Free Agency - a reason for concern?

[Bill Brasky]

I think most of us were pumped to see the Bills have the highest amount of cap space to work with - other than SF. But what got me thinking is a couple factors:

1 - there are nearly 20 teams this offseason with 20+ million in cap space

2 - the FA pool is extremely week this year

What does this mean?

Honestly, I think it screws us.

There are maybe 50-100 decent players that will be on the market. That works out to less than 2-3 players per team, depending on how you do the math. This is going to create a huge bidding war and knowing how Ralph operates via Free Agency, I don't think this is a good sign for us.

I see a lot of average players getting above-average salaries, and teams with an average cap figure still being able to lure guys via huge bonuses.

Even worse, some of the good teams with bad cap situations (IE Indy, BAL) can afford to bypass Free Agency because they don't need to improve that much. This means they can essentially save $$ for a forthcoming year with better talent to be had... and the good teams with great cap situations (IE NE, DAL) can afford to toss a lot of money - even if just for 1 impact player - to a guy who's talent might not justify his inflated pay increase.

I'd like to look at this optimistically, but I really feel like we have a good chance at getting dicked this year and will be forced to build through the draft as always.

Even worse - it could really screw the league up even more now that "average" athletes are going to get "superstar" money.

[THATHURMANATOR]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Building through the draft is the best choice anyways. Adding a couple complimentary players and build from within. That is the way to go!

[Bill Brasky]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

I don't mind it, but it hasn't helped us as of late... though I'm willing to give Marv the benefit of the doubt.

I'd still like to see the Bills be able to land a big-name guy in Free Agency, I just don't see it happening at all this year.

[THATHURMANATOR]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

dont turn into TD on me man

[TacklingDummy]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

I think most of us were pumped to see the Bills have the highest amount of cap space to work with - other than SF. But what got me thinking is a couple factors:

1 - there are nearly 20 teams this offseason with 20+ million in cap space

2 - the FA pool is extremely week this year

What does this mean?

Honestly, I think it screws us.

There are maybe 50-100 decent players that will be on the market. That works out to less than 2-3 players per team, depending on how you do the math. This is going to create a huge bidding war and knowing how Ralph operates via Free Agency, I don't think this is a good sign for us.

I see a lot of average players getting above-average salaries, and teams with an average cap figure still being able to lure guys via huge bonuses.

Even worse, some of the good teams with bad cap situations (IE Indy, BAL) can afford to bypass Free Agency because they don't need to improve that much. This means they can essentially save $$ for a forthcoming year with better talent to be had... and the good teams with great cap situations (IE NE, DAL) can afford to toss a lot of money - even if just for 1 impact player - to a guy who's talent might not justify his inflated pay increase.

I'd like to look at this optimistically, but I really feel like we have a good chance at getting dicked this year and will be forced to build through the draft as always.

Even worse - it could really screw the league up even more now that "average" athletes are going to get "superstar" money.

Great post. I agree 100%.

[OpIv37]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

the problem with building through the draft is that it takes time, and in the era of FA, there isn't any time. By the time you fix one aspect of your team, another aspect is hurting cuz guys either got old or left via FA. It's essential to draft well to be successful in the NFL (that's why NE's always good and Detroit always sucks), but there comes a point where you have to plug some holes with FA's to win.

And that's where the Bills will get screwed. I had the exact same thought as freeman about FA this year- I think Marv will attempt to be active in FA but he'll lose out to higher bidders more often than not.

[patmoran2006]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Building through the draft is the best choice anyways. Adding a couple complimentary players and build from within. That is the way to go!

"Complimentary" players as in players that actually make a difference on Sundays?

Or "Complimentary" players such as Matt Bowens, Robert Royal, Craig Nall, Tutan Reyes, Kiwaukee Thomas, etc?

[HHURRICANE]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

This year sucks. Period. You will see a ton of average players get above average salaries. Kelsay comes to mind.

I think where you screw your own team is overpaying for a marginal player, like LB. Because than you have three other guys at the same position that are all pissed off and harder to resign when ther time comes. I would only try to sign guys that were at the top of their position like Briggs or Steinbach where nobody can compare their value. That's why I liked the Spikes signing at the time.

[madness]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Building through the draft is the best choice anyways. Adding a couple complimentary players and build from within. That is the way to go!

Exactly, Marv is starting what Polian just finished. How's Edge doing these days? FA is overrated. Teams think a big FA will put them over the top and it just doesn't work that way.

[OpIv37]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Exactly, Marv is starting what Polian just finished. How's Edge doing these days? FA is overrated. Teams think a big FA will put them over the top and it just doesn't work that way.

football is not basketball- one big name can't come in and turn a struggling team around. But if you're a mediocre team with a few huge holes like Buffalo, a big name FA can come in and fill that hole, and make a world of difference.

An FA or two isn't the difference between 2-14 and 14-2, but it very well could be the difference between 7-9 and a wild card.

[Jan Reimers]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

"Complimentary" players as in players that actually make a difference on Sundays?

Or "Complimentary" players such as Matt Bowens, Robert Royal, Craig Nall, Tutan Reyes, Kiwaukee Thomas, etc?

Actually, Price, Triplett and Fowler were pretty good, and Kiwaukee Thomas, A-Train and Royal weren't bad. Nall may end up being our number 2 QB this year, too.

I'd take another FA class just like last year - provided we draft as well, too.

[DraftBoy]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Actually, Price, Triplett and Fowler were pretty good, and Kiwaukee Thomas, A-Train and Royal weren't bad. Nall may end up being our number 2 QB this year, too.

I'd take another FA class just like last year - provided we draft as well, too.

