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00:00Most questions I might have for our next guest, I have no idea what the answers are.
00:05And I mean that with respect.
00:07Mike Giannitti with SpotTrack joining us on the West Her Hotline.
00:12I think the timing's great here, for our purposes at least, Mike, with the free agency and the NFL on
00:17the horizon
00:18and even maybe the NHL trade deadline, although I'm not sure what we need to know about some of those
00:23details.
00:24But with football, we've got the cap going up.
00:28How do you see, just in general to start here, Mike, the Bills' situation as the offseason gets going?
00:36About average.
00:37You know, I mean, they're in contention.
00:39That's the window they're living in right now, so it's going to be complicated this time of year, at least
00:43starting off.
00:44They're in the negatives, heading towards the big week here, so there's work to be done.
00:49They're adding, not subtracting right now.
00:51I think that's a good sign.
00:52So it seems like things are fairly stable, and, you know, there's certainly ways to open up some cap space
00:57and be somewhat aggressive, I think, when March hits.
01:01Not uberly aggressive, but that's sort of the cost of doing business at this level.
01:05And what are some ideas you think that they should be attacking here to try to free up room between
01:13now and – what is the date for a free agency opening?
01:18We're a week and a half out, I think?
01:20Yeah, right, like March 11th.
01:21Yeah, right, midweek, week after next.
01:24Obviously, they've got, you know, big contracts.
01:26They just did something with Spencer Brown.
01:29Dawson Knox is one idea, Mike.
01:32They have to do something about that number.
01:34I don't think they'll cut this player, but I think they've got to adjust that contract.
01:38Yeah, it could get to a cut.
01:40Maybe with, you know, a week, we're going to bring you back.
01:42But certainly, the contract has to move one way or another.
01:45My guess is, and this has been successful in the past, is there's some sort of pay cut discussion happening
01:50behind the scenes.
01:51There's a couple of players, but I think Knox is at the top of that list right now.
01:54So, it's just about, obviously, we want him here, but not at the price tag.
01:59And we've got to, obviously, fill him some room on March 11th.
02:02So, I think that's prioritized right now as we speak.
02:05We'll see where that happens.
02:06But I do believe, if we're getting to March 9th, March 10th, when the push comes to shove,
02:11that they might have to move off of that contract just for flexibility purposes.
02:16Outside of that, you know, it's going to be a mixed bag.
02:18I expect a little bit of everything, extensions, trades, outright releases, pay cuts, the works.
02:25And I don't think, you know, Brandon Bean's been too shy about having those kind of offseasons in the past.
02:31It's just going to be a little bit more complicated right now.
02:32Mike already alluded to, we got the definitive number on the salary cap for this year.
02:37Teams who had, I think, a working knowledge of, you know, about what the increase would be.
02:43How much does the year-over-year increase in the cap afford teams the ability to just keep kicking the
02:51can down the road?
02:52Like, I know the Saints were a team that was notorious for years when they weren't even that good anymore,
02:57that were still pushing off, pushing off, pushing off.
03:00And eventually, you run out of runway and have to address all that.
03:05But a team like the Bills that are still so squarely in a contention window, how long can they just
03:11sort of keep pushing stuff,
03:12void years and all that kind of stuff, off to the future while they're trying to have the best team
03:17they can?
03:18Yeah, there's probably, you know, somebody much smarter than me that can actually put a number to that, you know,
03:23budgetarily with the year-over-year increases, which have been between, really, the number's about 8%
03:30is what I think we're budgeting for year-to-year on this salary cap increase, which, you know,
03:34just happens to be about $21 million to $23 million.
03:37So it's significant.
03:37It's, you know, multiple contracts.
03:39It's multiple extensions, if you're thinking about it in terms of players.
03:43So there's no question that that affords GMs the ability to sort of take a deep breath and say,
03:50I don't have to think about everything right now.
03:52This is, yes, we're winning right now.
03:54We're all in right now.
03:55But from a salary cap perspective, because of the rules of the CBA, we can make this next year's problem
04:00or four years down the road's problem with some of these void years.
04:03So 66% of the league is doing this right now.
04:07And most of them are doing it at a really high rate.
04:10Buffalo is one of those teams.
04:11They have a dozen void year situations on their books right now.
04:15I think they'll add a few more when more of these conversions come to play here.
04:20So it's kind of the going rate of doing business.
04:22But the league and the salary cap increases are bailing out these GMs in a very positive manner.
04:27With Mike Giannetti of SpotTrack.
04:29Mike, show up in the Bulldog here.
