It's the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. just no at. There's also a members only group chat for fans of your team. Plus a lot more. You can check it out by tapping the everyday or club link in the show notes. The bills only had two captains each of the last two seasons. What does that look like moving forward under Joe Brady? We're going to discuss that right now. I'm locked on bills. you are locked on bills your daily buffalo bills podcast part of the locked on podcast network your team every day what's up bills mafia it's joe marino host of locked on bills that's jerry ostroski 102 game starter for the buffalo bills and we'd like to welcome you and thank you for tuning into this episode of Locked On Bills. Locked On Bills is a proud part of the Locked On Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network. Well, folks, welcome in Joe and Jerry back again for our new episode that will be daily as we talked about yesterday. You're still getting the same 30-minute episode from me every single day. That'll drop later on Tuesday. Bill Squad, that's still happening every week, twice a week, the hour-long round table discussion with us plus Jeremy White. And now a second episode of Lockdown Bills for you daily with myself and Jerry Ostrowski. And what we'd like to do with a lot of these episodes is kind of leverage the outstanding herd mentality questions that get sent in and answer them as part of, you know, standalone kind of daily episodes. And so today's episode of me and Jerry together, we'll feature two per mentality questions that were sent in. The first one will cover the captain discussion, and then we'll talk about Josh Allen's contract. And, you know, what does it look like? What, what, how does it make the rest of the players feel that he gets paid so much money? So we'll do that in segment two, but let's start with this question from Derek, who says, I'm curious about your thoughts on the captain situation this year, new head coach, new approach, new stadium. It just feels like a lot of new. I have questions about how Terrell Bernard is perceived. If he's not the best linebacker and may not play as much or as critical a role, is he the green dot and captain? Do we stick with two captains? Do we go back to four to six? So Jerry, obviously new regime, new situation. The Bills have only had two captains each of the last two years, Josh Allen and Terrell Bernard. And that's probably going to be different this year. What's your overall vibe on just the leadership structure that you're expecting under Joe Brady? I mean, just because you're a captain doesn't make you the team leader. I mean, obviously, there's some positions that automatically get the C being quarterback, right? If you've got a quarterback that's viable, it's been there a while, he's going to get the captaincy. That's how it's always been. When I played, it was always three captains. Actually, it was four. You had an offensive, defensive, special teams captain, and then you had a floater captain. And so every week they would let one of the guys go out and go to the coin flip or whatever and do those things. So, you know, you can look at it different ways. I think that that captaincy maybe nowadays doesn't quite have the luster on it that it had in the past because of some of the things I just talked about. But when I look at the defense and I look at Terrell Bernard, I mean, obviously, if he's not out on that field and he's not playing, that that's that's a problem. You know, and how do you get around that? Because really what the captaincy says on defense, if you're the captain, is if the official is talking to the players or whatever, he's talking to Terrell Bernard. I mean, that's what a lot of that is. He is the guy that handles those things on the field since the coaches aren't on there. So I don't know what we'll do with Brady. It'll be interesting to see. I think he'll have more. I think more is better, but I don't think a huge amount. Like I said, I like four, definitely three, because you want a special teams guy as well in there. um you know and obviously Josh is a fixture so we'll see what happens on the defense what from your experience is the captain selection process we know that the players vote on these things but what does a ballot look like do you write down your choices like did they say we're going to have x amount and the top x amount of vote recipients get it like how does how does that work well you have three different ways to choose captains one is a true blue player vote where the ballots that are counted whoever has the most is a captain You have the perceived player vote which is the coach lets the players vote and then he picks who he wants, but makes it seem like they did. And then you have the coach that just picks who he wants. And I would imagine that's probably what McDermott did, I would think, especially if they only had two captains. I'm not sure how that whole thing went, but I'm sure he had something to do with it. But anyway, those are the three ways to do it. You know, I would think that, you know, in Buffalo, probably players and go from there. I mean, that's kind of how it's done. I mean, those three ways. If you do have a true selection process through a vote from the players, I think where that gets a little bit tricky is I'm guessing there will probably be a couple of players that would stand out with a lot of votes. But I don't think you should marry yourself to a certain number because the range between one, two, three, and four can be pretty significant. Where the third and fourth guy or the fourth and fifth guy, they just don't really claim as much, but somebody has to be fourth or fifth. You'd want this to be truly representative of what the players would want. And I think that's where I would kind of defend Sean McDermott is that he didn't get enough votes to truly have three or four. Then you stick with two, but obviously it could just be Mark Norman saying these are the two players that are going to be the captains. Well, what the players always want is not always the best thing. That's the other thing. I think they did very well in Buffalo. Do you know – I mean, did the players vote for it in Buffalo? That's what they said, yeah. That's what they said? Yeah. Okay. Well, the representatives that they picked were