The Lowdown on Free Agency

[Pride]

The first date to watch is March 1. That's when free agency is slated to begin and when first roster bonuses are due. Teams that have the option of voiding large contracts can do so at or around this time. Expect to see players who had good relationships with their current teams -- like RB Emmitt Smith -- to be released early. The rationale is that, if the team can't re-sign the player, as a goodwill gesture, they release the player to give him as much time to sign on with someone else.

The key is not restructuring deals to delay the killer cap hit but instead spending the money smartly, not something John Butler has been known for in the free agent market - see Tim Dwight and Stephen Alexander 's contracts.

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[SABURZFAN]

speaking of the buthole,what's he going to do about the flutie situation.he's scheduled for $4.5 million and anybody in their right mind is not going to pay that for carrying a clipboard.(then again,buthole has done this before)my questions are,which of those dates will he be released and how much would he account towards san diego's cap?

Clump???

Eb???

Anybody????

[WG]

I'm sure Flutie's done SABURZ. I'm surprised he wasn't let go last year. Brees did no worse than Flutie did the prior year and actually played well against a few good teams unlike Flutie.

My guess is they let him go. He has no value anymore. The fan hype is gone. He didn't do anything in the limited opps he got this year. Like you said, they'd have to be nuts to pay him anything more than a mil or so. Even then...

I can't wait to see what DTs we will be vying for! I sure hope Thornton and Noble are among them. Either one of those guys would have instantly boosted our DL from mediocrity to being very good. PW's contributions will rise exponentially when he isn't constantly doubled! He's gonna be a monster next year. I would not be surprised to see a Pro Bowl year out of him.

[The_Philster]

If the Bolts let him go, how much you wanna bet that someone (not naming any names here ) will be hoping we bring him back?

[THATHURMANATOR]

He will not be back here hopefully.

[LABillsFan]

If Chicago goes after Shawn King maybe Flutie could go to Tampa Bay.

[shelby]

i like your sense of humor, LABills! Great avatar, too.

i hope Jaded doesn't read this thread....

[ublinkwescore]

We could bring Flutie back as a backup for Vet minimum, cut Van Pelt, or Travis Brown (which ever would save us the most cap room), and then by next year's draft, we could can him, and use our first round pick on a protege for Bledsoe.

I honestly don't think that that's a bad idea.

[venis2k1]

Too early to pick our "next" QB, I can see Bledsoe playing for 5 or 6 more years.

[SABURZFAN]

Originally posted by ublinkwescore
We could bring Flutie back as a backup for Vet minimum

are you nuts???the last thing we need is the Flutie Flakes cheering,at The Ralph,if bledsoe were to get hurt.that was the most sickening display of sportsmanship i EVER saw when RJ went down.by no means,i was not an RJ fan at the time,never was an RJ fan,and never will be an RJ fan.i don't know about you or anybody else in here but i will never cheer a BILLS player for getting hurt and/or knocked out of a game.
besides,do you think that TD is stupid enough to bring back flutie?we don't need ANY kind of distractions to this team.not only will it open up a can of worms with the media, but then we'll be back in the same boat where even the BILLS fans were divided amongst each other.

bad idea.....

[ublinkwescore]

The only reason there was a QB controvercy was because this organization let one happen - the instant this team's brass saw that we had a different team with Flutie in at QB, we should have benched RJ. We should have sent RJ to S.D. instead of Flutie - we would have made the playoffs with Flutie in as QB in our last 8-8 season.