Parsons traded to Green Bay, given $188 million contract

[DrDawkinstein]

2 hours ago, RoscoeParrish said:

The GM is paid in part to predict the NFL landscape.

 

We spend every offseason discussing options of names that may be available.

 

Somehow, the Packers GM managed to sit on his hands enough to have the space to absorb Parsons.

 

The downside to extending all those young dudes earlier was that we tied up all our finances to make a move like this next to impossible. That’s a choice the GM made.

 

I mean, it's more luck than brains there since they simply dont have guys from the 2021 and 2022 drafts that deserve decent extensions. It's not a mystery of "somehow", it's due to mediocre/poor drafting prior.

 

There wasnt some strategic, brilliant decision to not pay their guys because they saw this coming. They didnt predict anything. 

[Lost]

1 hour ago, Ray Finkel said:

What would Bruce Smith’s salary be if he played today?  

 

Probably vet minimum.  I mean the guy is 62 years old!

[SCBills]

Fwiw, stepping back from the trade shock and seeing that they got Kenny Clark back….

 

Id be willing to give Jerry a “wait and see” on this trade if I’m a Dallas fan. 
 

Their Defense was going to be an issue this year up the middle and adding Clark now immediately helps solve that issue. 
 

Now we’ll have to see if they can get off the field on 3rd and 6, but they shouldn’t get run all over like in past years with Parsons. 
 

47M is so much money for a non-QB. 
 

Two first round picks, even if late, gives them a ton of draft ammo in draft classes expected to be stronger than recent years. 
 

Also… I think in the modern NFL passing game, stopping the run and getting pressure from DT’s is more valuable than an elite pass rusher.  Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa, Maxx Crosby etc are all good against the run too.  Parsons is a pure pass rusher. 
 

I can see why Beane wouldn’t offer two 1sts, that contract and Ed Oliver.  I would have, because we do have EDGE setters in Rousseau and Hoecht, along with recent investment at DT with Sanders and Walker, but I get it from the Cowboys perspective and I don’t really fault Beane for not making a better offer (assuming the Cowboys would rather trade him out of conference)… but we also don’t have a run stuffing DT to package, so maybe it was never a consideration. 

[RoscoeParrish]

20 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I mean, it's more luck than brains there since they simply dont have guys from the 2021 and 2022 drafts that deserve decent extensions. It's not a mystery of "somehow", it's due to mediocre/poor drafting prior.

 

There wasnt some strategic, brilliant decision to not pay their guys because they saw this coming. They didnt predict anything. 

They gave Zach Tom an $88M extension this offseason.

 

The real difference if you want to get into the nitty gritty is they don’t have a bunch of bad contracts eating up their 2025 space. 
 

Knox, Samuel and AJE basically cover Micah’s 2025 cap hit with about $10M to spare. Which is a big yikes, but nothing you can do about it now.

 

Anyway, I don’t agree that it’s luck. The Bills chose to give Benford, Bernard, Rousseau and Cook extensions this offseason. They did so because of the benefit of getting them potentially cheaper than when they were going to hit FA. In return, they sacrificed their financial flexibility to add a player like Parsons if they ever shook free. That’s how it works. Once you extend a Rousseau, you HAVE to pay him. They could have chosen not to, and they didn’t.

 

 

[DrDawkinstein]

1 minute ago, RoscoeParrish said:

They gave Zach Tom an $88M extension this offseason.

 

The real difference if you want to get into the nitty gritty is they don’t have a bunch of bad contracts eating up their 2025 space. 
 

Knox, Samuel and AJE basically cover Micah’s 2025 cap hit with about $10M to spare. Which is a big yikes, but nothing you can do about it now.

 

Anyway, I don’t agree that it’s luck. The Bills chose to give Benford, Bernard, Rousseau and Cook extensions this offseason. They did so because of the benefit of getting them potentially cheaper than when they were going to hit FA. In return, they sacrificed their financial flexibility to add a player like Parsons if they ever shook free. That’s how it works. Once you extend a Rousseau, you HAVE to pay him. They could have chosen not to, and they didn’t.