true to who they probably should have picked. But, you know, there's a lot of cases that the guys that are chosen don't need to be the captains. But in this case, you know, in Buffalo, those were fine. But, yeah, I mean, I can't see – I don't think this is a case where Terrell Bernard was captain because he was boys with McDermott. I think he did have a lot of clout with the players in the locker room and things like that. But, you know, a big part of it is going to be you've got to be on the field. And we have yet to know what's going to happen with Terrell Bernard in this defense and where does he fit and is he going to play a lot. So I think it has a big, you know, let it play out and see what happens. Yeah, I'm curious to see the challenge with Terrell Bernard is if you want to move on, you're from a contractual perspective, you're not in a really flexible spot. And so it almost feels like the Bills have to make it work. And he's played in a 3-4 defense. That's what he did in college, but kind of like as a gap shooter, blitzing type linebacker. And so I am curious to see how the bills move forward, trying to maximize what they can out of a commitment that they've made. Right. Hopefully you can get healthy and get back on track and that this year can be chalked up to, you know, you were injured, but you know, right now for all the extensions that Brandon Bean did last off season, I think all of them have been really good except for this one. You know, the bills have a lot to figure out in terms of getting some value out of this extension that they signed and then there are in year one of in 2026. And we don't know either. This may free him up. If you take a bunch of that, you know, stop, drop, you know, zone stuff away from him in that deep Tampa middle, you know, that deep Tampa two type coverage stuff away from him in this new scheme. Maybe that frees him up to get back to being that downhill splash player that he was. So I guess it's let's get to the camps and see what happens with Terrell Bernard. Maybe we'll be pleasantly surprised that this fits what he wants to do as far as being that athlete and getting downhill. somewhere inside of that body is the player we watched yes you know back in 2023 that had six and a half sacks and all the splash plays remember these are the splash plays that Tremaine Edmonds never made and now you hear people saying oh Tremaine Edmonds is going to get released by the Bears should we go back and get him all right well just signing up for different stuff right but to make to make him again the guy that Jerry O once said was the most important player on the defense at one time hey we will see how this plays out we will see how this plays out All right, coming up next, we've got a great question from Russ about just how much Josh Allen gets paid and kind of the impact on the team culture. We'll do that here in just a moment, so folks, be sure to stick with us. 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But I am curious if it affects another player's mentality or team chemistry when other guys are asked to take pay cuts when their salary is just a fraction of the quarterbacks. All right, Jerry, you're uniquely equipped to answer this question. And you your time in the league really was right when free agency was starting to be a thing. right? So we just accept that the quarterbacks get all the money and that's how it is. Or is there a, is there a consequence to that? Pretty much. I mean, it's kind of how it is. Do you want Josh Allen? You better pay him or you're not going to have him very long. And no, I don't think that this, it depends on the player we're talking about. I mean, we're talking about Josh Allen. So of course the guys in that locker room understand, I mean, this guy is already, they know that he's actually taken less than he probably could have gotten. I mean, it's not like he just holds the franchise hostage all the time and negotiate more money out of them. I think that's one thing about Josh that probably gets him more respect than most players is because guys in the locker room know he's going to do what it takes to help keep a couple of them around or get a couple of them a little bit more money. So I don't think that's a problem with Josh. I mean, there are some other positions where there's guys that are making money. They're like, dude, you got to step up and play. You know, they've been they were guys that got after it. Then they got their money and then that was it. They shut down. And those guys aren't hard to see. They don't they don't hide very well. So, yeah, there's problems with that. But no, when it comes to Josh Allen, I mean, this is the guy that is pulling the trigger. And the reason this franchise is doing what it's doing for the most part. So the guys don't get get worked up. Now they might get worked up if they're, you know, leading the league and rushing and then watch other players in the league make more money than them. You know, maybe they'll get upset with that. But we're a couple of years away. It's your one of the deal, man. You know, we're a few years away from that. But, you know, but no, seriously, Josh Allen, they're not upset about him. So take us inside the locker room or at least at this point in a season. Right. Like, I think you guys probably are aware of, you know, whose contracts are expiring and the reality of, you know, that group's probably not going to be together again. But how much are players paying attention to this time and, you know, the moves that are made to create cap space and, you know, which players get extended? And, you know, maybe you're a guy that just signed a deal and you're not really concerned about your own situation, but you're certainly paying attention to this. I mean, is this how is this discussed among players? It's really not. I mean, it's a very weird feeling. It's a very uneasy feeling. I mean, I can imagine the last pizza party that they had at Conor McGovern's house was probably almost a bit of a goodbye party as it was a let's have pizza and hangout party. I mean, guys know this isn't a business. I mean, that offensive line room knew all the way back at camp that there was going to come a time where quite possibly David Edwards and Conor McGovern could be gone. You know these things, They're unspoken things. It's, it comes with the