DAWSON DECISION: Bills SLASH Cap with Dawson Knox Extension, Welcome Back Kyle Allen at Quarterback

0:00We have a resolution on the Dawson Knox situation the bills have a new backup quarterback and we know which picks the bills have in the 2026 draft we're going to cover it all right now on Lockdown Bills. You are Lockdown Bills, your daily Buffalo Bills podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast network, your team every day. Oh, what's up, Feels Mafia, it's Joe Marino, author of the Herd Mentality Substack co-host of the Lockdown NFL Scouting podcast, co-host of the NFL first read podcast, and I'm your host of Lockdown Bills, Lockdown Bills is a proud part of the Lockdown Podcast network. Now the number one sports podcast network, want to thank you for making Lockdown Bills your first listen every day in a big welcome and shut out to our every dayers. You know who you are, those of you who never missed a single episode, I appreciate

1:00y'all being here very, very much. Well folks, welcome in, there's quite a bit for us to catch up on today and that includes the Bills 2026 draft picks, there's been some activity at kicker and punner, the bills signed a new backup quarterback, but we start with Dawson Knox and there being a resolution. The Bills opted to come to terms on a three year contract extension for Dawson Knox that has him signed through 2028 and this was the outcome I was hoping for. We had discussed the challenge ahead with the cap hit, being as high as it was this coming season and it didn't make any sense for Dawson Knox to return on that number and there was certainly the opportunity to release Dawson Knox, but there was also the opportunity to extend Dawson Knox, which is where this ultimately lands now as of the recording

2:05in this podcast at 245 PM Eastern time on Tuesday, March 10th, I don't have the terms of the deal. The contract extension would allow the Bills to reduce his cap hit this year and I'm sure as part of this, it's really Dawson Knox taking a pay cut, but also adding years and money to the deal to keep him in Buffalo. And so I don't have the specifics of what the contract is or how much the Bills exactly are going to save, but I can assure you that there is cap savings as a result of this extension, probably around $8 million in cap relief if the Bills took full advantage of their opportunity with this contract extension. It could be 456 million, it could be as high as eight. We'll see where it ultimately lands, but Dawson Knox, take it around.

3:09And so there's a lot to this outside of hey Dawson Knox is sticking around that gives us some insight on the direction of the offense. I think this signals that they're still going to play a lot of multiple tight ends stuff. If that's not part of what you're going to do, then you probably just let Dawson Knox go. But I think multiple tight ends have you personal, at least through tight ends is part of the mix. We don't know what's going to happen at fullback. We just know that Reggie Gilliam won't be the fullback. Maybe the Bills will replace him. And so I'm anticipating that continuing to be part of this offense. Maybe it means Jackson Haws does some of that fullback stuff. I'm curious to see where that goes. I don't want to assume he can do it. Blocking as an inline tight end is not the same as blocking as a fullback. But if it's a reduced role and he can handle what you need, all right. I also think Dawson Knox is important, not just because of what he means for the personnel groupings

4:15and his consistency as a blocker, he's a good receiver. But because of the injury concerns that exist with Dalton King Kate, unfortunately, there have been availability issues. And it's nice to know that you have Dawson Knox available to step up when needed and he has Dawson Knox is the longest tenured player offensively in terms of skill players with Josh Helen. He's had a lot of playoff success. He's had a lot of success like relative to Bills tight ends. And the history of the organization Dawson Knox is one of the most productive. We've seen him break some records. And we'll see if he can break some more. So he sticks around. It's good for the Bills. It's good for Dawson Knox. It helps with the concave availability issues. And it potentially frees up Jackson Haws to do even more for this offense.

5:16And so I'm excited about it. And I'm very curious to see where the cap savings actually lands. Because this is a cake. You need a two situation. You get Dawson Knox for longer and for less money in 2026. I think that's a win win. So Dawson Knox staying three year extension through 2028. The Bills have also found a backup quarterback. And I speculated on yesterday's podcast that it could be Kyle Allen and it's Kyle Allen. Kyle Allen comes back to the Bills to serve as Josh Allen's backup. He just turned 30 on March 8. And so the reported contract is a two-year deal that's worth 4.1 million dollars that could go as high as 6.1 million.

6:18And it's obviously a low level contract for a backup quarterback. But that's kind of where the Bills are at. They're not in a position to invest significant cap space in quarterback depth. And I'm somebody who cares a lot about quarterback depth. I think it's important. Fortunately, the Bills haven't had to use it. But I do like having a good backup quarterback and understanding the state of this team and where it's at. That just doesn't make sense to be an area that you have a bunch of resources tied up in. So yeah, you have a replacement level backup quarterback in Kyle Allen. But it just doesn't make sense for the Bills to have a ton of cap space tied up here. Mitch Shavisky winds up signing like a two-year 10 million dollar deal in Tennessee. The Bills couldn't pay in that. That wouldn't make any sense. So a familiar name, a friend of Josh Allen, we know that's part of what what they want in the room. Josh wants his guys in the room with him.

