Analyzing Bills Contract Decision Making | The Jeremy and Joe Show

Analyzing Bills Contract Decision Making | The Jeremy and Joe Show

Alex in Rochester. Hey, Alex. Good morning. Hey, Jeremy. Joe, thanks for having me. Morning. Um, wanted to touch on the Bills and Cook and Hard Knocks and I had one tiny tiny Sabres point, but first thing on Cook and the Bills, uh, Mike and Bulldog yesterday were were talking about hard knocks and how that might affect his negotiation strategies. and they were looking at it through the lens of, hey, if this Cook really wants to make a statement here, he should hold out and get all the national viewers on Hard Knocks and fans potentially taking the team’s side. Um, and I think that we’re missing one point here is that like I I’m pretty sure the Bills have either full or a lot of editorial control on Hard Knocks and Ray Davis is a guy waiting in the wings. Ray Davis is a guy that’s perfect for that show. Um, just based on his background and his story. So, I actually think that coach holding out might that that strategy might not work. I think it’s better for him to come to camp. Um, but just like your thoughts on that. And then one small thing on savers embedded that line that Yarmmo had about paintings. Uh, it’s easier to tame a tiger than to paint stripes on a pussycat is what he said. Yeah. Yeah. No. No, it’s not. Not at all. Are you kidding? If you had the chance, wouldn’t you rather put stripes on the cook than save a tiger? Tiger? Are you kidding me? Yeah. All right. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Alec. Alex, we’ll get we’ll get to that. The sabers embedded there in a minute. So, on the Cook thing, I did hear this conversation Mike Schopen, the Bulldog, asking S about the potential for a hold in and would hard knocks be a spot where maybe Cook sees and his agent would see an opportunity. Hey, we can we can steal a headline. We can make a point here. If he were to sit out two practices, hold in for two practices, he can kind of let the NFL world know, put the Bills on notice, and then just go practice. But the story would get out there. He he wants a contract. Yeah, you could do that. I suppose you just you never know what an agent’s tack is going to be or what the strategy will be. the fact that he showed up to mandator mandatory mini camp. He said, “I don’t want to get fined.” And that makes sense right now. He shows up. Could we have a hold in scenario tomorrow? I guess we could. I don’t think there’s any chance of a hold out. No, I mean, he’s not going to want that with the fines anyway. No, but a holdin would just be he’s here and he’s not taking part in team drills. The fact though that he did things at mini camp, like I guess he could hold in. I still am so like weirded out by what that would look like on the field. He’s going to stand off to the side in sweats. Like I I guess on this team it just feels different maybe for that than than on other teams. But it happens on other teams and everybody gets along fine after. Jamar Chase skipped like three weeks of training camp last week, didn’t he? He just stood on the side, didn’t do anything, and then what happened when the season started? Everybody was fine. Got along great. So, he I guess he could do that and everybody would be okay. But I I would be think I’d be surprised. I think I’d be surprised if he wasn’t just on the field doing things tomorrow without a contract. And to the point about like Ray Davis and his story, he is of course he’s a great story. The Bills though, they’re uh they’re very good obviously at the culture they’ve created, the family, the type family finger quotes there. But don’t forget, great for hard knocks and great for the room and great for that is all well and good until it comes time to pay a guy. And if he’s worth more than he’s not worth his whatever, if the player thinks he’s worth a lot more than the Bills do or they’re not willing to go to a certain number on a contract, then the player that is the great story and the player that is perfect for the room goes somewhere else, right? We’ll always have the best example of this will be Gabe Davis. Gabe Davis will always be the answer to this question. They love this guy. Could they let him leave? They let Gabe walk because they thought he wasn’t good enough to get the salary he was going to get on the open market. Gabe got it, didn’t last, and is still looking for a team now. Like, yeah, he’s not on a team. He’s not on a team. You could have him for free, basically. And you wonder if there’s an injury to somebody in training camp, are they going to call Gabe Davis? It wouldn’t stun me if he’s not if he hasn’t signed anywhere. And right now, I don’t think he could make this team, but he was their Iron Bill, right? The guy that won all the awards for working out in the offseason, everything about the culture. He’s a captain. He’s amazing for all that stuff. And then it got to, well, do you want to give him 13 million a year? No, we don’t want to do that. So, which ended up looking very much like the right decision. Sure. He has 200 He had he had 200 yards last year for Jacksonville and right now he’s not on a team, right? Like I I kind of would be surprised if he’s not on one by the start of the season, but maybe we’re going on Okay, if you want