Bills declined to match two-year, $6.4 million offer sheet for Gillslee

[daryls61]

TD Mike is gone. He is now a Cheatriot.

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[Joe Fo Sho]

Good, we shouldn't have matched.

[streetkings01]

We found 2 productive running backs in Karlos Williams & Mike Gillislee the same season.........not worried at all.

[Buffalogic]

Don't like this.

[YardRat]

Buh-bye.

[Ed]

If it was any other team I wouldn't care that much, but I just hate that he's a Patriot.

If the Bills can trade down and get an extra pick or two, I wouldn't mind seeing them use their 2nd round pick on RB Alvin Kamara if he's available.

[OpIv37]

Good, we shouldn't have matched.

Well, we should have offered him the higher tender so NE would have had to give up a 2nd to sign him and we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. But Whaley and Overdorf have mismanaged the cap so badly that they couldn't spare the extra $900 k for the 2nd round tender.

The real issue here isn't whether we should or shouldn't have matched. It's the myriad of errors that got us here in the first place.

[Forward_Lateral]

Just another complete cluster fudge by this Mickey Mouse organization

[Joe Fo Sho]

Well, we should have offered him the higher tender so NE would have had to give up a 2nd to sign him and we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place. But Whaley and Overdorf have mismanaged the cap so badly that they couldn't spare the extra $900 k for the 2nd round tender.

The real issue here isn't whether we should or shouldn't have matched. It's the myriad of errors that got us here in the first place.

Yes, but we're still talking about a backup running back here.

[Skooby]

Yes, but we're still talking about a backup running back here.
We aren't ready to do business at all, it's been an ongoing mess and completely exemplifies exactly why we are heading to 20 years of no playoffs. We don't take care of the little things and expect the big things to work out, unfortunately in a professional environment with the brightest minds that edge is the difference between winning and losing. Until we get that and lose the multi-years of ignorance in management, plan on more years of futility.

[SpikedLemonade]

Oh well.....

[Albany,n.y.]

NE already has him practicing how to handle kickoffs, so that he never repeats the Jets game fiasco.

[DraftBoy]

All aboard the Fournette Train!

[Scumbag College]

All aboard the Fournette Train!

I can really see this happening.

[TigerJ]

Buffalo gets NE's 5th round selection as compensation. Jonathon Williams is the heir apparent for Gillislee's role on the team. Williams had an inauspicious rookie year, but in case anyone has forgotten, he had a major injury that cost him his final year of college ball. It may be that his injury, and the lost year of college ball had a lot to do with his ineffectiveness last season. There is at least a possibility he'll be much improved this season.

[Joe Fo Sho]

We aren't ready to do business at all, it's been an ongoing mess and completely exemplifies exactly why we are heading to 20 years of no playoffs. We don't take care of the little things and expect the big things to work out, unfortunately in a professional environment with the brightest minds that edge is the difference between winning and losing. Until we get that and lose the multi-years of ignorance in management, plan on more years of futility.

This is like number 25 on the list of bad decisions this team has made in the last few years. Which is why I don't care about it. The bad decision is not that we didn't match the offer, it's that we can't because of a dozen other poor salary cap management moves we've made. In our current state, we should not have matched the offer.

[OpIv37]

Yes, but we're still talking about a backup running back here.

We're talking about a team with limited draft picks and cap space getting played by a div rival and having another hole open up. True, we get an additional pick and and it kept some cap room free, but it's most likely going to be used to replace what we just lost.

It's a microcosm for everything wrong with this team. They're already more talented than us and they have more cap room. I keep talking about the talent gap but it's really an organizational function gap. We're dysfunctional and they're highly efficient.

[Frenchman]

Well hope that Fournette can become the RB. But he is really needed on all 32 teams that they want him on.

[X-Era]

We're talking about a team with limited draft picks and cap space getting played by a div rival and having another hole open up. True, we get an additional pick and and it kept some cap room free, but it's most likely going to be used to replace what we just lost.

It's a microcosm for everything wrong with this team. They're already more talented than us and they have more cap room. I keep talking about the talent gap but it's really an organizational function gap. We're dysfunctional and they're highly efficient.
They drafted Dion Lewis high
They re-signed James White
They spent 4 mill and a 5th rounder on Gillislee when AP is signing for 3.7 next year
Blount was paid less for all the past years he played with them in total than they are paying for Gill for 1 year

They have 6 RB's and 2 FB's on their roster

Flat out stupid Pats move. Would'nt surprise me if they end up cutting him before the season starts

[OpIv37]

They drafted Dion Lewis high
They re-signed James White
They spent 4 mill and a 5th rounder on Gillislee when AP is signing for 3.7 next year
Blount was paid less for all the past years he played with them in total than they are paying for Gill for 1 year

They have 6 RB's and 2 FB's on their roster

Flat out stupid Pats move. Would'nt surprise me if they end up cutting him before the season starts
Is it? They spent cap space that they didn't need anyway to force us to open up another hole. They trolled us because they can.

