According to Andrew Brandt, the former Packers executive who runs the National Football Post website, the Bills are one of 4 teams that didn't carry over all their unused cap room from last year to this year. Brandt, who breaks down financial matters having to do with the NFL in his excellent column, the Bills lost $5M in cap room.
Here is the relevant part:
LINK
Here is the relevant part:
As expected, most teams used these maneuvers to dial down their Cap room to minimal levels at the end of the season. However, in what appears to be a precedent-setting move, it appears that four teams left over $40M of Cap room on the table.
According to Salary Cap data, the Buffalo Bills and Atlanta Falcons did not use roughly $5M each of Cap room, the Cincinnati Bengals did not use $10.8M of Cap room and, astonishingly, the Kansas City Chiefs elected to not carry forward almost $22M of available Cap room to 2009, preferring to leave their money on the table in 2008, never to be used again.
With a projected $123M Cap for 2009, all of these teams are presently showing less than $100M of committed Cap expenses for the year, so having extra room does not appear to be a problem. However, from a football operations point of view, it is always better to have as much flexibility as possible, which these teams appear not to be doing.
It will be interesting to see the union’s reaction to over $43M of available Cap room being flushed away with the end of the 2008 Cap year, never to be heard from again. $43M can pay a lot of players…
According to Salary Cap data, the Buffalo Bills and Atlanta Falcons did not use roughly $5M each of Cap room, the Cincinnati Bengals did not use $10.8M of Cap room and, astonishingly, the Kansas City Chiefs elected to not carry forward almost $22M of available Cap room to 2009, preferring to leave their money on the table in 2008, never to be used again.
With a projected $123M Cap for 2009, all of these teams are presently showing less than $100M of committed Cap expenses for the year, so having extra room does not appear to be a problem. However, from a football operations point of view, it is always better to have as much flexibility as possible, which these teams appear not to be doing.
It will be interesting to see the union’s reaction to over $43M of available Cap room being flushed away with the end of the 2008 Cap year, never to be heard from again. $43M can pay a lot of players…
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