The Bills could see some changes at tight end this offseason.
While the default name for many to associate the position with is Dawson Knox, change might actually begin with Lee Smith.
Smith, 33, recently said he is contemplating retiring. The Tennessee native recently joined the Nashville radio show JMart and Ramon on 1045 The Zone and he referenced hanging ’em up on a couple of occasions.
“You’ve been there, Ramon. You get to the latter part of your career and you really start wrestling with yourself mentally,” Smith said to Ramon Foster, a former Steelers player. “Because it’s not just those 16 games, it’s the other 350 days a year… the grind of being the best and giving your teammates the best version of yourself. So I think here the last couple of years I’ve really wanted to make sure I was all in before I step back in that building.”
Later on, Smith reflected on the Bills’ loss to the Chiefs in the AFC Championship. He said others in Buffalo’s locker room said sorry to him after it because of their belief that it might have been his final game.
“A lot of the guys apologized to me. From coaches to other players, especially the young guys, just in case I do decide to shut it down here after this year,” Smith said.
Having said that, if Smith does wrap things up, he has no regrets.
“Here in Year 10 we’re a game away from the big dance, so it was some absolute blast,” Smith said.
Smith started his career with the Bills after the New England Patriots drafted him and then cut him. That tenure went from 2011-2014 and then he skipped town to the Oakland Raiders before returning to Buffalo in 2019.
Smith, mentioning Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott, said he knows the team mostly wanted him for his leadership abilities. On the field, Smith was known more as a blocker and only hauled in four passes in 2020. However, two did go for touchdowns.
Smith said he plans to have a discussion over the next couple months with Beane in terms of what he decides. While Smith’s own decision weighs heavy here, there’s a few other sides to consider.
At his end of season press conference, the GM himself did mention he would like to get more production out of the Bills’ tight end unit next season.
“I thought it was up and down,” Beane said on the unit in general. “We just never really got position… at the end of the year I thought we did a little bit, Dawson started to get his groove a little bit, but it was never where the opposing defense was like, ‘Man we’ve really got to stop their tight ends from going off.’”
In addition, the 2021 salary cap in the NFL is a pretty wild scenario right now. It could drop to as low as $175 million due to COVID-19 causing the league financial struggles.
That final number has yet to be decided, but if it does hit the “floor” of $175M then the Bills would be approximately $6M over the cap… and if that happened, Smith is a big salary cap casualty to consider. Per Spotrac, he carries a $2.25M cap hit in 2021 with no dead cap hit, so if released, that full number would come off of Buffalo’s books.
Smith is now certainly a name to monitor over the next several weeks when the salary cap and free agency start to inch closer… whether in regard to being a cap casualty or if he decides to retire,
Finally, the 10-year vet also had a nice thought in terms of feeling lucky with the route he took in the NFL… especially in terms of quarterbacks.
“I look throughout my career and I started with Ryan Fitzpatrick, who… anyone who ever says they don’t love Ryan Fitzpatrick needs to look in the mirror real hard… and then I get to finish my career with Josh Allen for the same team 10 years later? It’s just wild, man,” Smith said.
Loves him some Bills QBs.
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