Bills General Manager Brandon Beane says one of the explanations it’s powerful to maintain tempo with the Bengals is that Cincinnati has its finest gamers on cheap rookie contracts, whereas Buffalo doesn’t.
“They right now are on the advantage of a rookie quarterback contract,” Beane stated of Joe Burrow. “They had some lean years, and without getting too much into their build, I don’t want to suck bad enough to have to get Ja’Marr Chase. He’s a heck of a talent, I’d love to have him, but you got to go through some lean years to do that. They were able to get Burrow No. 1 and Chase [No. 5] and those guys are on their rookie deals. We’re paying Stefon Diggs a pretty hefty number. We’re paying Josh Allen a pretty hefty number. So there is the constraints of the cap. They have a really good team and they’ve got some good young players. We’re gonna try to get as many players as we can through the draft and through free agency, but again, our cap situation is a little different.”
Beane stated the NFL has not instructed groups what the 2023 wage cap will likely be, however Beane expects the Bills to be over it heading into the offseason. That means the Bills’ first precedence will likely be making strikes to get underneath the cap, quite than signing costly free brokers.
“We’re going to have to get under the cap by moves, roster cuts. . . . There’s not gonna be a Von Miller signing or something like that. We’re going to have to work to get under the cap so we can operate this year,” Beane stated.
Beane stated there are strikes that the Bills could make to cut back wage cap hits this yr, however these strikes find yourself pushing wage cap hits into future seasons, so Beane doesn’t wish to make too many such strikes.
“I don’t want to in two years be $100 million over the cap, like we’ve seen teams have to do. I’m not looking to do that,” Beane stated.
Burrow will doubtless signal a profitable contract extension this yr, and Chase doubtless subsequent yr, so the Bengals received’t have that advantage for lengthy. But for now, it’s an advantage that makes Beane jealous of the Bengals’ scenario.