[X-Era]

Is it? They spent cap space that they didn't need anyway to force us to open up another hole. They trolled us because they can.So they wasted cap money to troll an inferior team?

Sounds like they should shoot their front office.

[THATHURMANATOR]

They drafted Dion Lewis high
They re-signed James White
They spent 4 mill and a 5th rounder on Gillislee when AP is signing for 3.7 next year
Blount was paid less for all the past years he played with them in total than they are paying for Gill for 1 year

They have 6 RB's and 2 FB's on their roster

Flat out stupid Pats move. Would'nt surprise me if they end up cutting him before the season starts
Wasn't Dion Lewis drafted by the Eagles?

[Albany,n.y.]

They drafted Dion Lewis high
They re-signed James White
They spent 4 mill and a 5th rounder on Gillislee when AP is signing for 3.7 next year
Blount was paid less for all the past years he played with them in total than they are paying for Gill for 1 year

They have 6 RB's and 2 FB's on their roster

Flat out stupid Pats move. Would'nt surprise me if they end up cutting him before the season starts

Lewis was a street free agent on his 4th team when he landed in NE.
He's from Albany & every time he gains a yard or more it makes the local sportscast.

[OpIv37]

So they wasted cap money to troll an inferior team?

Sounds like they should shoot their front office.

Yeah. They would have been better off going into the season with a ton of unused cap space. It's much better to just let it go to waste.

[Bill Cody]

They drafted Dion Lewis high
no they didn't draft him at all, signed as a FA


They re-signed James White James White is a 3rd down back


They spent 4 mill and a 5th rounder on Gillislee when AP is signing for 3.7 next year
AP is 32 and has missed 2 of the last 3 seasons with injury, can't catch out of the backfield, doesn't block and abused his own son. Gillislee is 26 and has his best football ahead of him


Blount was paid less for all the past years he played with them in total than they are paying for Gill for 1 year
Gillslee is a better player and obviously NE agrees. And yes NE had to pay a bit of a premium for Gillslee he was a RFA, that's how that works. Blount showed NE in the SB he's JAG, was supposed to be featured in the game but was getting caught in the backfield and then had a huge fumble. James White bailed his ass out.


They have 6 RB's and 2 FB's on their roster Right. They're ready for the inevitable injuries and for some good camp competition. We on the other hand are not.


Flat out stupid Pats move. Would'nt surprise me if they end up cutting him before the season starts

Yeah Buffalo's front office is a bunch of mensa members and NE's are a bunch of idiots. We'll see how stupid this move is. NE has a boatload of cap space. One way or the other they have solidified their RB position. The odds that the Bills will find some diamond in the rough in the 5th round are low. Hell I'm always surprised when they don't pick a bust in the 1st. Do you even follow this team?

[Mace]

So they wasted cap money to troll an inferior team?

Sounds like they should shoot their front office.

Sounds to me like they should give their FO a medal.

The Super Bowl champions have twice as much cap space left than us and carry 1.7 million in dead cap to our 5 million plus.

That's how you want to run a front office.

[SpikedLemonade]

Sounds to me like they should give their FO a medal.

The Super Bowl champions have twice as much cap space left than us and carry 1.7 million in dead cap to our 5 million plus.

That's how you want to run a front office.

"....but...but...but...they cheat...."

[YardRat]

We weren't going to keep Gillislee anyway. By tendering him, we tricked New England into giving us a fifth rounder, instead of just letting him walk for nothing. The Patriots didn't screw us out of a running back, we screwed them out of a draft pick.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa....

[GingerP]

Pats are really deep on offense.

RB: Gillislee, Burkhead, White, Lewis
FB: Develin
WR: Cooks, Edelman, Hogan, Mitchell, Amendola
TE: Gronkowski, Allen
OL: Andrews, Thuney, Mason, Solder, Cannon, Fleming, Karras
QB: Brady, Garrapollo

They basically returned their whole offense other than Bennett & Blount, but added Allen, Cooks, Gillislee & Burkhead. Even if they suffer some injuries, they should be OK.

