The Buffalo Bills don’t have very much salary cap space and don’t have very many good ways to create salary cap space right now, so you should probably reset your expectations for the NFL Trade Deadline on November 19th.
There. Now that that is out of the way, we can get into the whys and hows of it all, but I needed to form that base level of information before we moved on.
How much salary cap space do the Bills have for trades?
The Buffalo Bills are currently 27th in the NFL with just $4.5 million in cap space, per Spotrac. That isn’t very much for an
addition for anyone with a base salary. Base salary is counted on this year’s cap and as such, the Bills would need to fit every dollar under the cap at the moment of the trade.
How can the Bills create cap space for a trade deadline move?
I see a few options for how the Bills can create what I will call “significant” cap space before the trade deadline. Of those few options, some are improbably and others are not what I would consider good options.
- Restructure Dion Dawkins’s contract
- Restructure Josh Palmer’s contract
- Trade Josh Palmer
Outside of those moves, the Bills don’t have a lot of options with financial implications. Trading Max Hairston doesn’t clear up cap space as he’s on a minimum contract in terms of base salary.
Restructuring Greg Rousseau gets you somewhere between $1 million and $2 million if you need it. Khalil Shakir restructuring would net maybe a million, as would Dalton Kincaid. I don’t want to restructure Dorian Williams if I don’t see future. I would save these for emergency injury replacements, if I had to.
Nearly everyone else is playing for the veteran minimum right now. They’ve already pulled the rest of the levers.
Let’s take a closer look at each potential option and why I don’t really like it.
The Bills can restructure Dion Dawkins’s contract
Taking the rest of Dion Dawkins’ available base salary and prorating it over five years, you can clear $10 to $11 million in cap space. It’s true and available. But then that is all added as dead cap in 2027 and beyond. His dead cap hit in 2027 would go from just under $14 million to close to $25 million. His cap hit on the roster is currently set to be $25 million. You’d get no cap relief from releasing Dawkins in 2027, so you’d be theoretically handcuffed to him. That also leaves you with four medium-to-big money contracts on the offensive line, allocating about 20% of your cap to four players there.
If the Bills wanted to do this, they already would have as they have done multiple times in Dion’s career. I wrote about Dawkins more back in August after the O’Cyurs Torrence extension.
The Bills can restructure Josh Palmer’s contract
If the Bills restructured Palmer’s contract, they could push $5 million or so of cap space into the future. That would put his 2027 dead cap number at just under $10 million. This one makes more sense to me than Dion’s, if I am being honest. You save $600k in cap space and a bunch of money cutting Palmer in 2027 and it’s over and done. I don’t think anyone expects Palmer to make more than $8 million in compensation from Buffalo in 2027, so it’s a clean out. I don’t love having that much dead cap in 2026, but I think it works.
The Bills can trade Josh Palmer
This option seems to be gaining traction on social media, but I don’t see the upside for the other team. Buffalo could send Palmer and a fourth to another team for a sixth or something, but I doubt Beane wants to do that. Those type of salary dumps tend to happen in other sports, not football. You’d have to find a team that legitimately wants Palmer and his $6 million in base salary for the rest of this year. I don’t see that happening.
Who are some budget-friendly players the Bills could trade for at the deadline?
One notable player Bills fans have pointed to for a potential trade is Zack Baun, the Eagles linebacker. He only has a base salary of $1.345 million and the Bills would only pay 1/11th of that. It would be a steal for the Bills if the Eagles were willing. Philadelphia has their own problems making this move. They only have $9 million in cap space and Baun’s dead cap charge of $22 million would accelerate immediately. They would have to create a lot of space to make it work and it probably isn’t worth it.
The Steelers’ Cole Holcomb could be an interesting add at linebacker instead. He is making league minimum base salary and buried on their depth chart with a lot of starting experience in the NFL. Not a great option, but someone to add to the mix.
At safety, Budda Baker ($14 million), Jessie Bates ($13 million), and Derwin James ($11.5 million) are probably outside of the Bills’ salary cap range unless their existing teams eat base salary for more trade compensation. The Colts’ Camryn Bynum ($10 million) and Titans’ Amani Hooker ($8 million) make more sense as options.
The list is pretty short. So align your expectations accordingly.
