End of an era for the Buffalo Bills

The Bills accomplished the rare feat of sustaining an elite roster with free agency and trades, but now they need to transition

Earlier this week the Buffalo Bills announced the release of Jordan Poyer, Mitch Morse and others as part of a much-needed cap-clearing offseason. Those releases symbolize the end of one phase for the Bills, which combined a handful of great draft selections with inordinate success building elite talent in the free agency and via trades.

Free agency is best used to fill roster holes and build a depth of competence on the team, not to find elite talent. Let’s face it, free agents are players who their previous employers were willing to let leave, presuming they’re not worth the market price. If the team that has the most knowledge about a player has either cut them or allowed their contracts to expire, it’s more likely that there’s something negative than positive about their profile that’s missing from evidence you can see on the outside. Traded players aren’t as discounted by their previous teams, but they don’t fall into the “won’t trade at any reasonable price” bucket of elite players at the most coveted positions.

Free agents and traded-for players are also generally overpriced because of the principal-agent problem I’ve discussed before, i.e. decision-makers are incentivized to boost their short-term job-retention prospects over the longer-term benefits that flow in-full to a franchise’s fans and ownership. If you’re focused on next-year gains in performance and only have a limited supply of what gives the best long-term returns (draft picks), then overspending in free agency and trades is necessary to maximize the immediate boost, especially since the biggest contracts are structured for maximum effect on the cap multiple years down the road.

Back to the Bills, who seeded their recent run of strong play, in large part, due to huge hits in free agency and trades. They essentially bucked the analytical assumption that you can find so much value via those avenues, and now they’re going to have to do things the hard way. Starting in 2017, when they made an entirely unexpected playoff run and a year before trading up to draft Josh Allen, the Bills hit on big-time free agents, including Poyer and Micah Hyde, then also added key players in Morse and Cole Beasley in 2019, and Daryl Williams in 2020. The biggest value addition was their trade for Stefon Diggs in the 2020 offseason, which really began a run of elite/great wide receivers getting traded in their primes (Diggs was 26 at the time), but was far from a certain strategy after many receivers flopped switching teams in the past in free agency.

According to my NFL Plus/Minus valuations, Poyer and Hyde added over 90 points of value from 2017-2022, ranking fourth and sixth, respectively, among safeties during that period. Morse added nearly 20 points over the last five years, ranking sixth among centers. Beasley added 15 points from 2019-2021, in the top-40 for wide receivers. And Williams added around 11 points over two years playing over 2,200 snaps at guard and tackle. In total, these five free agent signings added nearly five wins (roughly 30 points per win) over average NFL starters, an enormous number for players acquired via free agency. Diggs added nearly 70 points by himself in four seasons from 2020-2023, ranking sixth among all wide receivers.

The tailwinds the Bills gained from free agent and trade value is largely gone, with only Diggs remaining on the roster from those listed above. For what it’s worth, Diggs had his worst value seasons with the Bills by NFL Plus/Minus in 2023 (+8.5), and his cap hit jumps to over $27 million in each of the next two seasons, after averaging $11.6 million the previous four seasons.

The last couple of free agency years for the Bills have been about retaining drafted talent on more expensive deals, plus the boondoggle contract for free agent signing Von Miller. The Bills gave Miller $50-plus million in guarantees at age 33 in the 2022 offseason, having already shelled out nearly $35 million over the past two years and Miller produced just 13 pressures and zero sacks on 257 snaps last season. Entering his age-35 season, the Bills have renegotiated his deal to free up cap space and make him unpleasant to cut next offseason, when his dead money would total $15.4 million.

This transition in value tailwind to headwind in free agency and trades comes at the end of several poor draft classes. The 2017 and 2018 draft classes produced the core of the Bills’ success, including Allen, Tre’Davious White, Matt Milano, Dion Dawkins and Tremaine Edmunds and Taron Johnson. Those players have accounted for a combined two First-Team All-Pro selections, four Second-Team All-Pro and 10 Pro Bowls. Edmunds left via free agency last offseason, and White was cut this year. Milano, Dawkins and Johnson were extended and are on market-rate contracts. In five drafts since 2018, the Bills’ picks have one combined Pro Bowl selection, and that’s James Cook, a running back selected with a high-value pick in the second round.

I don’t want to paint too negative of a picture for the Bills, as they still have Allen, who, by my numbers, is in a tier by himself below Patrick Mahomes among NFL quarterbacks, essentially the second most valuable player in the NFL, with a gap to third. That’s mostly what’s keeping the Bills at fourth in Super Bowl odds in the early offseason, though their implied win probability has dropped each of the past two years, starting at 14% in the 2022 offseason (best in the NFL) before this issue emerged, and sitting at 9% now. Everything could very easily break right for the Bills this season and they finally make it to the Super Bowl, but the underlying odds are moving in the wrong direction, right as Allen is in the thick of his prime years.

As far as takeaways for what the Bills did wrong, it’s not as simple as I thought it was going to be coming into this analysis. The big hits the Bills had in free agency were at safety and interior offensive line, two positions that I recommend teams target. The acquisition of Diggs via trade is also a strategy that shows real evidence of working over the past several years, i.e. getting elite receivers in their primes for picks.

The mistakes for the Bills came mostly in three phases: poor drafting, giving in to unnecessary contract demands, and going “all-in” in the 2022 offseason. The Bills’ lack of draft success since 2018 is always going to be mostly about luck (teams are all roughly equally good at player evaluation), but they didn’t help tilt the odds in their favor. The Bills made several, minor tradeups, they used two third round picks and a second on running backs. They also used their first-round pick (via trade up) to get their top tight end prospect of Dalton Kincaid in 2023, when the best player appears to be Sam LaPorta, as ranking tight end prospects is a low confidence endeavor.

The Bills extended Diggs to a top-notch wide receiver contract during the “all-in” 2022 offseason, even though there were two years remaining on his contract. Now Diggs has his cap hits doubling while he can’t be cut for a few years without incurring at least a $22 million charge. Then you have the earlier discussed Miller contract, signed that same offseason.

The Bills did everything right - other than perhaps speculating on a very raw prospect who miraculously broke out after two mediocre seasons. Now they have to dig themselves out from mistakes, starting with being willing to accept lower Super Bowl odds in the short-term for maximizing a very long window with Allen, and placing better risk-reward bets in the draft, while seriously considering trading down to get extra darts.