Buffalo Bills are mastering the art of the one-year deal

The Buffalo Bills under Brandon Beane have shown a mastery of utilizing the one-year deal to their advantage.

“Idle talk. And hollow promises. Cheating Judases. Doubting Thomases. Don’t just stand there and shout it. Do something about it. Is Simplicity Best? Or simply the easiest? ” sings David Gahan in his near perfect deep voice never mistaken for another.

Some have said that the lyrics to the 1993 Depeche Mode song “Judas” are pure genius. Others have claimed they are elementary similar to a schoolboy simply rhyming poetry.

Brandon Beane has become a master of keeping it simple. Is simplicity best? Or simply the easiest? Let us reference his “Art-of-the-one-year-deal”.

They are relatively simple. They never make an assertion to be the cheapest contracts as far as spending goes. The Buffalo Bills certainly are not viewed as having ownership afraid to spend money on salaries. Cost of labor is always a top spending category on Pegula’s projections. The financials upon reviewing of the Bills corporate P & L has never indicated a lack of spending to the cap. No-one would dare claim that ownership has tied Beane’s hands by limiting his spending.

The Bills’ owner Terry Pegula said when he purchased the Buffalo Sabres, “I want to run the team to win the Stanley Cup. If I want to make some money I’ll go drill a gas well. I don’t need to make money in the hockey business.”

That was right before the current stretch of nine seasons without NHL playoffs. Didn’t see that one coming, did ya?

Of course spending a lot of money on cost of labor often recovering from dead cap spending does not mean positive results on the field. Awaiting Marcell Dareus poorly structured contract is a prime example as to how signing long term deals structured in a totally player favored fashion can kill a franchise.

I mean Marcell is already being categorized expendable by the team that he was moved to. But yet dead cap money still haunted the Buffalo Bills. Now I’m am not for one second suggesting that when the Bills decided to keep Marcell Dareus past his rookie deal , that for a high first round pick who made the Pro Bowl a team should sign him to a one year deal.

That ain’t happening with a player with his talent and history.

The only way you get him for one year is to slap a franchise tag on him breaking the bank for one season. When you are keeping your own high picks still in prime age groups, the art of the one year deal is not likely going to be on the table. Knowing that when attempting to keep your franchise quarterbacks or stud superstars like Tre’Davious White, a long term deal making the player a very rich man is a certainty.

That is why in all of your tryout type signings or filling in holes awaiting younger players to emerge, situations that we refer to as a beautiful thing. Is Simplicity Best? Or simply the easiest? The art of the one year deal is proving to be a specialty of Brandon Beane in free agent signings. If a player is aging or coming off injuries, why over-commit? You can always use a tag or cough up the big longer contract if they prove to be long term solutions. But Beane is looking smart to other GMs when plugging holes on the offensive line and even at defense by not doing the traditional typical long term spread out contracts, which will eventually put you in salary cap bondage.

Desperate players will sign anywhere, so fielding a team is simple. Simply take a look at the Bills from 2001 through 2016. Building a team that is consistently competing for the playoffs is not so simple. But when your team is showing growth, good management and ownership, topped off by playoff appearances in two of the past three years, a different outside perception exists.

Players may be willing to sign one year deals once or twice. Other tier players may choose your long term offer over others. That goes for either free agents seeking a new team or even free agents in your own house that you wish to keep but need a little flexibility to make contracts appropriate for the player and the team.

The way I perceive it is if you are a player trying to reinvent yourself, have decreased productivity in recent seasons or injury setbacks, a solid one year contract can put you back on the map for either the team you are with for one year, or other teams, to invest more time in. Either way you view it, most NFL contracts are not guaranteed.

That is why many agents negotiate huge signing bonuses and load the contracts up in the first couple of years knowing that their client most likely will not stay employed there on the longer contracts. Other times if the team already paid the bonus and high salary the first couple of years, they will keep said player around because the back end of the deal is affordable even if the player has lost a step . With longer deals salary cap implications need to be recognized as simply cutting a player doesn’t get that player off the cap hit list.