 

 

 

The luck part was referring to the Packers and how they somehow were in position to do this. To your point, they had 1 guy worth an extension. That was due to bad luck in mediocre drafting, and good luck of having resources when this trade opportunity, which no one, even Jerry Jones, thought would happen just 48 hours ago.

 

Yes, we chose to give all those guys extensions, because the alternative of waiting just in case a team gets dumb enough to trade their future HoFer Pass Rusher, which almost NEVER happens, would be worse mismanagement than what the Cowboys just pulled off.

 

I think we're saying the same thing. But there is no criticism of the Bills here. I wont criticize them for not predicting a rogue meteor, or lightning strike.

 

Had Jerry been in touch with reality at all and had Parsons available in March or April, the Bills would have been all over it. We wouldnt have signed Bosa, we wouldnt have spent all those picks on DL. We would have used those resources and more to try to get him.

 

 

[SCBills]

7 minutes ago, RoscoeParrish said:

They gave Zach Tom an $88M extension this offseason.

 

The real difference if you want to get into the nitty gritty is they don’t have a bunch of bad contracts eating up their 2025 space. 
 

Knox, Samuel and AJE basically cover Micah’s 2025 cap hit with about $10M to spare. Which is a big yikes, but nothing you can do about it now.

 

Anyway, I don’t agree that it’s luck. The Bills chose to give Benford, Bernard, Rousseau and Cook extensions this offseason. They did so because of the benefit of getting them potentially cheaper than when they were going to hit FA. In return, they sacrificed their financial flexibility to add a player like Parsons if they ever shook free. That’s how it works. Once you extend a Rousseau, you HAVE to pay him. They could have chosen not to, and they didn’t.

 

 

We all love extending homegrown guys, but this past years extension class needs to perform.  
 

Im not convinced any of them are future game changers.  
 

I have hope they all have an extra gear, and in Benford’s case, stops missing games in the playoffs.. but they were all relatively easy to get done (Cook aside) because they aren’t top tier players.  
 

…Which is the makeup of our team and why we don’t have a Parsons wingman for Josh.  Team is LOADED with B+/A- guys… as much as any team in the league.   But we don’t have at A+ guys to go with Josh.

 

Bengals do with Chase, Hendrickson and Higgins. 
 

Ravens do with Henry and Hamilton. 
 

Chiefs do with Jones (previously add Kelce and before that, add both of them and Tyreek). 
 

So when we couldn’t or wouldn’t make the move for Parsons to match/beat Green Bay’s offer.. it’s not because we’re paying a QB.  It’s because Beane has assembled a roster loaded with B+/A- talent around Josh and that isn’t cheap either. 
 

Guys have to make a jump though if we ever want to win a Super Bowl.  That starts with the extension class of ‘25.  
 

 

Edited August 29 by SCBills

[Niagara Dude]

I think it was a great move by Green Bay,  that money will even out as the cap continues to grow and they will have him locked up for his prime years until the age of 30.  The Bills should have gone all in,  because you need a defensive game wrecker and the AFC is a passing conference with Burrows/Mahomes/Jackson and a few others. Parsons is the type of player that can make a difference come playoff time when getting to the QB with 4 man rush matters.

 

Knox/ Oliver plus 2 firsts and one second would have got it done

[MikePJ76]

10 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Fwiw, stepping back from the trade shock and seeing that they got Kenny Clark back….

 

Id be willing to give Jerry a “wait and see” on this trade if I’m a Dallas fan. 
 

Their Defense was going to be an issue this year up the middle and adding Clark now immediately helps solve that issue. 
 

Now we’ll have to see if they can get off the field on 3rd and 6, but they shouldn’t get run all over like in past years with Parsons. 
 

47M is so much money for a non-QB. 
 

Two first round picks, even if late, gives them a ton of draft ammo in draft classes expected to be stronger than recent years. 
 

