The Buffalo Bills have the second-worst salary cap in the league, at $51 million over the 2024 cap. We’ve discussed a few potential restructurings the Bills might implement to postpone their cap obligations and free up cap space for 2024. We also discussed a few contract extensions that may actually reduce the cap hits for some veterans.
While they are simple and quick to complete, the Bills will also consider cut candidates. That’s a far more difficult problem.
General manager of the Buffalo Bills Brandon Beane has regularly proposed revised contracts rather than direct cuts to players. In essence, the Bills reduce an athlete’s base compensation and include incentives in the deal so the player can make up the difference by achieving predetermined targets. Because they are now Not Likely To Be Earned incentives, the cap impact is only removed from the books if and when they reach the incentive in the following season. (An incentive marked as “Likely To Be Earned” indicates that the athlete reached the mark the season before. They need to be taken care of in the current cap year.)
Which players might be removed from the team in order to free up cap space? I arranged them according to the amount of cap space each would generate:
I had Morse on my list of extensions, but if they want to grow younger, they can decide to let go of the veteran. Ryan Bates is waiting in the wings to secure the role, and there would be a huge cap savings. I don’t think his contract will remain the same because they’ll renegotiate something—void years, an extension, or a wage reduction—to bring that cap number down. In his first deal with Buffalo, he did accept a pay reduction.
This one is quite difficult. In the past three seasons, White has only appeared in 21 games due to two serious leg ailments. Until he is on to the opening-day roster, his salary is not guaranteed, but he has a $1.5 million roster bonus that is due on March 18. Do they believe that he will recover from this most recent injury? This might be the most difficult choice to make out of all the players on the list.With all of the unknown around Tre’Davious White and Micah Hyde, this is obviously improbable, but by dismissing Poyer, the Bills might free up cap space and save some cash.
In 2024, Hines will receive a base salary of $4 million. Comparing that to $2.56 million the previous year, there is a significant increase. It might come down to what his anticipated role will be on the club, but the Bills can wait to commit to him until after training camp to observe how he recovers from his injury and how Joe Brady can work with him. All that’s at stake is a $500,000 roster bonus.
To be clear, I do not anticipate this occurring. Dawkins is on my list of contractors for future work. Eliminating him would result in a gaping hole and only save them $4.8 million in cap space. Given that his base salary is slated to be $9.3 million, I suppose that is feasible.
There’s no denying that Harty performed below contract in 2023. His deal included escalators if he had a good season, but he didn’t even come close to reaching any of the receiving objectives (although he did receive a $250k bonus for his average punt return). In addition to his $2.875 million basic pay, he will receive a $500k roster bonus in March.
This hardly qualifies as a cap savings because they would most likely replace him with the money they saved. Since it must occur before 3/18/24, when his contract becomes completely guaranteed, I am adding him to the list.
