Buffalo Bills: 7 of the best free agent signings in team history In a November 1998 game against the Dolphins, Bills QB Doug Flutie pulls off Miami DE Trace Armstrong and Bills guard Jerry Os Troski blocked.
(Buffalo News File Photo) As the Buffalo Bills prepare to tackle the offseason, we take a look back at the seven best free agent signings in team history.
The Buffalo Bills have a number of free agents to evaluate this offseason, and with most of them not returning, the team has a lot of holes to fill on the roster.
These holes won’t all be filled in the draft, which means Doug Whaley and his staff will have to look for some key pieces in free agency.
Whaley did a great job filling holes through free agency in key areas last season.
Players like Zac Brown and Lorenzo Alexander proved to be diamonds in the rough, and both were signed as free agents.
Will we see a similar crowd this offseason?If the Buffalo Bills want to make the playoffs next year, because they need safeties, wide receivers, defensive tackles, offensive linemen, and even quarterbacks and cornerbacks.
If so, you will definitely need a sufficient number of votes.
As the organization and fanbase prepare for a slew of impending signings, we take a look back at the seven best free agent signings in Buffalo Bills franchise history.
That doesn’t happen often, but some new players stand out.
Start now.
The following players are in no particular order.
Doug Flutie – 1998 The Buffalo Bills’ signing of Doug Flutie in 1998 was not only a great free agent deal, but also a sad one considering how the team handled it.
The team wasn’t really interested in adding him at first, but they brought in A.J.
persuade.
Smith, the Bills’ professional personnel director at the time.
Flutie was part of a quarterback controversy with Rob Johnson during his time with the team, but no matter how you look at it, he was deserving of an absolute starter.
He initially took over as the starter when Rob Johnson was injured and led the Bills to a fourth-quarter comeback in Week 6 (1998).
He started the next 11 games, winning eight of them.
In 1999, as a starter, he led the Bills to a 10-5 record and a playoff berth.
Strangely, head coach Wade Phillips decided to use Rob Johnson instead of Doug Flutie in a playoff game that ended in Buffalo’s loss.
Legend has it that this decision triggered the curse on the Buffalo Bills and contributed to their 17-year playoff drought.
If the Bills had simply given Flutie a permanent starting role and built the team around him like they did under Jim Kelly, things might have turned out differently.
Bryce Pope is perhaps one of the best free agent signings in NFL history, coming at a pivotal time in Buffalo Bills history, his last three years of the Marv Levy era.
After spending his first four years with the Green Bay Packers, he joined the Bills as a free agent in 1995.
He signed a three-year, $7.
6 million contract after the Packers failed to re-sign him.
Paup, who feels he was treated unfairly by the Packers, said of the situation: They thought I was ripping off Reggie (white).
” That led him to the Bills, where he worked with future Pro Football Hall of Famer Bruce Smith.
Paup’s first season in Buffalo ended with 89 tackles, 17.
5 sacks, three forced fumbles, and one fumble.