7:23He doesn't want a 22-year-old rookie in the room with him. He wants his guys. So he's got Shane Bouchelle, great friend, Kyle Allen, great friend. And that's where this lands. It was kind of predictable. So obviously, I sure hope we don't have to watch Kyle Allen take a meaningful snap for the Buffalo Bills. But I do think it's a logical place to land. Although I don't have a lot of confidence in Kyle Allen. But ultimately, if Josh Allen isn't available, this team's in trouble anyways. So Kyle Allen back, since he was the Bills backup in 2023, he spent 2024 with the Steelers last season with Alliance. And now back to Buffalo for his age 30 season, a two-year deal that is a $4.1 million base that can be worth up to $6 million. And look, you're seeing

8:24somebody's backup quarterbacks, decent deals. Of course, Trabisky. But I mean, think about that. Mitch Trabisky has literally not done anything besides have a good start and we gave team against the Jets. And he went from like a two-year $5 million deal to a two-year $10 million deal. He got a raise. Didn't do anything. Can he pick it? Got one year seven and a half million. Marcus Mario to got one year seven million that can be worth up to 11. Like some of these backup quarterbacks cost you something. The Bills weren't in a position for a backup quarterback to cost them something. And fingers crossed, knock on wood, all the things that we never have to watch Kyle Allen take a meaningful snap for the Buffalo Bills. All right, we got more to do, including a conversation about answers that kicker and punter here on the other side of it. So folks, be sure to stick with me. Welcome to the five-hour energy flavor draft with 18 flavors to choose from,

9:25including new options like confetti craze, fruity rainbow, or cotton candy. There is something for everyone. The board is set. The flavors are ready. And I've got my number one pick for the five-hour energy flavor draft. And my favorite flavor is berry. You get the big bold berry flavor, slightly sweet berry fruity. It's that classic mixed berry flavor with notes of raspberry and blackberry. It's smooth, it's sweet, but not overly sugary. And so while that's my number one pick, don't sleep on strawberry banana. It's a classic combination that consistently delights. Five-hour energy shots give you a boost with zero sugar. Find your new favorite flavor. For a five-hour energy shots available online at fivehourenergy.com or Amazon. All right, so we have some movement at kicker and punter. Let's start with punter. The Bills are bringing back Mitch Wischnowski. Their punter from last season, or at least their

10:28third punter, was it Brad Robbins and then Cam Johnston. Brad Robbins was no good. They cut him. Cam Johnston was signed and he got hurt. And then the Bills get to Mitch Wischnowski and they stumble into a good punter. I thought Mitch Wischnowski did a good job and I'm happy that he's back. Now, if the Bills love a punter on the draft and pick him on day three and he beats out Mitch Wischnowski, fine. But I think Mitch Wischnowski is a more than fine answer for the coming season. Some of my favorite metrics on Mitch Wischnowski from 2025 are that Sensei took over in week five. His punts were only returned 28.9% of the time. That was the third lowest in the NFL. He was ninth in average hang time at 4.44 seconds. And he only had an average of 6.3 yards per return, which was fourth best in the NFL. And so maybe Mitch Wischnowski's not a guy that's like

11:31consistently flipped the field. But he was a guy that limited return damage. And I think that's important. And so Mitch Wischnowski back as the punter, he obviously did a good job holding last season. That parader was very consistent. And so Mitch Wischnowski is the answer at punter. So that box is checked again. I don't think it would preclude the Bills going out and drafting one if they like them. But it's nice to know that your floor at punter is Mitch Wischnowski. Now our expectation has been for Tyler Bass to be the Bills kicker in 2026. And so the Bills have agreed to a revised contract with Tyler Bass. And so here's basically what happens. The Bills are guaranteeing $1 million of his contract in exchange for a $1.5 million pay cut with incentives

12:37for him to earn back a million dollars. And so I think both sides probably looked at this situation and realized hey, Tyler Bass is coming off of a season where you couldn't play. Had the pelvis injury that they shut him down, ramped him up, shut him down again, ultimately has surgery during the season. And so while you're hopeful that he can come back and be a good kicker for you, to be the kicker you paid him to be, I think it's fair to question that. And so the pay cut in exchange for a guarantee with incentives to earn it back makes all the sense in the world to me. Now while this is helpful for locking in Tyler Bass as the kicker, it doesn't guarantee it. The Bills can still release Tyler Bass after June 1st. And they would get $1.3 million in