04:31So we've talked about Knox here.
04:33Taylor Rapp seems like maybe kind of an easy one for this if the Bills were so inclined.
04:38Who else might stand out to you as someone where the Bills really need to figure out a new deal?
04:45Yeah, I think Curtis Samuel probably pretty quickly falls off here for cap purposes.
04:51There are some conversations that they had about, if you want to get some bigger names in here,
04:54Deion Dawkins and Ed Oliver, both who have two years left.
04:58You know, obviously important players.
05:00They're getting to that age where, you know, that next contract might look a little complicated
05:04when you're talking about 2027 and beyond.
05:06So some decent conversations to have there about some high prices.
05:11You know, what happens with Tyler Bass?
05:13We feel like we haven't seen him forever, obviously, with the injury.
05:16Will that be a cap replacement that they're going to seek in March and April here,
05:19maybe even in the draft, to free up some space here in March?
05:23And then, you know, then you get back to your big contracts that you can just move some things around,
05:27like Josh's contract.
05:28And I think Taron Johnson looks pretty stable after some conversations that have been had.
05:32But I wouldn't say there's a plentiful amount of options with the current roster
05:36to just sort of maneuver as some of these teams have, you know,
05:39upwards of 90 to 100 million of flexibility.
05:41A lot of attention on the interior of the Buffalo offensive line.
05:45Osiris Torrance could get an extension after completing now three years in the league.
05:50He's got one year left on his second-round rookie deal.
05:53But the two guys to his left, the center, McGovern, and the left guard, David Edwards,
05:58are both unrestricted free agents.
06:00Do you have an idea, Mike, where their markets may lie?
06:05And how realistic is it for the Bills to maybe hope to hang on to one of the two?
06:11Yeah, one is probably right.
06:12You know, if there's a packing order, I think maybe you're sliding with Edwards back at the guard position.
06:17There's less of a guard demand out there right now.
06:20There's also less supply out there right now.
06:23So, you know, we've got him upwards of 20 million just on a market valuation right now,
06:28which seems crazy.
06:28But, you know, that guard price is going to be upwards of 30 sooner rather than later,
06:32possibly even this year with some of the rookie extensions that hit.
06:35So, he's, you know, second-tier guard.
06:37He's been super, super consistent on this team.
06:41That's probably the player we're identifying right now,
06:43only because the center market has all of a sudden become kind of nice,
06:47kind of flush on this free agency.
06:49There's been two or three really nice releases.
06:51But McGovern probably still sits near the top of that list, you know, 16 to 17 million.
06:56That's right below the top of the hill right now at the center position.
06:59So, he's looking at a pretty nice situation for himself,
07:02though the market did get a little bit deeper over the course of the last 48 hours.
07:06Mike, so in terms of the league and who's available by position this year in free agency,
07:12do you have thoughts on, like, where the strength is?
07:15I mean, certain of these players are household names, but not that many.
07:20And if you're the Bills and you're thinking about wide receiver, if they ever are, sorry,
07:24but if they actually were this year thinking about wide receiver, I don't know.
07:27Like, how much is there for them to play with?
07:30Yeah, there's a reason guys get the free agency, right?
07:32So, when you're looking for big names, you're probably not going to see too many.
07:36It's a weak market.
07:37You know, that's why you're hearing the players like Alec Pierce and Javon Jennings
07:40and, you know, even Tyreek Hill after being released with his injury.
07:43He's going to be one of those names that teams at least take a sniff at.
07:47You know, Mike Evans, Romeo Dobbs, there's some names,
07:49there's some red flags with every single one of those names.
07:51So, that's why I think for the most part,
07:53these players have had their market value suppressed quite a bit in the open market here
07:58because most teams just decide we're going back to the draft,
08:01we're going to use a second or third round pick and take a flyer in that regard.
08:04Positionally, though, to answer your kind of broader question,
08:07I do think it's a pretty good draft for the defensive line
08:12and it isn't a very strong draft in that regard.
08:14So, there are edge rushers, there are inside players,
08:17there are off-ball linebackers.
08:19I think those are a couple of needs here for Buffalo,
08:21at least from a depth perspective.
08:23And there are safeties, and I know that's a big question mark
08:26with the Bills going forward as well.
08:28So, I'd lean towards the defensive side of the ball,
08:31which, you know, probably isn't answering too many of your phone calls right now
08:34with the wide receivers and maybe some tight ends to fill in the blanks,
08:38but that's what the draft is for.
