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Marcell Dareus On Tap As Top Priority For Buffalo Bills

By Dennis Amo

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When you think of top defensive lineman in the league, specifically defensive tackles, Marcell Dareus is one of the first couple of players that comes to mind.  He came about last year after having a subpar start to his NFL career.  With the Buffalo Bills exercising the 5th year option on Dareus’ rookie contract, they need to make a move before he becomes a free agent at the end of the year.  

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Marcell Dareus is set to be a free agent at the end of the year and is expecting big money and big money he will get.  As projected to be one of the top 3 defensive lineman in the league, Dareus will be looking at Gerald McCoy and Ndamukong Suh as role models on how to get that big contract.

McCoy is the lesser of two contracts standing at a 95.2 million dollar 8 year contract that started last year with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and is expected to become a free agent in 2022.  With a signing bonus of only 2.5 million and a average base salary of 15.8 each year, it looks like a hefty contract, and it is.

Structuring the contract in such a way to help with future years is key though.  This year and next year McCoy is only set to make 5 and 6 million respectively but with a 6.5 million dollar roster bonus added in.  Every other year of the contract he will be receiving over 10 million as a base salary. The cap hit from last year to this year dropped from 21.3 to 14.6 million and will drop again next year to 13 million.  Each year, there is less and less of a cap hit, providing the Bucs with additional funds to spend elsewhere but keep a star defensive player.

Ndamukong Suh, who is the higher of the two contracts, has a contract for 6 years for a total 114.4 million dollars.  He received a 25.5 million dollar signing bonus but will only see a base salary of 985,000 this year with a 5.1 million dollar signing bonus.  His cap hit this year is only 6.1 million.  Not too bad, structured so the Dolphins could get him in the door and open more room next year to cover what is going to be a 28.6 million dollar cap hit with the base salary of 23.5 millions and the signing bonus of 5.1.

Suh in 2017 drops to just under 10 million as  the base salary but keeps the same signing bonus through 2019.  He jumps back up to 16.9 and 18.9 for the next two years and will see a base salary in the final year of his contract at of 18.3 in 2020 before he becomes a free agent.

The Buffalo Bills should expect Marcell Dareus to fall into the salary range or expect a salary between these two guys.  I would not be surprised to see an overall salary of 105 million over the course of 5 or 6 years with a decent size signing bonus attached, probably in the 20 million dollar range.

For this to happen this year, during the offseason, the Buffalo Bills will have to restructure Mario WIlliams’ contract, who is set to receive 18.8 million this year.  We should see a similar deal that happened with Kyle Williams but have it be more than a 1 year extension.

The Bills want to show their players that they want to resign their own guys and keep them around and will pay to do so.  Buffalo is slowly building a direction and a future and to do that, players need to stick around past 1 contract term.  Re-signing Marcell Dareus to 5-6 years and Mario Williams to a similar length will ensure that this defensive line stays at the top of the league for the next 4-5 years.

Next: Buffalo Bills Draft Prospects: Jordan Phillips

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