13:39cap savings and $1.7 million in dead cap. So it's not like the Bills are now completely committed. There's no other path to Tyler Bass. That's not the case at all. It's a more clear path, right? A bit more beneficial path, but not one that locks him in. If he can't go and he's not good enough, then the Bills can get out of the deal. They're not strapped. But this is helpful. I don't have the incentives for you. I wish I did. When those are made known, we'll share them. But when it comes to incentives, you can you can have incentives that are not likely to be earned. And the way that an incentive is classified as not likely to be earned is that it's more than what they did the previous season. Well, Tyler Bass didn't play. So any incentive would be unlikely to be earned based on him having zero production last year. And so I'm sure the Bills were strategic about those incentives and leveraging them to get the most out of Tyler Bass,

14:46but also help with the cap situation because they don't count against the cap until incentives are achieved. And obviously that gives the Bills some relief now. In addition to the pay cut that they got from Tyler Bass. Real quick, we do have the details on D. Alfred's contract. So we spoke on yesterday's podcast about the signing of the Alfred. I'm excited to give you a film review very soon on the Alfred, but we got the terms of the deal. And this is a good reminder to always wait for the terms of the deal because when those initial numbers are put out there, it's all about the agent getting a win, right? And so you put it out there and you you kind of dress it up, but not that it's false, but it can be misleading based on the real terms of the deal. So when this was initially reported, it was a three year contract worth up to 21 million dollars. Well, here's the reality of the situation. It's a three year deal with the base value of 15.75 million. So the

15:47APY is truly a little over five million per season. There's 7.9 million dollars guaranteed at signing. There's 1.75 million and annual incentives, but this is practically a two year 11 million dollar deal. So it's a commitment, but it's not a massive commitment to D. Alfred. I think you'll come in and give the bills what they're looking for out of that slot position. But this is not like a massive deal for him. And I think it also signals the the versatility that might exist in the slot this year, where it's not like, Hey, we're in nickel. So it has to be Taran Johnson. I think a lot of the time it will be D. Alfred, but I think the bills will be more match up specific. Sometimes wanting a bigger player, sometimes wanting a guy that's more of a slot safety than a slot corner. And I think this type of investment makes sense for D. Alfred that that's kind of the intent of what you want to do with the position. If he's a, you know, every down slot player, well, that's a different

16:53conversation. I don't think this is a sign that he will be. So of course, once again, the reality of the deal different than what was reported and always wait for the full picture. All right, speaking of the full picture, we have a full picture of what the bills 2026 draft picks are going to be. I know that the Taran Johnson deal has been kind of like figured out and reported same thing with DJ Moore, compensatory picks were handed out across the league. So we have a true understanding of what draft capital the bills have. So we will get into that here next folks. Be sure to stick with me. College basketball is nonstop big games tight spreads momentum swings every single night from early tip offs to late night, West Coast shootouts. There's always action on the board. And now Fandals giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parlay profit boost. You can build any college hoops parlay that you

17:54want rivalry games, ranked matchups, whatever fits your read. You can make spreads totals and player props to match how you see the slate playing out. Then you can apply the profit boost and instantly bump up the potential payout. Go safe. Go bold. Ride with the team. You've been following all season. It's your parlay, your style now with more upside behind it. So head to fandall.com to get started. That's fandall.com. Fandall play your game. All right folks, welcome back. We now know the exact picks that the bills own in the 2026 NFL draft. And first of all, the bills did not receive any compensatory picks. And so compensatory picks are awarded to teams based on in a very, very like simplified way to explain this based on the free agents that you lose versus the free agents that you gain. And there's a lot of details into that. But generally speaking, that's what compensatory gets. And so if you have this

18:57net loss and free agents out versus in the NFL will give you compensatory picks based on where that all lands. Okay, it's a very complicated formula. There's a lot to it, but generally that's what it is. So the bills do not receive any 2026 compensatory picks. So that would reflect the 2025 offseason. And let me say this. I love the draft. I love picks. But obsessing over compensatory picks is crazy to me. Why on earth does it make sense? To limit the players that you're going to bring on your football team because you're chasing compensatory picks. It makes no sense to me. And so it's interesting. And when it works out, it works out. And for some teams, it's just going to have to work out based on the players. They're ultimately going to lose versus the position they're in to break it, bring in other players. Like it's going to be different from team to team, but obsessing over. Oh, well, you don't want to sign that player because it's going to take away