08:39I think the draft is showing it's been much more offensive friendly at times,
08:42so I do think there's a nice split where you can do most of your defensive damage
08:46in March and then wait until April and May to kind of fill in the blanks elsewhere.
08:50There is still the trade market when you talk about receiver two.
08:54If a free agent market isn't deep, certainly the draft is an option.
08:58On the trade front, Mike, maybe for us and for our audience,
09:03because we know the Bills, this whole conversation is predicated on the Bills
09:06being tight against the cap, which a lot of contending teams are.
09:09If they wanted to get in the business of trading for, say, A.J. Brown,
09:13who's got a big contract already that you'd be inheriting,
09:19how can they work around that?
09:21Is there a new deal as soon as the player gets here that lowers this year's number,
09:25that makes it more palatable for the Bills in the short term,
09:28and some version of what we said at the beginning, just kicking the can down the road,
09:32is that a way that you could see them pulling that caliber of player in
09:38with that caliber of contract, or are they just not going to be able
09:41to be in that market at all?
09:44Well, what's interesting is because of the use of all these void years
09:47on most of these recent contracts, the traded contract,
09:51the contract you'd be acquiring with a trade,
09:55has become unbelievably friendly because, for the most part,
09:58everything's being pushed down the first one, two, three years of that contract.
10:01So I think I jumped on with you guys at the deadline last year
10:04when we were discussing Waddle.
10:06Waddle, as a trade right now, is less than $5 million on cap for 2026, right?
10:11A.J. Brown is $7 million on the cap in 2026 because of the way this thing is structured.
10:16So it's unbelievably doable from that perspective.
10:19There's just a lot more that comes to it, right, with compensation
10:22and how much those teams have to keep in dead cap,
10:26which makes things complicated on their end.
10:28But the trade is becoming more and more prevalent because of this explanation,
10:32this part of it.
10:33It's easier from a financial standpoint just to drop somebody in,
10:36and then you have to deal with everything else going forward, obviously.
10:39Well, that's fun.
10:41You know, you can be hopeful that trades are fun.
10:43I like how all that sounded.
10:46If you know, Mike, Kyler Murray and Tua Tonga-Bailoa,
10:50are they different in that respect?
10:52Two players that maybe their teams want to move on from?
10:58Contractually, I'm guessing you're asking contractually
11:00because I don't think Tua is, from a football standpoint, very tradable.
11:03I do think Kyler Murray is probably one of the bigger trade candidates
11:07on the market right now.
11:08But contractually, both can be moved.
11:11It's certainly more cost-effective for Miami to trade
11:13than to release Tua this year.
11:16I do think one of those things will happen, however.
11:19Kyler's a little bit easier.
11:20It's about a two-year, $80 million contract, which sounds crazy.
11:23But, you know, in the going rate of starting quarterbacks,
11:25that's pretty average right now.
11:27And with Tua, it's about a one for $57 million,
11:30which that's pretty bonkers.
11:32But from the other team's perspective, from Arizona and Miami's perspective,
11:36that is how they're entering March right now,
11:38is with the expectation that they're going to seek trades for both those players.
11:41And I do think Kyler gets done at some point in time here.
11:44I love that the gap from your website, the NFL team's salary cap tracker,
11:49between first and 32nd in cap space is $148 million.
11:56Tennessee has $90 million in cap space, and Dallas is $58 million under.
12:01That's a pretty big gap.
12:03It's not quite as a regis as baseball yet, but we're getting there, aren't we?
12:06Yes.
12:07Right.
12:07Yeah.
12:07Dallas is $58 million over.
12:09That's right.
12:10Right.
12:10So, you know, when you said up front, like, the bills are kind of in the middle
12:13when it comes to this.
12:14Minus $8 million might look worse than that.
12:17But it does get worse than that.
12:20Oh, yeah.
12:21Yeah.
12:21Dallas just slapped that tag on George Pickens,
12:23which added $28 million to their business.
12:25And they've got plenty of work to do.
12:26But to kind of answer it this way, I don't see any team having crazy,
12:31crazy trouble this year where we've had, you know,
12:33the Saints in the negative hundreds at times
12:35and a couple other teams pretty far down the path.
12:38So I think we're all kind of figuring this out.
12:40And to circle back, the league is certainly helping
12:42with these massive cap increases.
12:44Yeah.
12:44And teams have found their appetite to be able to digest the big dead money
12:50ever since, I think, really – you might know better than me, Mike,
12:54but it feels like once Denver did Russell Wilson,
12:57and that was like $80 million or something.
13:00And I don't remember if they split it up with a June 1st or whatever,
13:03but they just – like, okay, we're doing this.
