The Buffalo Bills are staring at the NFL trade deadline with one big obstacle in the way: money.
With the November 19 deadline approaching, the Bills don’t have much salary cap room to work with, and they don’t have many easy paths to create more. Buffalo is currently 27th in the league with just $4.5 million in cap space, according to Spotrac, which makes any move involving a player with a base salary difficult to pull off. The Bills would need to fit every dollar under the cap at the moment the trade is completed.
There are a few ways Buffalo could open up room, but most of them come with obvious drawbacks. Trading Max Hairston would not create cap space, since he is on a minimum contract in terms of base salary.
Restructuring Greg Rousseau would free up somewhere between $1 million and $2 million. A restructure for Khalil Shakir would bring in maybe $1 million, and Dalton Kincaid would be in that same range.
Dorian Williams is another possible candidate, though the idea of restructuring him only makes sense if the Bills see a future there. Those kinds of moves, as the reporting notes, are better saved for emergency injury replacements.
Beyond that, Buffalo has already mostly worked through the usual cap tricks. Nearly everyone else on the roster is already on the veteran minimum.
The biggest swing would be a Dion Dawkins restructure. If the Bills took the remaining base salary available in his deal and spread it over five years, they could open up $10 million to $11 million in cap space.
The catch is what comes later: that money would turn into dead cap in 2027 and beyond. Dawkins’ dead cap hit in 2027 would climb from just under $14 million to close to $25 million.
His current cap hit is set at $25 million, and under that setup Buffalo would get no cap relief from releasing him in 2027. It would also leave the team with four medium-to-big money contracts on the offensive line, tying up about 20% of the cap in that group.
The Bills have already used this kind of move multiple times in Dawkins’ career, and if they were going to do it again, they likely already would have.
Josh Palmer is another possible restructure candidate. That move could create about $5 million in cap space and push his 2027 dead cap number to just under $10 million.
Of the available options, this one makes the most sense. It would leave Buffalo with $600,000 in cap savings and a manageable clean-out if Palmer is cut in 2027, since nobody expects him to make more than $8 million in compensation from Buffalo that year.
The downside is the dead cap hit in 2026, but it is still a workable path.
There’s also been some chatter about trading Palmer outright, but that idea does not seem likely to go anywhere. Buffalo could potentially send Palmer and a fourth-round pick to another team for a sixth or a similar return, but that kind of salary dump is more common in other sports than in football. Any team taking him would have to genuinely want Palmer and his $6 million base salary for the rest of the season, and that doesn’t look especially realistic.
If Buffalo does go shopping instead of selling, the market is thin there too. One name fans have circled is Eagles linebacker Zack Baun.
He carries just a $1.345 million base salary, which would make him very affordable for the Bills because they would only be responsible for 1/11th of it. The problem is Philadelphia’s side of the equation.
The Eagles only have $9 million in cap space, and Baun’s $22 million dead cap charge would accelerate immediately. They would need to clear a lot of room, and it may not be worth it.
Another linebacker option mentioned is Steelers veteran Cole Holcomb. He is on the league minimum salary and stuck low on Pittsburgh’s depth chart, while still bringing starting experience.
At safety, the expensive names are likely out of reach. Budda Baker at $14 million, Jessie Bates at $13 million, and Derwin James at $11.5 million all appear beyond Buffalo’s cap range unless their current teams absorb base salary in a deal. Two names that fit better are the Colts’ Camryn Bynum at $10 million and the Titans’ Amani Hooker at $8 million.
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Lamar Jackson is expected back in the mix, which changes the equation immediately for a Baltimore attack that gets a different gear when he is available. The Ravens also bring a pass-rush threat in Trey Hendrickson, who sits seventh in pressure rate among qualifying NFL edge rushers, giving Buffalo another problem to sort through up front. If the Bills can drag Baltimore into a longer, more physical afternoon, they may be able to test the one part of this matchup where the Ravens have shown cracks. [Read more 🡒]