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For years many of us complained about the Bills not spending their money and the team not performing. There's likely a correlation between the two. And then this past year they spent plenty and will be up against the cap this upcoming year. Yet the team went 8 and 8 so maybe there is no correlation after all...
Personally, I'm glad we're spending for talent and retaining our own. We have a cap and should have been using it all along.
So we will be up against the cap next year. And it really starts a whole new problem that we haven't had in quite a while... making tough choices. We can't keep everyone. The cap will limit our ability to keep all the good players we already have and all the youngsters that have earned bigger deals.
So what now? What are the tough choices that you would make to have, maybe even maintain, a playoff caliber roster? It's now a matter of choices. What I don't want to do is to start watering down the talent again, gaining significant cap room, and then not re-investing it in the team.
Updated: The cap may go to 153. We have 7.7 which we can rollover. That puts the adjusted cap at 160.7.
Updated: Our top 51 is set to count 152.3.
Updated: That means we start with 8.4 mill in cap room
We're up against the cap and:
Glenn- UFA
Incognito- UFA
Bradham- UFA
Mario has a 19.9 mill cap hit but says he wants to come back and Rex said he wants him back
Kyle wants to come back
I'd let Bradham walk- This is a spot where UFA's are relatively less expensive and it's a position where it seems a bit easier to draft a solid starter.
Resigning Glenn and Incognito can't happen without moves. Releasing Mario doesn't provide enough room. That would give us 12.9 mill and Glenn could get a cap hit of 9 alone. Even if they could get Glenn and Incognito resigned to 12.9 in cap hit next year they still have no money to sign draftees and to fill our the rest of the roster. Beyond that we would be weaker as a whole if we cut Mario and simply keep Glenn and Incognito unless we could draft a player as good as the 15 version of Mario. We can't sign someone, again, no money.
Cut McKelvin? Urbik? Graham? Wood? Ok, that can give us cap room. But, like Mario, who then replaces them to keep the overall talent at a playoff caliber role.
My recipe would be this:
Cut Mario and recoup the 12.9 mill
Cut McKelvin which adds another 3.9
Cut Carpenter which adds 1.8
Cut Urbik which adds 1.8
You gain 20.4 in room.
Updated: That puts us at 28.8 mill in cap room
Resign Glenn to 8-9 mill in 2016 cap hit. That's Jason Peters level LT money
Resign Incognito to 5 mill in 2016 cap hit
That gives you 14.8 left
Updated: You need around 4.87 mill for draft picks
Updated: That leaves ~10 mill in room. That's about what will be needed to fill out the rest of the roster and still have a bit of room. But not enough for anything significant. Possibly a mid-level player at say LB like Demario Davis for maybe 4 mill in cap hit. We usually keep around 5 mill in room as a buffer. If we want to add anything significant it requires additional cuts.
I'd say we then have to draft:
Starting DE, Starting OLB, Starting K, and possibly a starting RT plus we'd need a backup G, OLB, DT, and ILB.
And the roster would be about the same maybe a bit weaker.
Gone are the days where we have money, can do anything, and don't need to make cuts to do it. So what would your tough choices be?
Personally, I'm glad we're spending for talent and retaining our own. We have a cap and should have been using it all along.
So we will be up against the cap next year. And it really starts a whole new problem that we haven't had in quite a while... making tough choices. We can't keep everyone. The cap will limit our ability to keep all the good players we already have and all the youngsters that have earned bigger deals.
So what now? What are the tough choices that you would make to have, maybe even maintain, a playoff caliber roster? It's now a matter of choices. What I don't want to do is to start watering down the talent again, gaining significant cap room, and then not re-investing it in the team.
Updated: The cap may go to 153. We have 7.7 which we can rollover. That puts the adjusted cap at 160.7.
Updated: Our top 51 is set to count 152.3.
Updated: That means we start with 8.4 mill in cap room
We're up against the cap and:
Glenn- UFA
Incognito- UFA
Bradham- UFA
Mario has a 19.9 mill cap hit but says he wants to come back and Rex said he wants him back
Kyle wants to come back
I'd let Bradham walk- This is a spot where UFA's are relatively less expensive and it's a position where it seems a bit easier to draft a solid starter.
Resigning Glenn and Incognito can't happen without moves. Releasing Mario doesn't provide enough room. That would give us 12.9 mill and Glenn could get a cap hit of 9 alone. Even if they could get Glenn and Incognito resigned to 12.9 in cap hit next year they still have no money to sign draftees and to fill our the rest of the roster. Beyond that we would be weaker as a whole if we cut Mario and simply keep Glenn and Incognito unless we could draft a player as good as the 15 version of Mario. We can't sign someone, again, no money.
Cut McKelvin? Urbik? Graham? Wood? Ok, that can give us cap room. But, like Mario, who then replaces them to keep the overall talent at a playoff caliber role.
My recipe would be this:
Cut Mario and recoup the 12.9 mill
Cut McKelvin which adds another 3.9
Cut Carpenter which adds 1.8
Cut Urbik which adds 1.8
You gain 20.4 in room.
Updated: That puts us at 28.8 mill in cap room
Resign Glenn to 8-9 mill in 2016 cap hit. That's Jason Peters level LT money
Resign Incognito to 5 mill in 2016 cap hit
That gives you 14.8 left
Updated: You need around 4.87 mill for draft picks
Updated: That leaves ~10 mill in room. That's about what will be needed to fill out the rest of the roster and still have a bit of room. But not enough for anything significant. Possibly a mid-level player at say LB like Demario Davis for maybe 4 mill in cap hit. We usually keep around 5 mill in room as a buffer. If we want to add anything significant it requires additional cuts.
I'd say we then have to draft:
Starting DE, Starting OLB, Starting K, and possibly a starting RT plus we'd need a backup G, OLB, DT, and ILB.
And the roster would be about the same maybe a bit weaker.
Gone are the days where we have money, can do anything, and don't need to make cuts to do it. So what would your tough choices be?
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