13:06And it seems – that's why, like, in a year like this, I'm like,
13:10of course Miami's going to move on from Tua.
13:11I don't care how much the dead money is.
13:13Denver did it.
13:14They're going to do it.
13:15And teams just aren't that scared of doing it anymore.
13:17They can still do business with a big dead money number.
13:21It's a really important point, and you're dead on here.
13:23I'd go back maybe two more years before Russell Wilson.
13:26Russell Wilson was definitely the balloon bursting with this whole conversation,
13:29but the Rams actually won a Super Bowl with the second most dead cap in football.
13:34That first year that they acquired Stafford, and they traded golf,
13:37and they released Todd Gurley, and they had a whole bunch of mess on their hands,
13:40and it seemed like they were sort of just kind of giving up,
13:42and then they acquired Stafford and won the Super Bowl.
13:44That was definitely an eye-opening moment for the league that, hey,
13:47maybe there's enough to go around even on the negative side of things,
13:51that we don't have to just push it all into these positive contracts,
13:53and then obviously void years have helped the process even further that.
13:57So no question, like I said, my expectation is that Miami will take on $99 million for Tua
14:03to move on from him over two years, and that's kind of the going rate with a bunch of players.
14:08I think that will become much more prevalent because bigger contracts mean bigger mistakes,
14:13mean you have to kind of wipe up the mess a little cleaner.
14:16I'm sorry if this is an embarrassing question to ask, but how does a void year work?
14:22Is it like a team or a player option?
14:24Like does anybody have a leg to stand on to say, hey, I want you to honor this,
14:30or the team might want – or is it just designed to just eat cap space at the back end
14:36of deals,
14:37and there's no way the team or the player can ever use it as an actual year of a contract?
14:45Right.
14:46So they're written into the contract as actual void years.
14:49Many times they will have a dummy salary.
14:52Usually it's ridiculous, like $50 million, $100 million.
14:55You know, the Saints with Taysom Hill used to put in $130 million dummy salaries,
15:00I think, just to have some fun with it.
15:01But really it is just a salary cap moniker.
15:04It is a situation where the cap is allowed to, with bonuses, transfer over five years.
15:11And back in the day, ten years ago, eight years ago,
15:14that used to mean you'd have five-year contracts so that you could spread it out to the maximum.
15:19Well, nobody wanted five-year contracts anymore because things were changing so rapidly, so quickly.
15:24So now we can have two-year contracts with three void years to still have the same effect from a
15:28cap perspective
15:29and get players back to free agency or into that next contract even quicker.
15:33Who has the worst contract in the NFL?
15:36So Tua and Murray are not in, you know, their teams are not in great positions having them for what
15:42they have them.
15:43Deshaun Watson comes to mind, or certainly would have, a year or two ago.
15:47I'm not sure if that's the case.
15:49Maybe they can wiggle away from him if injuries are too much.
15:52I don't know how that exactly will work.
15:54But does anybody strike you as the easy answer to that question?
15:59It's absolutely Watson.
16:01And I think it will be for quite some time because it is the singular thing stopping somebody else from
16:07getting a full-guaranteed contract.
16:09And I don't think we have that in our future very soon here.
16:13And it's for this reason.
16:15It's guaranteed, obviously, right now.
16:17So $46 million cash guaranteed.
16:19And then once they're finally done and moved on from this thing after next year,
16:23they're going to have to take on $80 million of dead cap just to have this guy, you know,
16:29probably not play football anymore at 32 years old.
16:31So it's because they have kicked the can every single year of this guaranteed salary.
16:36So it is a situation that feels like it's coming to an end.
16:40And yet for Cleveland, there's probably three more seasons.
16:42It's this year.
16:43It's two years of dead cap.
16:44And then they can sort of take a deep breath.
16:47I don't know how this GM is lasting through this, but God bless my dad.
16:51Wow.
16:52Do you think – I mean, this is not really your expertise.
16:58There was a vibe toward the end of the season.
17:00Like, he was practicing and, like, every week Kevin Stefanski, their coach at the time,
17:05would have to fend off questions about whether – you know, are you going to activate him?
17:10Is he in the plans?
17:11Like, do you think that just goes on unabated or do you think he ever suits up for them?
17:17I think there's a real good chance he's a week one starter.
17:20Not for any of the contractual reasons.
17:23I just think it's going to get a – it's going to be a really ugly offseason for Cleveland
17:27for a lot of reasons.
17:28They're about to lose all five of their starting offensive linemen.