job. It's, it's that almost a little bit of a spidey sense that you get, you know, you know, you know where everything is. I mean, if you don't think guys aren't evaluating things and looking at stuff, look at Alec Anderson and how quickly he signed his deal. I mean, he knew what his, he knew what his value was. He knew where he wanted to be and what was up. So he signed his deal and got it done and made sure he was locked in. So yeah, guys are aware of it, but you know, it's one of those things you don't talk about too much, but like I said, I mean some of the situations you hanging out especially towards the end of the year you kind of know this thing coming to an end and the run is over so to speak I only observed but it feels like the NFL and the players that have played in the NFL, it's a very unique fraternity of human beings. And I would say overwhelmingly, it feels like guys are rooting for each other, right? And it's not like you're thinking, well, this player is paid. And so that means less for me. I think everyone's just kind of rooting for each other. Obviously, it's very, very competitive, but I think everybody wants everybody to get theirs as long as it's deserved. There's no doubt. I mean, when you're in the brotherhood, you're in the brotherhood. It's part of it. And there's things that happen now with players today that bother me, like, you know, things, bad things happen to players. Like it bothers me because we're all part of this together. We're all in this NFL thing together. And whether it was 25 years ago or was 25 days ago, it all fits. And you want these guys that are playing now that, you know, you were the kind of, it's like, I look back and I look at Reggie White and those guys were the pioneers for us. And then we made the money we had and that we're pioneers for these guys today. And, you know, I don't feel bad that the Connor McGovern or David Edwards is going to make the money they make playing the same positions I made. I know back in the day when I was playing there, the money I was making the guys before me, it was the same thing, right? It just kind of goes hand in hand. Um, and they deserve it for what they put their bodies through for what they put their their minds and their families and everybody else through they they deserve it and um i hope they get it i hope they get it all and um that's why you won't see goes back to the josh allen question that's why you won't see guys get upset because of what other guys are making because that's what it's all about at the end of the day yeah and look you even hear brandon bean will say from time to time like when you're paying the quarterback what they're paying it makes it more difficult or i've even seen some of the you know the youtube comments back to the episodes I've been doing lately about the challenges the bills are going to have with filling all their holes and having to come to terms with not every single hole is going to be filled by this pristine, amazing thing. And there's going to have to be some concessions across the board. And I've even seen some YouTube comments back to me that are like, well, when you're paying the quarterback $55 million a year, like that's the least of the bills problems. Like the easiest money the bills pay is what Josh Allen deserves because if that guy's not part of this it doesn't matter nothing matters so yeah Josh Allen's like in his own world I'm sure if you're part of the Buffalo Bills and you're a player or you're a coach or you you do anything for the Buffalo Bills you want Josh Allen getting his and then you fall in line and understand that 17 is the franchise that's right I mean it's part of it it's part it's how it was when Jim played it's how you have a team and you have a marquee quarterback like that, that's a going rate. And to be honest with you, look at the league. You don't even have to have be a marquee quarterback. Some of these guys, you know, you got a situation right now in Houston like that. Do you go ahead and pay CJ Stroud all that money or you move them? I mean, there's people actually talking about trading them because all of a sudden Sam Darnold's made it cool. You know, I've used this analogy before. It's like buying a boat, right? Don't buy a new boat. Wait for the guy down the street to buy it. And in three years, you'll get the boat you wanted a much cheaper price, right? Do you let another franchise take the quarterback early and do all the work and the depreciation? And then eventually you scoop up a guy and you win a Super Bowl with him like Sam Darnold, right? So there's that theory as well. So believe me, I'm much happy to be in position to pay Josh Allen $55 million. I'm okay with that. That's the trucks or trailers conversation. You know what I mean? Like the, the paying of the wrong quarterback is the worst thing you can do. Right. Like, and teams have kind of got into that spot with Tua. That's a great example. You have, I mean, I hate to bring up like Trevor Lawrence because these are good players, but like, but that's kind of the conversation where you got to pay $55 million a year for them. Like, you know, they do have to be worth that. Right. So I think that's where maybe this becomes, you know, a little bit more of a, of a conversation. it's not the bills and the Josh Allen. It's maybe the players in Miami where two is getting paid a couple bucks less than Josh Allen. You're like, well, you're not Josh Allen. We're not a very good team and this is miserable. So, yeah. Yeah. And then I think sometimes those guys get more of the blame. I look at, I look at the Dallas situation with Dak Prescott. We want to blame Dak Prescott for everything. When we realized the roster ain't even, he, Dak ain't even close to being the problem. So, yeah. But he's getting paid 60 million. Right. And they can't have everything because he's getting $60 million. Right, right, exactly. All right. Well, this has been a lot of fun, folks. Coming up later today, I will react to what we learned from Joe Brady and Brandon Bean at the NFL Scouting Combine. And then Wednesday, we're back with Edge Rusher discussion, and that second episode will come later in the day. So make sure you don't miss anything. Make sure you're subscribed. We'd love it if you took a second to rate, 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.
