** The Official will the Bills go down like Omahas mom vs the Colts Game day thread**

[rcubed]

I get the feeling its up to rivers. Retire or comeback. If he comes back it will be another one year deal.


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[Chromeburn]

Originally Posted by Racehorse

I found the OTC thing, and plugged in the players I think we will likely retain, and it left just enough to sign the draft picks. Now, if Rivers isn't brought back, and we roll with Eason and a low-cost option at back-up, we could go after someone. The projected cap is about $40M less next year, which makes it tight. Now, they will have leverage with the lower cap every other team will also have, but you can ruin team morale if you go cheap with guys who should get good raises.

Who were the players?

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by Racehorse

I tried to do this on OTC, but can't figure it out this time. Based on the ones you mention, what cap would be left for even one free agent?

If you give Autry and Rhodes market value, that's $15 million AAV according to OTC ($6 million for Autry, $9 million for Rhodes). Also according to OTC, Stallworth and Dulin are ERFAs that can be tendered for $1.7 million combined and Alie-Cox, Pascal, and Odum are RFAs that can be tendered for $6.7 million combined. For sake of ease, we can call that combined total $8.5 million, for a total of $23.5 million. I also resigned Green and Hunt at vet minimum (~$1 million apiece), so that's $24.5 million. Rookie pool is $6.3 million, so that's about $30 million gone (this is where all the rounding up caught up). Sign Rivers at $15 million, and you leave yourself with about $13 million for free agency and roster churn. Maybe you can get Rivers to sign for $10 million? That would allow pursuit of one big ticket FA, my suggestion being Ngakoue. I signed him to a 4 year/$50 million deal with $34.5 in "guarantees" that can be gotten out of fairly easily in Year 2 (a June 1 designation would constitute a cap savings of $6.5 million) and beyond. That left me with ~$6 million of churn space after the rookie pool.

[apballin]

Originally Posted by Chromeburn

Reich just said he wants Rivers back

He’s gonna have to give us a hell of a discount

[Dewey 5]

Originally Posted by Chromeburn

Reich just said he wants Rivers back

I would eventually like to hear Ballard's thoughts but I doubt he shares much. He can't seem desperate if he intends to make a trade.

[rcubed]

Originally Posted by apballin

He’s gonna have to give us a heck of a discount

Fixed it for you.
- Philip


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[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by Chromeburn

I don’t feel like going through every year picking out every move. And I don’t have time to do it. Although I’m thinking of doing a year by year analysis if I can. But that is part of the problem, he is only bargain shopping. Which is ok if you are rebuilding or close to the cap. We had to trade for Buckner and gave up a lot for him plus a huge contract, wasn’t FA. I’ll disagree on Houston, good signing but older, I don’t see him as top of the market. We’ve had a lot of cap space in the past and had a considerable amount last offseason. I don’t need every high priced free agent, but he could shore up our weaknesses with something involved a little better than what we have been fielding. Most of his signings have been good, I don’t think he has gone far enough in some areas. WR has been crap for several years. The one guy he did sign got hurt last year. Then it’s all a bunch of dudes or rookies. We could have gone after one of the pass rushers GB signed a couple years ago. We just missed another window and I don’t feel like the team is maximizing its assets. Do they want a SB or do they want to be competitive while saving lots of money? Could we have invested in a decent swing tackle? The stats were already out there, we don’t do well when Castonzo goes down. Reminds me of the baseball parable of the hitter waiting for the perfect pitch.

I think we do have good evaluators at the top, I wonder how many scouts we have still from the Grigson days. I’m also sure those owners are seeming the team be competitive while saving lots of money.

If you picked Za'Darius Smith, you'd've gotten more production than Houston, but Preston Smith fell off in Year 2 of his contract and only got 4 sacks and 11 QB hits.

Since 2019:
Z. Smith: 26 sacks 85 pressures
Houston: 19 sacks 52 pressures
P. Smith: 16 sacks 50 pressures

Obviously Za'Darius Smith would've been the best choice with the benefit of hindsight, but you'd be rightfully upset if the Colts handed Preston Smith well over double the money of Justin Houston to give them less production. You could've guessed that Za'Darius Smith would become what he's been the past two years, but you would've paid him nearly three times the money of Houston to find out, and it would've been at best an educated guess. You could use hindsight to criticize a lot of any GM's moves (for Ballard, just about every pick of the 2017 draft except rounds 4 and 5), but I don't think there are many GMs in this league even on par with Ballard's ability to find and evaluate talent and assemble the best possible roster, especially given the circumstances he's had to deal with.

[Racehorse]

Originally Posted by Chromeburn

Who were the players?

Our guys that most of you named. I closed the site, or I would give you the numbers I used.

[Chromeburn]

Originally Posted by Dam8610

If you picked Za'Darius Smith, you'd've gotten more production than Houston, but Preston Smith fell off in Year 2 of his contract and only got 4 sacks and 11 QB hits.

Since 2019:
Z. Smith: 26 sacks 85 pressures
Houston: 19 sacks 52 pressures
P. Smith: 16 sacks 50 pressures

Obviously Za'Darius Smith would've been the best choice with the benefit of hindsight, but you'd be rightfully upset if the Colts handed Preston Smith well over double the money of Justin Houston to give them less production. You could've guessed that Za'Darius Smith would become what he's been the past two years, but you would've paid him nearly three times the money of Houston to find out, and it would've been at best an educated guess. You could use hindsight to criticize a lot of any GM's moves (for Ballard, just about every pick of the 2017 draft except rounds 4 and 5), but I don't think there are many GMs in this league even on par with Ballard's ability to find and evaluate talent and assemble the best possible roster, especially given the circumstances he's had to deal with.

The problem is people have been pointing out the issues in the position groups for awhile. It’s not hindsight if going into the season we know our passrush isn’t that great. If we can see it, they can see it. We knew the receivers were a weakness. Something is wrong if your RB leads the team in receptions two years in a row. We knew LT was thin, Castonzo has missed some game and we knew there wasn’t much behind him. Tackle play was a big influencer on the steeler game. I’m not saying get rid of the guy, I think he is a good GM. But it is frustrating that obvious issues aren’t addressed.

[Puck]

Originally Posted by Chromeburn

The problem is people have been pointing out the issues in the position groups for awhile. It’s not hindsight if going into the season we know our passrush isn’t that great. If we can see it, they can see it. We knew the receivers were a weakness. Something is wrong if your RB leads the team in receptions two years in a row. We knew LT was thin, Castonzo has missed some game and we knew there wasn’t much behind him. Tackle play was a big influencer on the steeler game. I’m not saying get rid of the guy, I think he is a good GM. But it is frustrating that obvious issues aren’t addressed.

When you get into the mindset of BPA instead of need then it will be clearer to you.

Ballard is not going to draft for need