Bills decline to match Mike Gillislee’s offer sheet and Joe’s commentary

Another offseason, another restricted free agent leaves the Buffalo Bills for the New England Patriots.  On Monday, shortly before an NFL-imposed deadline, the Bills announced they would not match the Patriots’ offer sheet of a two-year, $6.4-million contract for Mike Gillislee, allowing the running back to join their AFC East rival. The deal was structured so that Gillislee is due to receive $4 million this year. As compensation, the Bills received the Patriots’ fifth-round pick — because Buffalo had given him an original-round tender — in this week’s NFL Draft. It is the 163rd overall choice. (Buffalo News)

Mind of Joe
Meh. I really don’t get the dust up for this. Look, Gilli is a nice running back, but do you really want to pay your running backs, a position that is water-downed in this league, around 12 million bucks for one year? I’m usually the last person to worry about where you put your salary structure towards, but that sounds stupid. It has already been established you can find running backs ANYWHERE. Not just in the draft, but on the streets. Look no further than the Bills. From Fred Jackson to Karlos Williams to now Mike Gillislee. I mention those guys in a row because there was such panic when the Bills let those guys go, yet, their heirs did a bang up job in replacing them. Plus, they did draft Jonathan Williams and while I’ll acknowledge he did have some fumble issues his rookie year, those are things that can be corrected (See: Travis Henry/Tiki Barber).

And if you are worried he’s not the answer, check out the running backs selected between rounds 5-7 and those who went undrafted since 2000.  Again, if you know where to look, this isn’t a big of a problem to fix. And to top it off, you’re getting an extra pick for losing him. If you use one of those three 5th round picks on a RB, you’ll have him for 4 seasons for a lot cheaper than what you are paying Gillislee. You should also view what Gilli is and that’s a guy who should only get like 10-12 touches a game and would have to play if McCoy goes down for a game or two. For that sort of production, it isn’t hard to find a replacement later in the draft, street guys, or even what you have on this team at this moment.

Since 2000:

• 14 undrafted rookie running backs have had over 500 yards rushing.
• 10 rookie running backs selected between rounds 5-7 have had over 500 yards rushing.
• 20 times an undrafted running back gained over 1000 yards rushing.
• 40 times an undrafted running back gained between 600-999 yards rushing.
• 17 times a running back selected between rounds 5-7 gained over 1000 yards.
• 28 times a running back selected between rounds 5-7 gained between 600-999 yards.

I know it is easy to bang on Whaley cause everyone hates him. God knows there’s enough material to do so. Yet, Im sure McDermott could have saved Gilli by matching his deal and maybe altering someone’s salary to give them some cap relief. This is McDermott’s show and if he did like Mike that much, he wouldn’t have told Whaley to sign Mike F’N Tolbert. So, as much as blaming Whaley is fun, you should probably include the coach if you are that pissed off about the move. I’m sure McDermott wanted the extra pick since it was reported by the Buffalo News he wasn’t thrilled with having just 6 draft picks.

If anything worries me, its the fact that its the Pats and I’m going to have to see Twitter have a meltdown when he has a 12-yard run in one of their 500 prime time games. Yes, we should all prepare for Gillislee to have a decent day or two against the Bills. But that’s mainly cause you can put anyone in the Pats offense and as long as TD QB Jesus is under center, everyone is going to look like an all-pro. It is no different then when half of Twitter was pissed off about Chris Hogan having one decent day last year and the other half said “He’s got Tom Brady. What did you expect?”

Bottom line: Don’t trip out about this. I feel the Bills will find an adequate replacement for him. Oh, and try not to have a stroke over what NE does because they have success with just about any non-name running back for almost a decade now. If they didn’t sign Gillislee, it would have been someone else who would play the role of Kevin Faulk, Marooney, Green-Ellis, James White, Blount, or Woodhead.