want to take any chances on taking a step back. They are one of the highest cash spending teams so that mitigates the issues overspending would typically bring. But they aren’t maximizing the use of their spending though. 

 

So just to go full circle, the Bills have recently overpaid for wide receivers in free agency who have not yet panned out but they can't reach an agreement with James Cook who was a huge part of the offense and a homegrown guy who had 18 TD last year including runs of 65, 49, 46, and 41 yards.

 

I appreciate that a well-run team has to exercise contract discipline but if they're gonna overpay, who best to overpay?

 

Also, what is the projected return on investment for any given contract?

 

[Doc Brown]

2 hours ago, Coach Tuesday said:

What it means is that the Bills (and all other teams) should be loading up on receivers in every draft, because it’s an arbitrage opportunity - if any of them hit, you get guaranteed cheap labor at an expensive premium position.  And by the same token, they should stop wasting draft picks on RBs every year (except this one), because you can find decent options in the $1 CD bin.

Beane's drafted four running backs in the top three rounds since 2018.  So it's half of his drafts so far.  It's the best way to get value out of a RB as you're likely drafting a first/second round talent a full round later who will usually be more NFL ready than any other position.  He's already in his prime years physically and will shortly fall off a cliff after his first contract.  Go get your Cook replacement in the 2nd or 3rd round next year and hopefully get a comp pick for him.  Use the draft pick the same way as Cook and four years later wash, lither repeat.  I do agree that Beane should take more shots in both trading for possible #1 WR's and making it more of a priority each draft.

Edited 8 hours ago by Doc Brown

[LEBills]

12 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

Beane's drafted four running backs in the top three rounds since 2018.  So it's half of his drafts so far.  It's the best way to get value out of a RB as you're likely drafting a first/second round talent a full round later who will usually be more NFL ready than any other position.  He's already in his prime years physically and will shortly fall off a cliff after his first contract.  Go get your Cook replacement in the 2nd or 3rd round next year and hopefully get a comp pick for him.  Use him the same way as Cook and then four years later and then wash, lither repeat.  I do agree that Beane should take more shots in both trading for possible #1 WR's and making it more of a priority each draft.

I believe it’s been 3, though Davis was a 4th rounder.

 

Personally I’d rather keep Cook and spend a 2nd or 3rd rounder on a position that gets paid more on their second contract. Especially since I think Cook has been the only really good RB we have hit on in those 3 or 4 picks so far.

[Sierra Foothills]

12 minutes ago, Doc Brown said:

Beane's drafted four running backs in the top three rounds since 2018.  So it's half of his drafts so far.  It's the best way to get value out of a RB as you're likely drafting a first/second round talent a full round later who will usually be more NFL ready than any other position.  He's already in his prime years physically and will shortly fall off a cliff after his first contract.  Go get your Cook replacement in the 2nd or 3rd round next year and hopefully get a comp pick for him.  Use him the same way as Cook and then four years later and then wash, lither repeat.  I do agree that Beane should take more shots in both trading for possible #1 WR's and making it more of a priority each draft.

 

The downside of the strategy you describe is that the Bills got middling returns on Devin Singletary and Zack Moss and it's too early to say how Ray Davis will pan out.

 

The James Cook pick appears to be a home run and if they let him walk, he'll more likely be replaced with another Singletary/Moss/Davis than another James Cook.

 

The argument implied by many here is that the Bills can get 90% of Cook's productivity at a fraction of the cost... but that 10% productivity loss might be the difference between a true weapon and just another solid back.

 

[Doc Brown]

14 minutes ago, Sierra Foothills said:

 

The downside of the strategy you describe is that the Bills got middling returns on Devin Singletary and Zack Moss and it's too early to say how Ray Davis will pan out.

 

The James Cook pick appears to be a home run and if they let him walk, he'll more likely be replaced with another Singletary/Moss/Davis than another James Cook.

 

The argument implied by many here is that the Bills can get 90% of Cook's productivity at a fraction of the cost... but that 10% productivity loss might be the difference between a true weapon and just another solid back.

 

I disagree here.  Cook was a 2nd rounder compared to those three and had a different profile as a smaller but more explosive back that could take it to the house if able to get to that second level.  You can find a lot of those in the draft in the first few rounds every year.  It's no guarantee that the drafted RB will give you close to or even over exceed what we had in Cook but when managing a roster that's how I'd approach the RB position.

20 minutes ago, LEBills said:

I believe it’s been 3, though Davis was a 4th rounder.

 

Personally I’d rather keep Cook and spend a 2nd or 3rd rounder on a position that gets paid more on their second contract. Especially since I think Cook has been the only really good RB we have hit on in those 3 or 4 picks so far.

Shoot.  I forgot that Beane was allowed to have 4th round picks at the time when they drafted Davis.  My mistake.  Would I hate it if Cook signed between $10 and $12m per year?  Probably.  I wouldn't kill Beane for it though. 

Edited 7 hours ago by Doc Brown