[swiper]

That adds credence to the poster that postured they are making a last run with Brady.

[EDS]

All aboard the Fournette Train!

That would be a classic Bills over-reaction move.

[DraftBoy]

We weren't going to keep Gillislee anyway. By tendering him, we tricked New England into giving us a fifth rounder, instead of just letting him walk for nothing. The Patriots didn't screw us out of a running back, we screwed them out of a draft pick.

Mwa-ha-ha-ha-haaaaaa....

And perfectly positioned ourselves to draft Fournette!

[Turf]

Let me ask everyone this, would you be happy if we cut Shady and signed Gillislee as our number one RB?

[EDS]

Let me ask everyone this, would you be happy if we cut Shady and signed Gillislee as our number one RB?

Not with the dead money cap hit the Bills would take by cutting McCoy.

[kgun12]

Let's sign Blount, he would be a great change of pace back along with goal line and short yardage. NFL radio says with the Peterson signing close Blount can expect to get no more then 1-1.5 million a year

Here are his 2016 stats: 1,161 yards and 18 TD's with only 299 carries.

[sudzy]

Sounds to me like they should give their FO a medal.

The Super Bowl champions have twice as much cap space left than us and carry 1.7 million in dead cap to our 5 million plus.

That's how you want to run a front office.

This! They win the Super Bowl, have a ton of cap space and X-Era claims their front office suck? LOL.

[justasportsfan]

Is it? They spent cap space that they didn't need anyway to force us to open up another hole. They trolled us because they can.

Yeah because the patriots are soooo scared of us so they use a few million to screw with our line up :rolleyes:

[BuffaloBlitz83]

Who cares about the 6 million. When was the last time we even maxed out our cap money.

[GingerP]

This! They win the Super Bowl, have a ton of cap space and X-Era claims their front office suck? LOL.

This is his argument they have wasted too much cap space on backs:

Mike Gillislee 4,000,000
Rex Burkhead 3,150,000
Dion Lewis 1,487,500
James White 1,789,272
Foster, DJ 540,000
Develin, James 1,375,000
Boldin, Brandon 695,000
--------------------------------------
Total 13,036,772

Meanwhile:

LeSean McCoy 8,875,000
Joe Banyard 690,000
Jonathan Williams 600,228
Cedric O'neal 465,000
Patrick Demarco 1,850,000
Mike Tolbert 695,000
--------------------------------------
Total 13,175,228

... and the kick in the pants is they got Amendola to take a pay cut $4.75M, so even after signing Gillislee they have over $20M in cap room!

[BertSquirtgum]

Big ****ing deal. Get over it babies

[OpIv37]

Yeah because the patriots are soooo scared of us so they use a few million to screw with our line up :rolleyes:

They didn't screw with us because they're scared of us. They screwed with us because they are in a position where they can screw with us without ****ing up their cap or in any way hurting their chances of winning.

That's ****ing embarrassing.

[TacklingDummy]

Pats are really deep on offense.

RB: Gillislee, Burkhead, White, Lewis
FB: Develin
WR: Cooks, Edelman, Hogan, Mitchell, Amendola
TE: Gronkowski, Allen
OL: Andrews, Thuney, Mason, Solder, Cannon, Fleming, Karras
QB: Brady, Garrapollo

They basically returned their whole offense other than Bennett & Blount, but added Allen, Cooks, Gillislee & Burkhead. Even if they suffer some injuries, they should be OK.

So their backups are better than our starters, that's just great.

[psubills62]

A lot of front offices would look great with Tom Brady as the QB.

[Mr. Cynical]

And this is why we can't have nice things. #PatsFarmTeam

[BertSquirtgum]

They didn't screw with us because they're scared of us. They screwed with us because they are in a position where they can screw with us without ****ing up their cap or in any way hurting their chances of winning.

That's ****ing embarrassing.

Yeah their plan was just to **** with the Bills. Not to get a good player or anything. :crazy: :crazy: :crazy:

[Night Train]

A committee back making 4 Mil a year.

Good for him financially but when he actually started games, he didn't produce. 24 carries for 28 yards vs. the Jets. 15 carries for 40 yards vs. KC. He's a change of pace guy with a better RB playing in front of him.

I liked him but making this out to be some huge loss is a reach of epic proportions. It's probably the Pats signing him that has many up in arms. Then again, they gave Gilmore 65 Mil, so I'm already questioning their recent signing wisdom.

