On balancing the cap in 2020 vs. future cap
As mentioned, the Bills have a lot of cap space now, but Beane later in his interview went deeper into how important keeping some extra space around is going to be to him:
“People will say, ‘you got $80 million,’ but you know me, I want to draft, develop, and sign our own. It’s not like we can go out and spend a bunch of money in free agency, and then watch our own guys walk out the door. It’s a fine line, we do have holes to fill. But we also want to make sure that we have money in 2020, then we have some guys coming up in 2021 and 2022 that I want to make sure that we have the funds to make sure to re-sign those guys if they’re willing to re-sign with us,” Beane said.
As mentioned, 2021 guys are White, Milano and Dawkins. Beyond that, quarterback Josh Allen, linebacker Tremaine Edmunds and even veteran free agent additions such as Jordan Poyer are also going to start to come into focus. If the Bills want to keep them, they’ll need cap room to do so.