National Website Suggests The Buffalo Bills Could Cut Two Important Players
The Buffalo Bills can report to training camp in two weeks and fans everywhere are getting excited about the 2021 NFL season ahead. Bills fans have a right to be excited because they're coming off a 2021 campaign that saw them win the AFC East division with a 13-3 record and make it all the way to the AFC Championship game.
Expectations are high at One Bills Drive, but could there still be some salary-cap casualties in August and early September? According to one well-respected national sports website, it's possible.
According to Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk, a couple of veterans could be on the roster bubble during training camp; which was first mentioned by Jay Skurski of The Buffalo News.
Those veterans are edge rusher Jerry Hughes and wide receiver Cole Beasley.
The thinking here is potentially moving on from aging veterans with high cap hits since the Bills are still pressed for cap space. Cutting Hughes would create just over $6 million in cap space. While releasing Beasley would create $4.7 million.
Both Florio and Skurski admit both would be surprising releases, especially since there are still unknowns at both positions.
The Bills have two rookies they're counting on for pass-rushing help: 2021 first-round draft pick Gregory Rousseau, 2021 second-round pick Boogie Basham Jr. and 2020 second-round pick, A.J. Epenesa.
Maybe if those players are very impressive in training camp and the preseason that would mean someone like Hughes becomes expendable, especially considering the cap.
As for Beasley, the Bills brought in fellow veteran Emmanuel Sanders and theoretically he could play the slot, while Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis play the outside receiver positions. The Beasley talk is aided by his Twitter rants earlier this offseason, both in May and June.
I remember when LeSean McCoy was released during training camp back in 2019, which was a surprise to many fans, but perhaps shouldn't have been so much of a surprise.
I don't think either Hughes or Beasley will be released, especially since the Bills are in a "win-now" mode, but because of the influx of help at those positions and the players' age and cap hit, it's not unreasonable to get there with that thinking.