Who’s next for a new Buffalo Bills contract?

Who’s next for a new Buffalo Bills contract?

The Buffalo Bills went through a bunch of roster cuts this offseason, trimming down in order to reset with cap space for 2025 free agency. Something One Bills Drive will have to do is hand out a few contracts to current members of the organization to keep them around.

The Bills already completed a few contract extensions during the 2024 offseason, including defensive end Greg Rousseau’s fifth-year option for 2025, the three-year extension for left tackle Dion Dawkins, and a three-year contract with nickel cornerback Taron Johnson. Several players stuck around, too, with new deals for pending free agents in defensive end A.J. Epenesa, safety Taylor Rapp, defensive back Cam Lewis, and defensive tackle DaQuan Jones.

So who’s next for a new contract from the Bills? Let’s take a look.

OT Spencer Brown (UFA 2025)

The Bills re-signed left tackle Dion Dawkins this offseason to a contract that keeps him in Buffalo through 2027. Brown is entering the final year of his rookie deal and played his best ball in 2023. If the Bills lock him up, they have a chance to buy low. If he has another good season, it could price him out of Buffalo.

General manager Brandon Beane spoke with former Bills center Eric Wood on his podcast earlier this offseason and talked about Brown’s growth from missing his senior year of college due to COVID-19 restrictions to working through an injury in his sophomore season, and how they’ve developed him coming from Northern Iowa. After all that work, you’d want to keep him around, right?

I haven’t done an analysis of the market, but it shouldn’t surprise anyone to see him make at least $12 million per season, to put him in the top 10 of NFL right tackles — or even more.

DE Greg Rousseau (UFA 2026)

Rousseau is another buy-low candidate after he really started to turn it on in his third NFL season. With Leonard Floyd gone, 2024 could be a breakout season for the former first-round pick. He does have two years left on his deal and will make $13.3 million on his fifth-year option in 2025, but they can lower his cap hit next season if they get him under contract for the long term. With the likelihood that Von Miller’s gone after 2024, Rousseau should be your top pass rusher sooner rather than later.

Rousseau isn’t in line for a (Jaguars) Josh Allen-type of deal at the top of the market after 17 career sacks in three seasons, but I think expecting him to sign for less than $13 million per season is gone. Don’t expect him to be near A.J. Epenesa’s $6 million-per-year deal.

CB Rasul Douglas (UFA 2025)

I really thought they might do this in the spring, but instead the Bills just pushed out some of Douglas’ cap hit into the future. As it stands now, if Douglas isn’t on the roster at the start of the 2025 league year, he’ll count $4.125 million against the cap. Giving him a year or two extension will push that out into the future.

I don’t expect this deal to come before training camp and it may even hinge on the progress of third-year cornerback Kaiir Elam. If Douglas is one of the Bills’ two starters this year and they don’t see a path for Elam to be a starter in 2025, they’re apt to give Douglas a year or two more on his deal and lock up the position.

He’s making $7.5 million in 2024, but only one cornerback older than Douglas is making more than that (Darius Slay with the Philadelphia Eagles). To me, that seems like a reasonable amount of money for Douglas on a per-year basis.

S Damar Hamlin (UFA 2025)

Hamlin isn’t a player I would spend a lot of money on. But with the turnover at the safety position, if he’s trending toward making the roster in training camp, Buffalo could sign him to a modest extension along the same lines as Cam Lewis.

Lewis signed for two years and $3.1 million, which is the NFL minimum salary plus a $425,000 signing bonus, $25,000 annual workout bonus, and per-game roster bonuses of $7,000 (up to $119,000) per season.

The tricky thing from Hamlin’s perspective is that he can probably make a pretty good living on the motivational speaker circuit. It could play a role, and more power to him if it does.

QB Josh Allen (UFA 2029)

We are literally only one year into Josh Allen’s extension right now, but he’s already slipped to the 11th-highest-paid quarterback in the NFL on a per-year basis with deals coming soon for quarterbacks Dak Prescott and Tua Tagovailoa who are likely to pass him, too.

Allen is set to make less than $70 million over the next two seasons while Lamar Jackson made $80 million in 2023 alone. Allen may not sign an “extension” but he should certainly sign a new contract at some point that pushes cash up to the front of his deal. Starting in 2025, Allen’s cash payments jump up north of $38.5 million and Buffalo could do him a solid by starting that in 2024 instead and taking it from the future years.

The Chiefs did that with Patrick Mahomes in September 2023, moving up more than $43 million from the back end of his contract into the 2023-to-2026 league years. He ended up making $59 million in 2023 and $46 million in 2024, but now he’s only scheduled to make $27.175 million in 2028. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that’s not going to happen and he’ll get another new deal before then.