19:59from the compensatory pick. That's crazy. Get the players on your team that you think are the right players on your team. And then the compensatory formula will take care of itself. So I am not obsessing about a 2026 fifth round draft pick and thinking the bills should not sign specific players because they might not get it. That's crazy to me. So no 2026 compensatory picks. And I'll be honest with you, I hope the bills don't have any 2027 compensatory picks because that means that Brandon being didn't get enough done here in this free agency period. With that out of the way, these are the picks that the bills own in 2026. So round one, pick 26. They don't have a two. That's Chicago's because of the DJ more trade. The bills have round three pick 91. Round four pick 126. They have round five pick 165. That's courtesy of the DJ more trade. They have round five pick 168. They have round six pick 182. That's courtesy of the Taren Johnson

21:05trade. That's the first pick of the sixth round. The bills wind up jumping 46 spots. They go from 228 to 182 for the Taren Johnson trade to the ratings. Raiders. So they jump 46 spots. It's decent. For a player, you were going to release. And then they also have round seven pick 220. The bills when you consider the draft picks that they have and you may be familiar with trade value charts. And so every pick in the draft has a numeric point value associated with it. And they go down and points based on what they are. So the first pick has more value than the second pick, more than the third, fourth, fifth, all the way down to 150 picks or whatever it is. When you add up the point value of all the bills draft picks, they're 28th in the NFL and draft capital. 28th out of 32 teams. Atlanta's 32. Seattle's 31. Green Bay's 30th. The

22:09Colter 29th. The bills are 28th. We got a lot of work to do on the draft. I got a lot of studying of prospects to do. But you're going to have a hard time convincing me that the right move in this draft isn't trading back. This is a team with a ton of needs, a ton. And and bigger than any one specific position, right? My goodness, they need edge rushers. They need linebacker. They need safety. They need a left guard. They need an early down nose tackle. They need verticality at receiver. They need more deline depth in a part return. There's a lot of things that they need. Ultimately, they need young players that are contributing to this team. How do you get young players that contribute? You draft them. Well, how do you draft them with picks? What don't you have picks? You're 20. You're 28th in draft capital here. How can you get more draft capital? You trade

23:11back. I would be stunned if there's a player at number 26 overall that the bills just have to have where they couldn't move back 10, 15 spots pick up, you know, another couple picks in the top 100 and give yourself more opportunities to get meaningful young talent. And so that is going to be the drum that I beat. Because this team needs more young talent and you can't get young talent without draft picks. Right now you're missing a two. You got DJ Moore. That's great. Excited for him. But your best chance to get more draft capital without depleting your roster, trading back from 26. So prepare yourself for that being something I talk a lot about here in the coming weeks. I was planning on talking to you about Brandon Beans to do list and I kind of already did. There's a lot for him to get done still. Need an impact edge starting linebacker,

24:14starting safety, left guard, early down nose tackle, vertical receiver, D line depth, edge depth, corner outside corner depth, a part returner, a fullback. You probably need some linebacker and safety depth as well. There's a lot to do. And obviously we are very early into this process. The legal tampering period is barely 24 hours old. And it's not Brandon Beans job to have the roster set right now, right? I am patient, right? I'm not going to sit here and get antsy or anything like that. But I do acknowledge that there's a lot for him to figure out. We've been talking about that for weeks. And I want to start to see these boxes checked. But ultimately it goes back to what I talked about yesterday. The bills have a lot of needs. They don't have a ton of resources. They need value. You're not getting value on day one or these initial waves. Gonna have to kind of wait it out. So find some patience. That would be my encouragement to you. A lot of boxes to check a lot of time ahead. It's okay that they're not all checked in the first 36 hours of the legal

25:18tampering period. There's a lot of time for this to play out. But there's also a lot to get done. And I'm not going to sit here and defend everything Brandon Bean does. I'll tell you how I feel about stuff. But I am willing to have some patience here. Give him time to put this together. But my goodness, this man has a lot of work to do. And hopefully we're talking about a lot of that work real soon here. Because there's a lot of boxes to check here for old Brandon Bean. All right, before we get out of here, I will check social media to see if anything happened in the 25 minutes I've been talking to you. Looks like the latest is Ben Gino Smith being traded to the Jets. All right. Romeo dobs to the Patriots, but no new bills stuff. So our next conversation will include anything new that comes from the bills. Also, cooking up a podcast with Jerry Astrosky to cover what we learned from Conor govern in his press conference on Tuesday. It was awesome.

26:19There's some really cool stuff to dive into there. And so we will do that for you here real soon as well. So don't miss anything. Make sure that you're subscribed. We'd love it if you took a second to write review and share the podcast. Have a great rest of your day. Go bills. And I look forward to catching up with you again real soon.