to go two years in a row now, we’re going on two years in a row where a prominently featured Bills receiver is not on a team by the next year, right? Amari Cooper right now is not on a team. Yeah. You know, you could say that not signing Gabe was the right move. And that’s probably that there’s no doubt about that. Like if they had signed him, that would have been a mistake, but you know, why do we always talk about receiver? Because it was pretty clear they probably needed somebody additionally while Davis was still here, right? And they didn’t really do that outside of Trent Sherfield and Deontay Hardy. But the to get back to the initial point, it’s they love a guy. They’ll love loving a guy. Mhm. They’ll love Conor McGovern and they’ll love Osiris Torrance and it’s time to pay those two and the salary cap’s real and it comes down to well Mhm. who gets paid. Is Cedric Van Pran Granger look like he’s ready for that job? Cuz if he is, then Conor McGovern is going to go get a big contract somewhere else. Yeah. Or if they pay McGovern, are they going to say sorry to Osiris Torrance because we can’t pay everybody on the offensive line? Yeah. You know what is interesting though? There is one guy that is able to withstand all of that while only being pretty good. I know who that is. It’s Knox. Yeah, Knox is not too important. He’s too important and he has never had to Yeah. But he’s also not a great player like we’re talking about with Davis or like any of these other guys, right? But like if he went somewhere else, what kind of numbers would he put up? It might not look much different than what happened with Dave where the production goes down. He plays a ton. They value him. They extended him really early and it was quick. Like boom, here’s a contract. And since extending him, they’ve just been restructuring it and moving it and moving it and extending it and right. Like since extending him, he has 497 yards for how much a year? 14 million. Two seasons on this new contract. Yeah. For whatever. It’s like at the time he was like one of the top 10 highest paid tight ends of football. I don’t think that’s still true, but he’s close. Yeah. three touchdowns. Yeah. Like I mean that’s more than concatenating two years. His his role is more about all this stuff that you’re talking not Iron Bill like Gabe Davis, but it’s the locker room and it’s the relationship with Josh and it is like what he does for others more and and does he block, right? Like he does that, right? Like he’s important to the run game because he’s doing some of the dirty work that Concaid’s not going to do. So there’s more than just what’s his role in the pass game, but he got paid after the big year in the pass game. That’s what got him paid. And then it’s not there anymore. But he’s So there really, especially when you already have one guy like that on your books that is giving you all that stuff that you love and he’s a he’s a leader, but he’s only pretty good. Like there’s you can’t just pay all of those guys, right? Which is why you can’t you can’t keep Gabe Davis at 13 million when you’re already paying Dawson Knox whatever you’re paying him. What is the number 8 n 10 on Knox? If Knox wasn’t under contract and they had paid Gabe Davis and he caught 600 yards last year, you know, you might feel like that’s more okay. And Cook, I don’t know. I don’t know where Cook falls into on that though because Cook is not I think he’s better in these areas than he was as a rookie, but he’s not seen as like the leader in that room or like he’s one of their veteran presences, but I wouldn’t say that anyone talks about him on the same level that like Allen or Knox is. Well, one of the things that happened at Dawson Knox, of course, was drafting Dalton Concaid. Kate talked about this in the Tyler Dunn piece where he he spoke with Tyler Dunn at golongtd.com saying that Knox had been such a great friend and mentor and teammate and colleague and sometimes if you get drafted you’re taking snaps away or catches away from a guy it can get tense but it didn’t. That’s really what happened to Dawson Knox’s career was they draft Concaid and they have a different tight end that they kind of want to throw to. I mean I thought Knox was perfectly fine in his productivity. Yeah. still like you might be right about being overpaid. He’s it’s a three-year deal worth about 10 million per year. His cap hit this year is 14.5. Yeah. Like that is that’s a monster. That’s a monster cap hit. And at the end of this season, there’s an out. If they were to move on from Dawson Knox at the end of this year, they would save about 11 million in cap. That’s a big number. But wouldn’t you just guess that they’ve restructured him again? They will absolutely extend him. Like he’ll just extend him and spread it out. Yeah, I think he’ll just keep him. He’s got two void years at the end of this thing already that they would have put on somewhere along the way in a restructure. And uh yeah. Yeah. It’s more it’s more for him than just the yards. But it again, I don’t we got to all this on James Cook and Ray Davis, but because really like I I think part of it is how many guys do I want to pay that are pretty good, which is a model that the Bills Did you see the who did it? Steven Ruiz, the ringer. Who did the uh the roster