Also… I think in the modern NFL passing game, stopping the run and getting pressure from DT’s is more valuable than an elite pass rusher.  Myles Garrett, Nick Bosa, Maxx Crosby etc are all good against the run too.  Parsons is a pure pass rusher. 
 

I can see why Beane wouldn’t offer two 1sts, that contract and Ed Oliver.  I would have, because we do have EDGE setters in Rousseau and Hoecht, along with recent investment at DT with Sanders and Walker, but I get it from the Cowboys perspective and I don’t really fault Beane for not making a better offer (assuming the Cowboys would rather trade him out of conference)… but we also don’t have a run stuffing DT to package, so maybe it was never a consideration. 

Fair to point out that Clark plays the 3tech just like osa odighizuwa who they gave 20 million a year too.  
 

neither play the run that well.  
 

 

[RoscoeParrish]

4 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

The luck part was referring to the Packers and how they somehow were in position to do this. To your point, they had 1 guy worth an extension. That was due to bad luck in mediocre drafting, and good luck of having resources when this trade opportunity, which no one, even Jerry Jones, thought would happen just 48 hours ago.

 

Yes, we chose to give all those guys extensions, because the alternative of waiting just in case a team gets dumb enough to trade their future HoFer Pass Rusher, which almost NEVER happens, would be worse mismanagement than what the Cowboys just pulled off.

 

I think we're saying the same thing. But there is no criticism of the Bills here. I wont criticize them for not predicting a rogue meteor, or lightning strike.

 

Had Jerry been in touch with reality at all and had Parsons available in March or April, the Bills would have been all over it. We wouldnt have signed Bosa, we wouldnt have spent all those picks on DL. We would have used those resources and more to try to get him.

 

 

You seem to think it’s luck that the Packers didn’t give Watson Shakir money.

 

I’m saying it’s the trade off. Sometimes there’s a benefit to keeping your powder dry instead of throwing every last dollar at every single depth piece at the first opportunity.

 

the Packers could’ve signed a couple Josh Palmer/Joey Bosa/Larry O, Michael Hoect tier FAs this offseason. They had the money to do so. They did not. And they had the space to make a Parsons move.

 

That’s just a fact.

Edited August 29 by RoscoeParrish

[SoCal Deek]

I’m still reeling from the Von Miller ‘all in”’ experience. I’m more than okay that we didn’t mortgage the future for Micah. 

Edited August 29 by SoCal Deek

[SCBills]

6 minutes ago, RoscoeParrish said:

You seem to think it’s luck that the Packers didn’t give Watson Shakir money.

 

I’m saying it’s the trade off. Sometimes there’s a benefit to keeping your powder dry instead of throwing every last dollar at every single depth piece at the first opportunity.

 

the Packers could’ve signed a couple Josh Palmer/Joey Bosa/Larry O, Michael Hoect tier FAs this offseason. They had the money to do so. They did not. And they had the space to make a Parsons move.

 

That’s just a fact.

At some point this is who we are under Beane and McDermott. 
 

Fact is, that big swing was there.  I’m sure the Cowboys would’ve loved to send him out of conference.  And we couldn’t/wouldn’t pull it off.  
 

Now, Parsons is elite at rushing the passer, but he’s not Garrett, Bosa, Crosby.. those guys set the edge too.  
 

But.. at what he does, and what we’ve lacked.. it was a logical move.  That we wouldn’t or couldn’t make. 
 

And it’s because, at least to those who follow our roster building.. we prioritize building the most complete, deep roster of B+/A- talent, instead of getting Josh that wingman.  
 

And the hope is that philosophy gets us to the playoffs every year and at some point we eventually break through because (imo) we have the best player in the league at QB. 
 

That’s clearly our philosophy.  The move was there to be made and we couldn’t or wouldn’t. 

[Low Positive]

We're going to end up with more pages on this trade than the Packers and Cowboys boards.

[Draconator]

9 minutes ago, Low Positive said:

We're going to end up with more pages on this trade than the Packers and Cowboys boards.

