Inside The Bills

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel took a look at every team’s 2012 cap situation to assess their potential participation in free agency, albeit with some words of caution in how they reached those figures. In any event they put teams in three categories, possible big spenders, working on a budget and tightening the belt. Here’s a look at where the Bills fit in.

Buffalo based on their cap figures were listed under the working on a budget category. The paper made a safe estimate in assuming the cap to be around $124M keeping in mind that $5M must be set aside for one’s draft choices, more if a team has more picks, which the Bills do (9 right now). Here’s what was written as well as the NFL clubs that are in the same boat.

WORKING ON A BUDGET
Teams that aren’t up against the cap, but need to make smart moves to avoid trimming a ton of players and salaries.

Jacksonville Jaguars        $107,270,274
Buffalo Bills                         $108,426,522
Seattle Seahawks              $111,742,430
San Diego Chargers         $111,960,165
New Orleans Saints         $113,358,069
Philadelphia Eagles          $113,964,694
Baltimore Ravens             $115,670,281
Minnesota Vikings           $116,078,422
Houston Texans                 $116,306,676
Miami Dolphins                 $116,636,173
Indianapolis Colts             $116,773,288
Green Bay Packers            $118,001,169
Arizona Cardinals             $118,787,639

Bills GM Buddy Nix said last month that they intended to be aggressive where they could in free agency for the three or four needs they believe need to be addressed.

“I’m not limited except by the cap,” said Nix. ”Nobody’s ever told me you can’t do this or you can’t do that. There’s a lot of things that go into it that I’m sure you guys know but one of them is, and the thing that I ask our cap people, Jeff Littman and Jim Overdorf, the thing I ask them is if we sign this guy for this amount, then is it going to cost us this player and this player and that’s kind of the way I try to make my decision is, are we going to be able to keep the core, important guys or are we just going to get this guy and can’t get anybody else?

“Listen, I want to win. That’s what I came here for, that’s what I want to do. I want to do whatever I can to help that along. And I’m saying there’s a lot of us involved. We’ve got a lot of good people in personnel and a lot of good help and we’ll use all the resources and then make the best decision we can.”