Buffalo Bills: Making the case for and against signing Patrick Peterson

Making the case against signing Patrick Peterson

As many positives as there are about adding a player like Patrick Peterson, there are certainly a number of reasons the Buffalo Bills shouldn’t pursue this cornerback. The biggest issue for the Bills is they are entering an offseason with limited cap space.

According to Spotrac, if the salary cap is set at $185 million they would currently only have $3.87 million available. This would undoubtedly mean general manager Brandon Beane would have to find a way to create cap space by cutting a few veterans currently on the team.

If Spotrac’s Market Value is correct, Peterson could command an average salary of just over $10 million. For the Bills to offer a salary like that, they could release John Brown (which would result in roughly $8 million in cap savings). However, this means there would be no room left to sign some of their current free agents like Matt Milano, Jon Feliciano, or Daryl Williams.

The other reason for the Bills to not sign Patrick Peterson is that he has shown he does not play well or like playing in the defensive scheme that Sean McDermott runs. In 2018, Steve Wilks was the head coach of the Arizona Cardinals. However, prior to that he was the replacement of Sean McDermott with the Carolina Panthers as defensive coordinator.

Wilks ran a similar defense to McDermott, which relies heavily on zone coverage, and didn’t allow Peterson to press like he likes to do. He even was quoted as saying such on the first day of training camp in 2019 with Vance Joseph being the new defensive coordinator.