I wanted to wait until the dust settled from the free agency signing period, so now seems like a good time.
Bravo, Brandon Beane!
You did more than I thought you’d be able to do this offseason, considering the reduced salary cap. For the most part, you not only kept the band together for the 2021 season, but you’ve got all the main pieces in place through at least 2022.
While AFC East rivals were spending their money on the open market to fill holes, lots of holes for the New England Patriots, you were spending the Pegulas' money on familiar players that have a proven track record with your franchise.
I’ll start with linebacker Matt Milano.
I thought, for sure, he was a goner. It was a combination of me wondering how Beane and company could make all the moves fit, what Milano might get on the free market, Beane saying at the end-of-season press conference that Milano had earned the right to go and see what was out there, no franchise tag being used, and being just days away from the legal tampering period without news of a new contract.
Despite all of that, Milano was re-signed, and it sounded like he didn’t want to leave in the first place.
I figured any re-signing of Milano would mean the inability to bring back one of, or both Jon Feliciano and Daryl Williams.
Wrong again.
The Bills were able to keep their offensive line intact, and agree to deals that are very manageable for a team not blessed with oodles of cap space.
If you would have told me that all three of the Bills' key unrestricted free agents were going to be re-signed, I would have told you there would have been a string of players being released to create more cap space.
However, the Bills released just two players in wide receiver John Brown and defensive tackle Quinton Jefferson. And Brown has since been replaced with another solid Beane move, the one-year, $6 million signing of Emmanuel Sanders.
The Bills used a combination of moves to execute their offseason plan with those two releases, pay cuts for Mario Addison, Mitch Morse and Vernon Butler, the trade of Lee Smith, and the re-structuring of Tre'Davious White’s contract to create the cap space they needed, and still have some room left over. According to spotrac.com, the Bills still have a little over $4 million in salary cap space.
As far as I’m concerned, keeping Milano, Feliciano and Williams would have made for a successful offseason. But Beane has made some other minor moves to upgrade the roster.
I do like adding Sanders to make up for the departure of Brown, who was a big part of helping in Josh Allen’s development and the team’s success. Buffalo also brought some needed speed into the backfield when they signed Matt Breida.
At tight end, Jacob Hollister is certainly an upgrade as a weapon in the passing game over Smith, and when you combine his pass-catching and blocking, he's also an upgrade over Tyler Kroft, who they allowed to leave via free agency. This gives the Bills the ability to use more two-tight end sets next season, should they so desire.
Mitchell Trubisky didn’t turn out to be the Chicago Bears' franchise quarterback, but he doesn’t need to do that here. All he has to be is the "break glass in case of emergency" guy. If Allen is injured, in the short-term, I think Trubisky can manage the operations and give the Bills a better chance to win a game or two than Matt Barkley.
Barkley served a key role in helping Allen along the way too, but the Bills needed a better backup quarterback.
Wait, I’m not done yet.
Beane and his staff deserve credit for what they’ve done for roughly the last year, and not just what happened in March. Look at how they have been able to keep the core of this team together and prevent players from leaving in free agency:
March 2020 - Jordan Poyer, who was going into the final year of his contract, gets a two-year extension through 2022.
August 2020 - Dion Dawkins, who would have been a free agent after last season, gets an extension through 2024.
September 2020 - Tre'Davious White had his fifth-year option picked up for 2021, but Beane inks White to an extension through 2025.
March 2021 - Micah Hyde, the other half of one of the best safety tandems in the league, avoids playing through his final year and has a new deal through the 2023 season.
Hold on, I’m still not done.
In all likelihood, the Bills will pick up the fifth-year option for both Allen and Tremaine Edmunds by the May 3 deadline, so those two key pieces will be under contract for two more years. It’s a good bet that Allen will get himself a mega-deal before next season begins.
Beane is showing why he was such a deserving choice for NFL Executive of the Year last season.
I have more I could say on the subject, but it’s 72 degrees outside as I write this, so I’m going for a walk.