Paying the Bills: GM Brandon Beane Entering his Busiest Time of Year

They're around $6.5 million over the salary cap with 15 pending unrestriced free agents.

As the NFL approaches its new league year, Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane has all kinds of business on his plate and probably all kinds of sleepless nights ahead.

In addition to the possible departure of 15 unrestricted free agents and decisions to make on restricted free agents Justin Zimmer and Ryan Bates, the Bills started Tuesday morning approximately $6.5 over the salary cap, which a day earlier was set for 2022 at $208.2 million.

Fortunately, the situation is not as dire as it appears on the surface. Beane has structured the contracts of almost all his highest-paid players with no guaranteed money beyond last season. It means that they can either terminate high-priced contracts with substantial cap savings and minimal dead-money hits or have the leverage to renegotiate with certain players to lower their cap numbers for this coming season.

• RELATED: Bills' salary cap flexibility better than it appears

The cost-cutting process began Tuesday afternoon with the release of third linebacker A.J. Klein. This clearly was not performance-based. But Klein's salary ($4.2 million) and total cap number ($5.5 million) simply were too prohibitive, given what they're up against.

The move cleared $5.1 million from the Bills' cap.

Another potential future example: Wide receiver Cole Beasley likely peeked around the corner at his cap hit of $7.6 million and decided he'd rather seek a trade rather than negotiate to get that number down, which he figures has to happen for him to stay in Buffalo.

• RELATED: Cole Beasley requests trade

If Beasley departs, that's an instant lowering of the cap by $6.1 million, according to Over the Cap.

The Bills also are hoping to get fellow receiver Stefon Diggs' massive hit of $17.9 million down to a more manageable number with an extension to a contract that expires at the end of the 2023 season.

Similar options are available with contracts up and down the Bills' roster.

Some players will be released as cap casualties or forced to take pay cuts. Others will get extensions that could put more money in their pockets but lower their hits for 2022.

All involve complicated decisions that Beane and coach Sean McDermott don't have much time to make.

Beane talked about where the Bills are Tuesday in a radio interview on WGR 550.

"I need a loan," he joked. "We're in the red right now. I think without looking at it, we're around [$6.5 million] over. So, yeah, I wish I had more room. But that's part of where we're at, still digging ourselves out of this pandemic going backwards and some of our planning and obviously paying [QB] Josh [Allen] and some of the guys that we paid.

"So we've got some moves that we've got to get done between now and next week. We have some some ideas and we've had conversations and we'll get there in time. You have to. So we'll get that done."

Re-signing any of the players with expiring contracts, which include wide receivers Emmanuel Sanders and Isaiah McKenzie, defensive ends Jerry Hughes and Mario Addison, cornerback Levi Wallace and defensive tackle Harrison Phillips, would mean they would have to subtract heavily, Beane pointed out.

"It's not like I can just clear 6.8 [million] and say we're done," he said. "We've got a lot, and that doesn't count draft picks. We'll have to pay money for draft picks as well. So we've got work to do. And it's still hard with the cap. The cap went up this year, but we're still catching up. It should have been in the 220s if we hadn't had the setback of COVID."

One order of business Beane guaranteed was that they will pick up the fifth-year option on defensive tackle Ed Oliver's rookie contract for 2023.

Approaching veterans about pay cuts is particularly difficult, according to the general manager.

"You know, it's a hard conversation," Beane said. "You're talking about people's money, and people work hard and sometimes things come up, they didn't have the year they wanted or maybe it's just the number is getting too high and they want to — we know they want to stay. So you just treat it delicately. You're honest that, `listen, we'd love to keep you here. We understand it's your option to decline it,' and you just have to have a lot of respect and understanding, and it's a very sensitive conversation.

"Sometimes it takes time. Sometimes it's two or three calls. You know, sometimes you approach them with: `this is what we're thinking. Think about it.' And then maybe they come back with some things [like], `hey, we'll do X and Y but we're not doing A and B.' And maybe we come up with C and D in there."

Candidates beyond Klein to be approached for reductions, either through pay cuts or releases, could include offensive linemen Mitch Morse and Daryl Williams.

Safety Jordan Poyer and tight end Dawson Knox are prime candidates for extensions along with White.

In almost every case, the Bills will have to be careful to balance the ledger because they're straddling the cap.

"We're going to look at every avenue, whether it's cuts, a restructure here or there or pay adjustments," Beane said. "So we're looking at all those right now and hopefully here in the next week or so we'll have some news that allows us to at least operate in free agency."

For Beane, seven or eight negotiations can be going on at one time, with each affecting the other.

Good times.

Here is the list of their pending unrestricted free agents heading into the new league year, which begins on March 16:

CB Levi Wallace

DE Jerry Hughes

DE Mario Addison

DE Efe Obada

DT Vernon Butler

DT Harrison Phillips

G Ike Boettger

WR Isaiah McKenzie

WR Emmanuel Sanders

WR Jake Kumerow

QB Mitchell Trubisky

RB Taiwan Jones

RB Matt Breida

T Bobby Hart

Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.