[X-Era]

Yeah. They would have been better off going into the season with a ton of unused cap space. It's much better to just let it go to waste.
So just waste it when you can roll it over into the next year? Seriously makes no sense.

[kishoph]

Yes, but we're still talking about a backup running back here.

A backup RB that had the highest ypa in the league, the highest 1st down %, the highest TD percentage for RB's with at least 100 attempts. Gillislee also had the 3rd lowest stuff % for RB's with 100+ attempts (7 out of 101), 16 rushes for 10+ yds. and 8 TD's rushing, 1 receiving. Not too bad from the "back up running back".
LeSean McCoy will be 29 years old in a couple of months and has been plagued by hamstring problems the past 2 seasons, losing a proven and productive backup is pretty important for a team that's strength is running the ball.

[Saratoga Slim]

Yeah. They would have been better off going into the season with a ton of unused cap space. It's much better to just let it go to waste.

Exactly...this is why the Patriots win. They don't miss any opportunity to give themselves an advantage or weaken a rival. Whether it's taking half a lb of air pressure out of a ball, filming signals, signing cuts to get playbook info, etc. Most of these things don't individually provide any real advantage. But cumulatively it adds up.

And oh yeah, they have Tom Brady. He also does contribute.

[swiper]

Just shows what Tom Brady can do with all the Buffalo scrubs. Win Super Bowls.

So thanks, again, Tom Donahoe for trading away that 2005 1st round pick for JP Losman so Green Bay could pick Aaron Rodgers.

[Historian]

They didn't screw with us because they're scared of us. They screwed with us because they are in a position where they can screw with us without ****ing up their cap or in any way hurting their chances of winning.


To me, it seems the Patriots follow the 1970's Miami Dolphins model.

Highly organized and detailed coaching.
Highly motivated players that fit their schemes, many not very noteworthy or famous.
Front office that trys to better themselves by weakening division opponents.
Cerebral quarterbacking.
Balance on offense.
Stingy on defense.
Maybe not breaking the rules, but certainly testing their elasticity.
And one other thing that they have in common, is that if they lose an assistant coach, or a player here and there, they work so well together that they can survive that loss. It doesn't have that much effect in the standings. (then they end up migrating back at some point, lol)

If you were to draw a flowchart of their organization, you would see direct lines of communication, direct lines of responsibilities, and it would all flow down from the top....or Mr. Kraft.

Now think about the Bills:

We actually have two owners, so nobody really knows who makes the decisions. Neither address the media.
The GM isn't on the same page as the Coach. (meaning Ryan). In fact they do not care for each other.
The Coach doesn't really have a vision or identity for the team. Nepotism present.
The GM takes advice from the Marketing guy on who to draft, or pursue in FA.
The front office writes contracts that limit what the GM can do, and get us into cap trouble.
The scouts become enamored with hard working guys from small schools.

Now flow chart the Bills, and you have arrows pointing in every direction, most overlapping...Some redundant, some going backwards.

From a business point of view it's insane.

One of the things Coach Levy used to say about the Bills of the 90's, was that everyone, from the Owner down to the women in the ticket office, and the guys on the grounds crew, were on the same page.

The success was a team effort, and definitely not limited to the players and coaches on the field.

Truth be told, we haven't had that type of organizational structure since Wade was fired, which coincides with the mediocrity (because I consider 6-10 thru 9-7 mediocre) we have fielded since the turn of the century.

This is how I see the Bills running. It is myopic, and dysfunctional. Way too many people protecting their own asses, as opposed to doing whatis best of the organization.

So we can fire Doug Whaley. It may help a little, but the way I see it. the only thing that is going to pull this organization out of mediocrity, is to fix that flow chart. I'm hoping McDermott will be a cornerstone in that effort, but he's an unproven commodity at this level, so who knows?

This is what I would tell the Pegulas.

Unfortunately, they haven't asked my opinion yet, lol.

[justasportsfan]

They didn't screw with us because they're scared of us. They screwed with us because they are in a position where they can screw with us without ****ing up their cap or in any way hurting their chances of winning.

That's ****ing embarrassing.


Only you could come up with the thought the they intentionally grabbed Mike just to screw with us and not because he makes them better. Just like Hogan.

[HHURRICANE]

Only you could come up with the thought the they intentionally grabbed Mike just to screw with us and not because he makes them better. Just like Hogan.

If you win the division I'm pretty sure you go to the playoffs. The Bills start every season trying to win a wild card spot. The Pats certainly consider every facet of any decision they make. So taking talent from someone in your division most certainly is factored in here. That's why you rarely see trades in your own division.