Teams utilize long contracts to keep their own groomed drafted elite talents. An elite talent will not have any interest in one year contracts. When they are coming off a rookie contract, they have been waiting for that pay day. That is why at times you walk away from you Stephon Gilmore’s or many others in the past. You might not see value in the kind of production one gets for a certain player.

Now Gilmore has shown to be a keeper in New England. Sometimes you walk away from a player that is really great, but the time or situation of the team may not be in position to pay the player. Maybe it is a salary cap issue. Maybe the team is in the middle of a rebuild house cleaning and spending that kind of money during a couple seasons known to be of a non competitive time period. What would be the sense of having the highest paid cornerback in the league if you are breaking down the team and fixing the salary cap problem? By the time you are ready to win, that player may be past their prime or simply way to costly impacting needs in many other areas.

That is why teams value those years they may have a franchise elite quarterback still on the rookie contract. Seattle won a Super Bowl and played in another with money spent all over the defense while having success with a stud quarterback. Russell Wilson was on a rookie contract structured for a third round quarterback taken with the 75th pick. What an absolute steal and bargain.

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The Art of The One Year Deal does neither the Buffalo Bills or a player any favors when referencing elite players entering their prime where they can demand terms from many pursuing teams. Pro elite to put it blunt, a superstar peak performing “prime time” player would not desire one of Brandon Beane’s “specials”.

The master chef would have a tough sell pushing his favorite dish on most players agents. Except the type of players Beane seems comfortable with executing these short deals with flawlessly.

It seems to fit right in with this organization’s philosophy of maintaining good salary cap space for as long as possible. They want to win now. They also want to be able to compete in a few years if the winning now does not result in a Lombardi Trophy. I would suggest even if they were to be crowned champions, a GM who did not suffer through the drought would not want to win and then swiftly drop to the bottom of the standings.

Fans may be willing to sell out the future for one huge win resulting in a parade. Not a rally thanking Scott Norwood for trying hard. A winning parade.

Team executives wants to build a long-term contender. Brandon Beane does not want to sell out for one time, one year championship runs. No one-year-run-and-done team building strategies. To avoid the one and done team approach, the single year contracts seem to fit right in for certain kind of players. It is not being cheap. The contracts are nice salaries for most of these category of players. These contracts avoid the famous over-commitment signings that locked many of the Buffalo Bills drought teams in salary cap prison.

A few examples would be guard Derrick Dockery, tackle Langston Walker or defensive tackle Larry Tripplett. Many others were brought in throughout the numerous regimes of the great drought. Huge contracts for multiple year deals to lure slightly above average players to a losing undesirable organization. These deals now are fine for a huge splash signing.

If the Buffalo Bills was going after Jadeveon Clowney, the deal would likely break the bank and impact the cap long term. That is ok when it’s the exception and for an elite talent such as that former first overall pick. They did similar with Mario Williams. It is not ok to be your only shot at signing players of any skill set for them to even consider becoming irrelevant for an irrelevant team.

The one year contracts for Lorenzo Alexander worked out in the twilight of his career as he took things one year at a time. He made Pro Bowls and was a huge part of both seasons they made the playoffs. He deserved a nice contract, but at his age a long term deal impacting the salary cap was not in the cards. No-one was certain how much he had left in the tank.

Jordan Phillips played on two separate one year deals for the Buffalo Bills. He had great stats this past season. He is a prime example of someone the franchise tag or a one year deal makes sense to execute. It is too risky to give him a long term deal at the money he will command. He may have had a career one-time season. He could have benefited by those surrounding him. He may have been placed in the perfect scheme. Prior to arriving in the Queen City, a demand for his services was not in surplus.

Next. 3 teams the Bills could trade with in the first round. dark

Josh Norman is a great signing for the Buffalo Bills on a one year deal at age 32. He has Carolina connection with Sean McDermott. That will prove to be a situation where he has the opportunity to bounce back from a down season. McDermott and Leslie Frazier are two coaches very capable of rejuvenating Norman’s career. It was only a few years back that he was one of the elite players in the league at his position. A long contract with lengthy salary cap concerns was not an option. But a nice salary for a one year contract is a minimal risk. A low risk, high reward potential signing. I’m all in.

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