Well, if he balls out and then leaves, then, yeah...not the best result for the Bills. But I'd assume if he does play well, they will either franchise him or give him a new contact.

So at worst, the Bills have him for this year and say goodbye if he doesn't deliver, or they have him for two more years (on the franchise tag for the 2nd year) and say goodbye if they don't want to pay him top dollar.

But I really think if they do choose to franchise him, they will be working to get him signed long-term.

I just don't see how you sign him to the 5th year for that money when he missed 8 games last year and we're still not sure if his foot is 100%.

meanwhile carolina decides to guarantee kelvin benjamin money so he can continue to make mcdonalds franchise owners rich and drop passes

is it a good sign when everything you do in the offseason is objectively worse than the bills

Not franchising Sammy is an easy decision. Foot injuries are scary and he hasn't proven to be a world beater yet, albeit he does look good when injury free

They have plenty of time to sign him if they need to after this year or even after franchising him

Can't be too scared about the 5th year option imo

Yeah, I think it's the right call, but it's a tough situation.
Well, in their defense, his 5th year option is for only $8.5m.

That does seem like a lot for a TE who can't block, though...

Best case scenario for the Bills, is after next year they place a non-exclusive tag on him next year and some other teams grabs him, giving the Bills 2 firsts. The Bills would then have FOUR firsts in next years' draft.

Jesus, could you imagine a team having 4 firsts? Crazy.

They would have 3 firsts next year, and 2 the following.

The Jets had 4 firsts when they drafted Pennington.

Other picks were John Abraham, Shaun Ellis, and Anthony Becht.

Are you sure about that?? Wow.

Hmmm, guess so!

Bruh, nobody is paying 2 1s for Sammy and then paying full sticker price on a new deal for him

I know...but I can dream, can't I?

You're a Bills fan. No.

I always enjoy having Dom, casual fan, around these parts

lol the Bills' playoff drought will be old enough to vote next year, so gimme a break!

JC to the broncos

this disappoints me

Two fired Buffalo GMs walk into a bar....



That's Whaley and fired Sabres GM Tim Murray having a day drink together....obviously talking about Terry Pegula.

Do the Bills have any priority guys with expiring contracts? At a glance I don't see a lot of competition for a franchise tag as far as Watkins. Seems like an easy decision.

The 5th-year option is a good idea but the disparity between the top ten and 11-32 figures is pretty high and arbitrary. Watkins' option was $13.2m while ODB goes 12th and his is $8.5m? It seems to penalize bad teams and good players. Why not just create an additional tag for this 1st rd/5th year and make it uniform?

Yeah, they have no one else remotely franchiseable afaict.

Uniform tag punishes elite talent even more than they already are, unless the tag is at such a high level to become almost never used.

It looks like the vast majority of players in and out of the top 10 had their option years activated this season, 7 of the 9 eligible top 10 picks. 23 of 29 eligible players were optioned throughout the round. I know last years' class was much worse but clearly the current high tier isn't too high for franchises now (when talking about a quality player).

And you look at a top-10-drafted beast like Mike Evans, his option money isn't quite franchise-tag cash but $13m+ seems defensible relative to the WR market, if you're going to have this option structure at all. A few spots lower and ODB loses close to $5m. The second tier definitely penalizes good talent and for a questionable reason - players have no control over draft position, which should be irrelevant 5 years into an NFL career anyway. It's not even a sliding scale like the rookie cap.

Plus does this discount for lower-drafting teams do anything for parity? Granted there's a few years and things change since the picks happened, but this almost seems like a tax on the Browns for sucking, and a small break for stronger franchises.

So what # would you want the flat # to be?

the NFLPA is the weakest of all major sports. the franchise tag is a result/product of that.

Probably won't be much of an issue for NE and obviously getting Butler at 1/4 is a good move, but if he outperforms Gilmore next year then I do wonder if it could become a distraction. Very rare a team chooses a guy from another team over their own star/fan favorite and then said guy is still on the team the next season.

Almost like getting a divorce but your ex still lives with you. Media will definitely be harsh on Gilmore if he isn't on Butler's level given the $ disparity and how bold it was for NE to do that.

Somewhere around where the current high tier is, maybe a little higher, and just eliminate the lower pay tier altogether. You'd still accomplish the presumptive goal of providing an extra mechanism for teams to retain more of their drafted talent, but it would still sting a bit more (as it should, if you're going to trap a player an additional year).

Aaron Donald is probably the best example of how senseless the current system is: if he were franchised tagged next year, it would run the Rams somewhere around $13 or $14 million. Instead, because he was picked 13th overall, his option has him under contract for $6.9m overall in 2018. I'm fairly confident he has a massive new contract coming and will be fine, but still.

Hmmm. How about this proposal...

5th year option $13m. Teams can use it on ANY draft pick, not just 1st rounders. No max or min # that a team can use in any given year.