I agree with this statement

[OpIv37]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Actually, Price, Triplett and Fowler were pretty good, and Kiwaukee Thomas, A-Train and Royal weren't bad. Nall may end up being our number 2 QB this year, too.

I'd take another FA class just like last year - provided we draft as well, too.

what games were you watching? Price was an ok #3 making #2 money. Tripplett started and finished horribly- he had about 3 good games in the second half of the season and that was it. Royal flat-out blew. He had a ton of ill-timed drops and there were several games where he had more penalty yards than receiving yards.

K Thomas, A-Train and Fowler were alright- they did what was asked of them. But they were role players who did not improve the team significantly. I'm not complaining about them by any means, but I simply think we need an impact player or two this time around to get better.

Oh, and Nall as a #2 scares the living **** out of me. We're basically betting the farm on Losman a) staying healthy and b) not completely sucking. Nall has literally no game experience. If Losman gets hurt or benched for more than 3 weeks, the season's over.

[patmoran2006]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

Actually, Price, Triplett and Fowler were pretty good, and Kiwaukee Thomas, A-Train and Royal weren't bad. Nall may end up being our number 2 QB this year, too.

I'd take another FA class just like last year - provided we draft as well, too.

Jan...

I respect your opinions and I enjoy reading your posts on this board. But I think you are entirely off base to suggest that last year's FA class was a success, which I'm assuming is your thinking when you say you'd take another class just like last year.


Matt Bowens was such a good signing at safety following Milloy’s release that we went out and drafted another safety with the 8^th pick and another safety later in the draft. This was BEFORE his injury as well. I don’t want to hear about his special teams prowess either because Wire and Leonard are just as good. He wasn’t worth a nickel.


Craig Nall was given a $1.3 million signing bonus and didn’t even see a down the entire season. Even despite a hamstring injury, he wasn’t able to unseat Holcomb. That’s about 3X too much money for a third string quarterback.


Larry Tripplett considering he was the one player we gave league-wide market value to, was a bust as far as I’m concerned. He made a couple of nice plays but literally went WEEKS without making a big play. In fact, I remember at one point he went more than seven games without a tackle behind the line of scrimmage. I’m afraid he’s a decent player but his success in Indy was more of a product of playing with Freeney. Unfortunately, I fear to death the same deal happens with McCargo, who looked great in college next to Mario Williams.


Robert Royal was a complete disaster with critical dropped passes and penalties at the most inopportune times—not to mention I think he was totally overated as a blocker by this organization. Not that a TE should be blocking Dwight Freeney, but his missed block probably costed us the Indy game. His dropped pass probably costed us the game against Tennesee and his stupid holding penalty against NE was a back breaker as well.


Peerless Price and Josh Reed were given higher salaries and signing bonuses than their play warranted. Yes, Price did have a couple of key TD’s (Minn and Houston), but more often than not you’d see the 2 catches for 17 yards line on his stat-sheet. He’s not a legit #2 WR to me and hasn’t been in four years now. Reed was a decent signing as a backup WR, because that’s what he is. But I don’t know a ton of backup WR’s that get $10 million/$2.5 million signing bonus contracts. Both these WR’s (IMO) are “serviceable” at best.


Tutan Reyes, yet another example of the Bills last year plucking some other team’s garbage was given the starting left guard spot, and by the last quarter of the season he wasn’t even good enough to put his uniform on, let alone contribute to the team.


Kiwaukee Thomas became our third corner, more by default than anything once Ashton Youboty wasn’t ready. Maybe I’m wrong but I hardly remember him making any kind of impact in a game.

I’ll give you Fowler. He got a salary on par with an average center in the NFL, and that’s how he played… Average. He’s not a bad player, certainly good enough to move forward with.

So that leaves one legit OL, a special teams player (Andre Davis) and a backup RB (A-Train) as our best FA signings. Call me indifferent, but that’s pretty pathetic.


I’m not sure you how can say you’re hoping for a repeat of last season when it comes to FA. If you look at ALL the players we signed, the stone-cold truth is that except for Larry Tripplett, we basically signed a collection of players that were total cast-offs from their teams that had no interest in them at all. I mean literally, look at these guys again.. They were basically garbage picked by Levy, likely under the tight purse of Wilson.


This team won 7 games last year because of two reasons:

1- The young guys (Losman, Evans, Whither, Simpson, Peters) really stepped it up as the season progressed.
2- We still had enough veteran leadership to win a couple of games late. Say what you will about Clements, there wasn’t a CB in the NFL better than him the last 5-6 games of the season. Naturally, he was playing for a new contract. Fletcher as usual was the team’s best defensive player (though one could argue Schobel). Regardless, Fletcher made big plays.


We all know both players are gone. We also know that Buffalo is near the top of the league when it comes to cap space. And we also know that if they can fill up some of their holes that they can become legit playoff contenders.


So having said that, I hope Levy doesn’t go the route of garbage picking again from other teams and signs less players, but with less players I mean guys who are going to make a HUGE difference. WE could EASILY afford to go out and get a new RG, TE, DE and LB via Free Agency. Gimme 3-4 quality starters in FA rather than a dozen bums.


I’m in total agreement with you about the draft. If Youboty and McCargo develop into good pro’s, 2006 could go down as one of the Bills best draft classes ever.

[Jan Reimers]

Re: Free Agency - a reason for concern?

what games were you watching?

As a season ticket holder and an NFL Sunday Ticket subscriber, all of them.

While I wasn't always happy with each and every player's performance - FAs, draft picks and others - I've come to understand that no team has an All Pro at every position. Good teams have a core of key guys supplemented by solid pros and role players.

I think that's where we are headed.