Buffalo Bills Jerry Hughes Looking For Agreement
By Dennis Amo
The Buffalo Bills, along with the rest of the NFL are within the time period of franchise tags and transition tags. The Buffalo Bills are feverishly trying to get a deal done with DE Jerry Hughes so that they do not have to use the franchise tag on him.
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Without a lot of money tied up in a franchise quarterback, the Bills are looking to take some of that bank roll and make it work in their favor to try and seal up their defensive line for the next couple of years with Jerry Hughes and Marcell Dareus, who has been names as a priority to extend his contract.
The Buffalo Bills and Jerry Hughes’ representative have had a couple of meetings already, but no deal has been agreed upon yet, but not for a lack of trying either. There are a couple of meetings that are set up for this weekend as well between the two sides to get a deal done.
With the franchise tag for Hughes going to be in the 14 million dollar range it would be worth their while, the Bills’, to come to some type of long term deal that would save them a little bit of money in the short run as well.
"“We’re trying to avoid that [the tag], because we’re trying to get him long term for sure and keep everybody on the same page so Hughes and his representative felt like, ‘Hey, we got a good deal,’ and we say, as the Buffalo Bills, we got a good deal,” Whaley said.– Profootballtalk.com"
With Rex Ryan and the Buffalo Bills moving to most likely a 3-4 defense, either Jerry Hughes or Mario Williams could be in a stand up role on the end as the additional outside linebacker. Mario Williams has played that position before, and Jerry Hughes would be a good fit in it as well. Hughes is coming off of a record 2 seasons with the Bills recording 20.5 sacks and being the first Bills player to have 20+ sacks in their first two seasons with the Bills. This is also a big improvement from his play with the Indianapolis Colts where he recorded only 5 sacks in his first year.
Buffalo definitely got the better end of the Kelvin Sheppard/Jerry Hughes trade, especially if they can lock him in for a long term deal.