Part 2: Who could the Bills extend this offseason to free up cap space?
As the Buffalo Bills enter the 2025 offseason, the organization faces critical roster decisions. NFL teams must have their top 51 players under the salary cap by the start of the new league year: March 12th at 4 p.m. Eastern. With the NFL’s salary cap projected between $277.5-281.5 million, the Bills are approximately $10.5 million over the cap.
An analysis of the Bills’ 2025 salary cap situation identifies several potential moves to clear cap space. Organizations can release players, restructure a player’s contract, trade a player, and extend eligible players – all which could potentially result in current cap savings, but almost all moves also carry with it dead cap.
Today we are looking at some extensions that could clear space.
Buffalo Bills contract extensions that would save cap space
To address the cap overage, the Bills may consider extending several veteran players. This secures the player for a number of years moving forward but also allows for the organization to manipulate the base salary for this year creating instant savings against this year’s cap.
By converting base salary to signing bonus, the team can spread the cap hit over five seasons and with the salary cap rising so exponentially, it won’t hurt as much in the future to account for the cap hit.
The savings below are all predictive of the new base salary being the veteran minimum. These numbers are approximate and will vary based on the new base salary and the negotiated signing bonus and are all via Over the Cap.
· Josh Allen (QB): Cap savings $11.7 million
· James Cook (RB)*: Cap savings $3.2 million
· Gregory Rousseau (DE)*: Cap savings $9.7 million
· Connor McGovern (C): Cap savings $4.2 million
· David Edwards (G)*: Cap savings $2.1 million
· Christian Benford (DB)*: Cap savings $1.7 million
· Khalil Shakir (WR)*: Cap savings $1.7 million
· DaQuan Jones (DT): Cap savings $5.1 million
*2025 final year of contract
The Bills won’t realize all of that in savings, however, as the players will all be adding signing bonuses that will also prorate over five years.
Extending Christian Benford, Greg Rousseau, Khalil Shakir, and James Cook will be the top of the priority list. Whether or not the amount the four of them are looking for is within the scope of what the Bills are willing to pay is the main question.
DaQuan Jones being extended a year may not be the worst idea as he does have a current void year on his contract. Yes, he is 34, but his dead cap is significant enough that this might become the alternative plan instead of a cut.
This week we also explored David Edwards as a cut candidate, but if the Bills are impressed with him enough, they could give him an extension instead. It is not as big of a savings, but it does keep the offensive line together and free up some space this year. Extending Connor McGovern is also an option here with quite a big savings in return.