One Fan(n)’s Opinion By @RDotDeuce: How to Keep Incognito and Glenn

If you wanna write about any Buffalo Sports – or wrasslin’ let Joe (BuffaloWins) or myself (See above) know. We like new people. Kinda.

Rex will be talking to the media in a few hours from the combine (edit: has happened) and one of the myriad questions he’ll get no doubt will be about the free agent left side of the line. In an effort to help Rex out a li’l bit – and show that it’s not as difficult as it seems – here’s my quick-n-dirty way of getting cap compliant without killing the roster. I also cannot recommend enough reading the on-site guys like Sal C. (who put up a great article about the Bills looking to re-structure of a few of my targets), Tyler Dunne and Vic – because if you want the direct quotes those are going to be the guys I’m relying on to get the goods.

First, the cap “blood letting”. Currently, with their 4.4 million dollar rollover, via Spotrac, OverTheCap and the NFLPA I have the Bills at 200k under the cap using the “Top 51 rule”. That obviously isn’t enough for free agency, let alone the draft cap (projected to be 4.879 million via OverTheCap), so moves have to be made. For me they are:

1. Cut Mario – Mario wanted Rex to meet him half-way, but Rex wants to be “fully pregnant” with his scheme. Yuck. So Mario moves on to another team and the Bills get 12.9 million in space back. That gets them to 13.109 million.

2. Re-structure Charles Clay – Getting him to spread that 10 million roster bonus over the rest of the contract saves the Bills 8 million dollars. Now we’re at 21.164 million.

3. Cut Leo and Kid Rock Kicker – That pushes the team to 25.77 million. Per Sal’s report above they’re looking to re-structure Leo and Graham, which would approximate the same savings as I have put here, so I’m going to leave my idea on because it hasn’t happened yet.

Taking away the 4.879 million I mentioned earlier for the rookie cap, that leaves the Bills with 20.897 million to use in free agency. As you can see, franchising Glenn at 13 million can happen, but that would kill most of their planning for the off-season, so it’s paramount they get him signed to an extension. Also, I’m operating under a mindset that the deals for Glenn and Incognito have to be “Mario proof” – I don’t want to hear in a couple of years this contract is an albatross, etc. – so the hits are manageable with the exception of a remarkably low first year in cap hit, but in cash overlay quite a bit of coin.

I’m also mindful of how these deals will affect the 2017 cap – with key free agents being Tyrod Taylor and Stephon Gilmore. While it would be ideal to drop Gilmore’s 11 million cap hit this year, if an accord isn’t reached before the season it will be imperative to have the space available to try and extend Taylor to prevent my aforementioned “Sophie’s Choice” of losing your QB or your number 1 corner.

Cordy Glenn Contract Thoughts

The two contracts I used as a base to cut to the chase on getting Cordy paid, but also getting the Bills in a good cap place were Miami’s Branden Albert’s 5 years, 47 million dollars, 8.5 million signing bonus deal and Trent “Silver Back” Williams’ 5 year, 66 million dollars, 8.5 million dollar signing bonus deal from Washington.

Splitting the two, I came up with this – 5 years, 56.5 million dollars with an 18 million dollar signing bonus and 28 million guaranteed at signing. While the amount of the signing bonus is a bit large compared to the two above, in the long run that allows for a manageable deal. In year one, Cordy would only account for 5.6 million on the cap and the highest hit would be 13.1 million dollars in years 3-5, which should be more than manageable with the rising cap numbers.

Richie Incognito Contract Thoughts

In Richie’s case, you have a bit of an age issue. At age 32 you don’t expect him to get crazy money; however, his work on the field last year deserves to be rewarded and assumed to be the standard going forward. With that in mind I looked at 3 deals for over-30 guards – 2 signed recently and one as a result of a trade: Logan Mankins’ (33) remaining 19.75 million over the next three years from his Pats deal, Ben Grubbs’ (31) 4 years, 24 million dollar deal and Marshall Yanda’s (31) 4 years, 31 million dollar deal with a 9 million signing bonus which he received last year.

In an effort to save cap space and have one year of “fat” (can a 36 year old Incognito perform?) I settled on a 4 years, 28 million dollar contract with a 10 million dollar signing bonus and 16.75 million guaranteed – essentially the first 2 years.

So there you have it. Cap compliant, Richie and Glenn in place, and around 35++ million left in 17 pending other FAs to have a pool for Tyrod’s cannonball cap hit and Gilmore’s potential meteor.

Did I miss a 6 somewhere? Not carry a 3? Did you have thoughts on my thoughts? Hit me up on Twitter @RDotDeuce.