Paul Posluszny: “I Want to be Back With the Bills” – But Will He Be?

If you take a look at Buffalo’s list of free agents, without a doubt the biggest name is linebacker Paul Posluszny. He’s one of the very few Bills with national name regonition, albiet more due to his college exploits than anything he’s done in the NFL. Poz is also a pretty decent player and would it create a huge hole in the middle of Buffalo’s defense if he were not to return to Western New York.

Here’s the question: does Poz actually want to return to Buffalo? Or is he tired of the losing and ready to move on?

In an interview with the Buffalo News, Poz made it clear he’d like to stay a Bill:

"“Absolutely, Buffalo has been great to me,” he said. “The fans have been great to me. The organization’s been great to me. The town’s been great to me. We have to start winning. That’s all there is to it. If I came back I’d hope to be a big part of that and get this thing turned around. I’d be very happy to return to Buffalo.”"

Well, that’s all well and good but does that mean he’s definitely coming back?

Not quite:

“I’m excited and nervous,” Posluszny said. “I’m excited to know that we’re playing football. I’m a little nervous to know that I don’t have a team right now. I’ve always said I want to be back with the Bills. With free agency, I’m going to have to see what my true market value is and see what teams are interested and go from there.” [emphasis added]

Uh oh. We all know the Bills aren’t always big fans of actually bidding for guys. Is some team going to out-bid the Bills for Poz?

I don’t think so. Here’s a few reasons that I’m reasonable sure we’ll see Poz in Buffalo this season.

1) The Bills have a ton of cap space – and actually have to use some of it: The Bills are $36 million under the cap right now and will need to spend well over half of that by the end of the season to meet the newly-mandated salary “floor.” Not many other teams have nearly as much to spend.

2) Not many other teams really need a middle linebacker – Middle linebacker for whatever reason isn’t high on the needs list of too many teams. The Titans, maybe. I think the Bills need Poz more than other teams really do.

3) The Bills are going to offer Poz a big contract – I think Poz is Buffalo’s #1 priority for this crazy free-agency period. They’ll spend enough to lock him up pretty quickly.

We’ll see. As Poz himself said, “It’s going to be an interesting week.”