Getty Mitch Morse calls out a defensive lineup during a Buffalo Bills game.
The Buffalo Bills overcame quite the challenge last season, reeling off five straight wins at the end of the season to climb into the playoff picture and eventually win the AFC East with a season-finale victory over the Miami Dolphins.
While the task may not be quite as difficult, the Bills will face another challenge this coming offseason as they seek to get out from under a salary cap crunch.
General manager Brandon Beane has already warned that the Bills will not be making any splashy moves in free agency, similar to last offseason when the team made a series of smaller, more strategic additions.
In its January 29 “Complete NFL Offseason Trade Guide for Every NFL Team,” Bleacher Report suggested that the Bills will find ways to create cap space, but may need to part ways with one of the most important members of the offense to achieve it.
Bills Could Trade Starting Center Mitch Morse
Bleacher Report noted that the Bills have quite a bit of work ahead to get under the salary cap for the 2023 season, noting that two high-paid and underperforming players — edge rusher Von Miller and Stefon Diggs — are essentially locked in due to the dead cap it would cost to trade or release them.
The report highlighted another player could be a more logical “top trade asset” — center Mitch Morse, who signed a two-year, $19.5-million contract extension that keeps him in Buffalo through the 2024 season.
“Mitch Morse is still a solid center, but trading him would clear up $8.5 million and there are cheaper alternatives,” Bleacher Report’s scouting department wrote.
While the Bills could find cap savings from trading Morse, and would likely get a draft pick in return, it would also create a need at one of the team’s most stable positions. The Bills saw no major injuries to their offensive line last season, with the same group starting all 17 regular-season games and two playoff games.
Another Option for Mitch Morse
The Bills could find a way to keep Morse on the team but still squeeze some cap savings out of his contract, The Athletic’s Joe Buscaglia suggested. Buscaglia noted that the Bills could add a void year to Morse’s contract for 2025, a move that they have used sparingly when in need of cap savings.
Buscaglia noted that the Bills could save $5.01 million with the move.
“The Morse amount added to 2025 wouldn’t be so overwhelming that it puts them in a bad spot and would provide them a nice boost to their cap space in 2024,” Buscaglia wrote. “And with Morse still playing at a high level, there could be incentive to shrink the potential 2025 cap hit from the added void years by agreeing to a one-year contract extension and still taking advantage of subsequent void years added through 2027.”
REPORT: The #Bills are expected to do a major RESTRUCTURING of Stefon Diggs large contract and Diggs will “NOT BE HAPPY about it,” says Peter King.
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Oh boy…
The team could make some other moves to free up cap space, with many predicting a contract restructure for quarterback Josh Allen. Peter King of Pro Football Talk also suggested that the Bills could restructure Diggs’ contract, asking him to take a pay cut after a season where he saw a sharp drop in production over the second half of the year.