17:30That's not a good way to start things off here.
17:33So from the trenches perspective, it's going to be young.
17:36It's going to be inexperienced.
17:38Do you really want to throw Shudder Sanders into that fire?
17:41I don't know.
17:42You know, that might be how it works out.
17:43But my guess is you're just going to throw the veteran that you're paying a ton of money to
17:46and say, you know, go do a job for us for one more year,
17:50and then we're going to get things right in 2027.
17:51But I do think, from a football perspective, that it makes sense to at least have him compete
17:56if he's healthy in 2026.
17:58A couple more, if we can, here, Mike.
18:00And one is specifically a Bills player question, and that's Dalton Kincaid,
18:04who the question now is on the table is, will the Bills pay him the 50-year option he's entitled
18:09by being, if they choose to, a first-round pick?
18:13You know, he's been good when he's played, but he hasn't played that much.
18:16I wonder what your perspective might be on that, either from simply the standpoint of a thought
18:21on the player and the idea, or including sort of what that means for a tight end.
18:27You know, we have interesting kind of wrinkles when it comes to slotting players by position,
18:33Linderbaum and Baltimore being a center, but the franchise tag would count him as an offensive
18:37lineman, which changes the numbers.
18:39Not to, I'm getting a little bit convoluted here with this, but what about Kincaid for you?
18:44Yeah, I just ran the number since the cap just dropped this afternoon.
18:48You mentioned him not playing much.
18:50That actually helps Buffalo a little bit in this regard, because playing time and Pro Bowls
18:54factor into what that fifth-year option price costs.
18:56So, based on our numbers here, the fifth-year option for 2027 should cost about $8.1 million
19:02for Dalton Kincaid.
19:03Because of that price, to me, it's a slam dunk.
19:07You're going to keep him through 2027.
19:08You're going to guarantee it.
19:09It's basically two years and $15 million for, or not even, two years and $12 million for
19:14a player that, you know, still, I think, has a really nice feeling in the system.
19:20Obviously, there's some continuity with Joe Brady coming over here, and you'll figure out
19:24the refs going forward, but I don't think we're talking extension by any means right
19:28now, but an $8 million guarantee for a player like that, I think, is a slam dunk.
19:33Is there a take here that's interesting on tight ends and franchise tags?
19:38That's not the situation with Kincaid, but the point about Linderbaum seems a little wrong
19:44that he would count like offensive tackles do, and I think that's what maybe priced Baltimore
19:49out on, you know, one of the best centers in the league.
19:53Yeah, it would have been $26 million to tag Linderbaum, so that's obviously too high
19:57for him.
19:59There's another one with linebackers, so you've got your off-ball linebacker that's, you know,
20:03around $20 million a year, and then you've got your Micah Parsons, who's $46 million a
20:07year.
20:08Those players, as singular linebackers with franchise tags, are under one umbrella.
20:12That's going to have to change at some point in time, but tight ends have been kind of
20:16priced right.
20:17They sit separate from wide receivers, so they've been at about, I think it's about $15.2 for Kyle
20:22Pitts on his franchise tag this year with Atlanta, so I expect that remains fairly favorable if
20:29we have to get to that situation with Alton Kincaid in 2028, but that one seems pretty
20:33decent.
20:34There are some gaps in the cracks, though, that have to at least get discussed in the
20:39next CBA.
20:39Do you know if you get credit for a Pro Bowl just by eventually making, like, Joe Flacco
20:45this year, or do you have to be, like, from the original players that are chosen for the
20:50Pro Bowl?
20:51It's original ballot.
20:53So it's playing time throughout the regular season and then original ballot Pro Bowls in
20:56your first three years as a rookie.
20:57Yep.
20:58So not everybody who gets added as a fill-in gets credit for it in the same way.
21:02No, and I feel like that's not noted enough.
21:05I think people get too much credit for those just to show up when you're a fifth option.
21:09Yeah, and if I'm named but I don't go, even if I don't really have a good reason, it still
21:13counts.
21:14I still get the benefit of that at fifth-year option time.
21:17Right.
21:17Yeah.
21:18Or any bonuses.
21:19Right.
21:20Okay.
21:21All right.
21:22Anything, Bulldog, that we didn't cover?
21:24I feel good.
21:26Always great to learn all this from you, Mike.
21:28Thanks for sharing your time with us.
21:30My pleasure, guys.
21:30Thanks.
21:31You're welcome.
21:31Mike Giannitti of SpotTrack, the go-to salary cap, salary information site, I think, in the industry
21:38for all sports.
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