rankings yesterday? I think it might have been Steen Ruiz. Top rosters in the NFL. Oh, there was there Well, there also was the collaborative the the guys at ESPN did it like Eric Shots and Seth Walder and Mike Clay. That might have been the one. And the Bills come in with a top five roster. Number four. And it is it is an interesting little experiment here in what the Bills have done, which is yeah, keep your good players, not great players. Not to say they haven’t kept great players. They’ve done that, too. But they have a lot of middle tier contract guys. And I’m thinking about Russo for this, too. Like, he’s not your TJ Watt. He’s good. Keep him. Mhm. And there are a couple schools of thoughts on this. There are some teams I think the NerS are the best example of this. The Niners are going to pay great players and anybody else might get moved on from and they’re going to just back backload with picks. Meanwhile, the Bills have a lot of salaries. Like Knox with a 14.5 cap hit and Shaquir and Palmer and Samuel. Like the Bills really do have a lot of money invested in these weapons because it feels like they are almost buying floor over ceiling, right? They they want guys they trust, guys they think are good enough. And in a lot of ways, they’ve been right about that in the way that they’ve built their roster. Cuz here, they have a top they have a top five roster. And yet, if you look at all of the rankings of the top players and pro bowlers and all this, they don’t come in in the top five in that department. Other teams have more players maybe near the top, but the Bills are consistently mentioned as like a top five roster because of the way they built it. So, for better or for worse, it’s it’s kind of like a balanced build. Yeah. Yeah, cuz what’s interesting is if you look at their right now, you look at the Bills top, let’s say eight cap hits on the year this year and how like who are they and what their roles are on the team like? Okay, so Allen’s number one and obviously that’s Josh Allen. Number two is Deion Dawkins. Great. That should that that fits. Great player. That fits. Number three is Dawson Knox. He’s the third highest Capit. Yeah, not the third most important player. Matt Milano is number four. Ed Oliver is number five. Dayquin Jones is number six. Conor McGovern, Curtis Samuel. Those are your next two. After that, like in your top eight, I got four, five guys that are being paid that aren’t really critical. Like right now, that would be Jones for that. That would be Knox for that. That would be Samuel for sure on that front. like these guys are, you know, they’re not not going to play, but they are not like any they’re not critical to what’s going on. And Cap Hit might be a little bit loose on that because of guys because that can be where you are in your contract, right? Cuz Knox’s AAV was less than 10, but the cap is 14 because they’ve moved it and Daquin Jones is higher because he’s at the end of his contract. It was lower at the beginning. Yeah. Last year Daquin Jones was 2.8 on their cap and this year it’s 9.4. Yeah. And isn’t this kind of a point as you list those out? That’s why they wanted to supplement these last two drafts with a lot of picks and a lot of young players like time to turn the roster over, get younger, which they’ve done, right? And in a couple years that’ll be like we’ll see how these free agents do. Michael Hoy in a couple years is going to be one of their ti highest caps and so will Josh Palmer, right? Those guys right now are low because they’re only into year one. So that that’s part of the Knox conversation though is you want to keep him around cuz next year I can’t imagine you’re going to want to keep him around at $17 million on your books. You’ll either want to move on from that or more likely you’ll want to spread that out and do like another three-year deal and make him a player that’s been that’s going to be on the Bills for his whole career. 8030550 a Rul Douglas sighting. Have you seen the team that might bring them in? We’ll get to that next. We’ll mention that for you. And S coming up 8 o’clock. Jeremy and Joe, uh, Bills report to camp today. First practice is tomorrow. So, happy football season. We are getting started. 26 of the 32 teams report today. Uh, already had two in. Couple more coming with the uh, I think it’s the Falcons and the Steelers that are the last. 28 of 32 report today. Yeah, camp has arrived.

Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase discuss RB James Cook as he still is demanding a contract as we’re one day out from the start of Bills training camp. The guys analyze the possibility of Cook deciding to make some drama in camp with a hold in or hold out. They both share why they believe Cook won’t cause a stir around the league by playing hardball, but share why it could be advantageous to his situation. They also touch on the Hard Knocks factor as the show could provide James Cook even more of an avenue to create noise. This leads the guys to a larger discussion around how the Bills decide to pay players. They review the team’s history with players like Gabe Davis and Dawson Knox. They use the Bills past contract decisions with those players as a guide to what may happen with Cook’s situation.

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