The Bills paid the price for going all-in and still failing

When it comes to the NFL salary cap, teams can always back-load deals, use creative accounting, and kick the can down the road — but sooner or later everyone runs out of road.

That was the reality the Buffalo Bills faced on Wednesday when a flurry of late-afternoon cuts turned a sleepy afternoon in football into their own personal Black Wednesday. Six players in total were cut, with two more restructuring their deals. These weren’t just small time rotational players either, with three big-name starters as a part of the releases.

Buffalo was forced into this position by tremendous salary bloat, and many team-friendly long-term deals having their escalators kick in now. Josh Allen sees a massive jump in base salary in 2024, going from $1.08M salary to $23.5M — with Stefon Diggs seeing another big jump, as he moves up from $1.16M salary to $18.5M. Prior to Wednesday the team was slated to be $40M over the 2024 salary cap, and that includes the massive increase to the cap which was announced earlier this year. With these six cuts, and the restructuring of Rasul Douglas and Von Miller the team in total shed $47.6M from their 2024 cap, putting them closer to being in the black — though the organization currently has no wiggle room to improve the team in free agency this season.

How did the cap situation get this bad? Well, there’s not really one contract to blame, but Von Miller is getting a lot of attention for being at the center of the problems.

The team signed Miller to a, frankly ridiculous, six-year, $120M contract in 2022, with $51.4M guaranteed — despite the pass rusher being 32-years-old at the time. It was an incredibly hopeful deal, made with the belief that Miller could remain a top-tier pass rusher well into his mid-30s. Initially this seemed okay, with Miller recording eight sacks in his first season in Buffalo, but the wheels fell off when he tore his ACL in November. In 2023, he appeared in 12 games, not starting a single one, failing to make any kind of impact, and ending the year with a paltry three tackles, and zero sacks.

If Miller was signed to a short-team deal this wouldn’t have been a major problem, but the nature of the guaranteed money in the deal made Miller the highest paid player on the team other than Josh Allen, and Buffalo essentially got no return. While Miller has restructured his contract and taken a paycut as part of this round of cuts, he remains the fourth-largest cap hit on the team, accounting for over $15.1M in 2024.

There is hope on the horizon for Buffalo’s cap situation. There’s an out built into Miller’s contract where he can be released before the 2025 season. However, as it stands there’s still a lot of work to do in Buffalo’s future. OverTheCap is currently projecting the Bills to have $29M in cap space in 2025, but only 30 players currently under contract. Right now the math just isn’t mathing, and more difficult decisions could be on the horizon for Bills GM Brandon Beane.

The Bills’ moves on Wednesday create some fascinating questions for free agency. Tre’Davious White is one of the best cornerbacks in the NFL when healthy, but has suffered significant injuries in two of the last three seasons, making him a risky prospect. Jordan Poyer is also an incredible option for a team in need of safety help, while Mitch Morse remains an excellent center for a team in need of help in the middle (Eagles?).

It was definitely a difficult day in Buffalo on Wednesday, but a majority of these players should land on their feet with new teams when free agency opens on March 13.