Combined

[Sierra Foothills]

4 minutes ago, SCBills said:

Fact is, that big swing was there.  I’m sure the Cowboys would’ve loved to send him out of conference.  And we couldn’t/wouldn’t pull it off.  
 

That’s clearly our philosophy.  The move was there to be made and we couldn’t or wouldn’t. 

 

There are plenty of knowledgable NFL observers who are fine with the Bills not going all-in on Parsons and in fact think it would have been a mistake. Those people actually seem to be the majority.

 

I can't wait for the season to start... 20 pages of the same opinions going around like a carousel with nothing new being said... same thing over and over, pro or con.

 

[HappyDays]

3 hours ago, RoscoeParrish said:

Somehow, the Packers GM managed to sit on his hands enough to have the space to absorb Parsons.

 

The downside to extending all those young dudes earlier was that we tied up all our finances to make a move like this next to impossible. That’s a choice the GM made.

 

The Packers are in a completely different situation. Since the 2020 draft the only two homegrown players they've given big extensions to are Jordan Love and Zach Tom. And it isn't because they were saving the money for something else, they just flat out haven't drafted well.

 

By comparison over the same time period we've extended Brown, Rousseau, Cook, Benford, Shakir, and Bernard. Say what you want about those players, they are much better than the likes of Eric Stokes, Quay Walker, and Devonte Wyatt. If Green Bay had drafted better they would have extended their young players too, like every team does.

 

Not to mention the QBs of the respective teams. Allen's cap hits the next few years compared to Love's:

 

2025 - $36.3M vs $29.7M

2026 - $56.4M vs $36.2M

2027 - $53.1M vs $42.5M

 

The Bills are tied to Allen through 2030 no matter what. The Packers can get out of Love's contract in 2028 with a measley $15M dead cap hit so even assuming they rework his contract and extend him that year he will not have Josh Allen-sized cap hits on his contract until 2029 at the very earliest.

 

The argument you're making would also apply to the Ravens and Chiefs. But they're in the same boat we are. When you've drafted well and you're paying a tier 1 QB, you can't just absorb a $47M AAV contract without warning. It was never realistic.

[BarleyNY]

10 hours ago, QCity said:

 

Well he could get hurt and never return to form for starters. They devoted a ton of draft capital and cap space to him. There's a big difference between being a wildcard team that gets bounced in the 1st round and competing for a title.  He has to be the man. No idea where the 2-15 talk is coming from.

 

Two late first round picks is very little draft capital relative to acquiring a young, All Pro caliber edge rusher. Clark doesn’t move the needle much. He is on a very expensive contract relative to his production. GB ate almost everything already this season so Dallas has him for $3M in 2025. But that’s it. He’s over $20M after that so he’ll be cut. 

[Slippery Rubber Mats]

Parsons won't be worth 188mil and two 1sts.

 

Calling it.

[chris heff]

Jerry Jones thinks that making news is winning. In Cowboy world they have their own little dynasty. They are so desperate to be relevant, they produced the documentary series “America’s Team: The Gambler and His Cowboys”. They haven’t been America’s Team for decades. Since 1996 they have won seven playoff games, the Bills have won seven since 2018. Jones is living in the past, the glory days. I have no idea how this turns out, but I don’t see how this makes the Cowboys relevant. This story will last a week, the Cowboys will still be irrelevant. Which I for one love.

[DapperCam]

So would an equivalent deal from the Bills be either:
- Rousseau + 2 first round picks
OR

- Oliver + 2 first round picks

And then adding either 15m to the cap this year in Rousseau's case or 10m to the cap this year in Oliver's case.

I'm not sure what levers Beane has to clear up that cap space, but I understand why the Bills didn't do the deal. We already have Allen on a big cap hit and adding another big cap hit would really hurt our depth. And then you lose your draft capital, which would be your best opportunity to backfill the loss in depth cheaply.

[BarleyNY]

4 minutes ago, Slippery Rubber Mats said:

Parsons won't be worth 188mil and two 1sts.

 

Calling it.

What’s “worth it” to you in this context? Seems like you’ve got a lot of wiggle room there.