FA pain

Yup. Free aganecy is largely fools gold for most fans. It happens every offseason, all the good FAs to be sign a new contract or get franchised. Players that become Free agents become so for a reason. The few that are most intriguing reset the market and often dont live up to the life of their contract on their new team.
Poles has stuck to his plan to rebuild through the draft and use Free Agency to fill out the roster.

One of the recent podcasts talked about this, David.  Bates played those 35 snaps so perfectly that the NFL notified Buffalo that he was considered illegal to play.  Mere mortals cannot match his play.  Roger Goodell said in the letter to Buffalo that playing a guy as great as Bates was cheating... and we all know that only Bill Belichick, is allowed to get away with cheating.  Of course now that Jim Harbaugh is in the NFL, he could "possibly" be allowed to cheat... but I digress.

However.

The NFL Player's Association did appeal the decision a few weeks ago and won - so now Bates is legal to play again.  He is rumored to be so good that he will play the entire interior OL for us, G-C-G, - one man against three, on every snap, all three positions at once (it will open up roster spots for other players).  Bates is "THE" hit of the FA period this year.  

On top of that Bates fine print on his contract stipulated some major escalator clauses if he were to get more than 35 snaps and the Bills bean counter caught it. Word on the streets is the McCaskeys are trying everything to hire the Bills bean counter to replace Kevin Warren but the Bills are keeping quiet on the name.