Amani Hooker wasn’t the first safety Brandon Beane went after. Before the Buffalo Bills landed Hooker from Tennessee, they made a play for Arizona Cardinals star Budda Baker with what one source considered “a compelling package,” ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported Wednesday. Arizona said no, because it views Baker as the heart and soul of the team.
The Bills kept working on Hooker at the same time, and that deal took some pushing. The Titans originally resisted an offer because Robert Saleh loves Hooker on the roster, Fowler wrote. Buffalo came back with “a counteroffer of sorts” and got it done. Fowler called the Bills the most aggressive team on a slow deadline day, which lines up with Beane admitting he feared another quiet Bills deadline.
How Budda Baker compares to Amani Hooker
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Baker would have given the Bills a different kind of safety. He has 62 tackles, 3.5 sacks, 4.5 tackles for loss and an interception in nine games, per ESPN, numbers built around playing near the line of scrimmage. Hooker is a ball hawk. He leads the NFL with five interceptions in seven games and has six passes defensed.
Set that next to Buffalo’s own total and it’s clear why the Bills settled on Hooker. The entire Bills defense has six interceptions in eight games, according to NFL.com, one more than Hooker produced by himself in Tennessee. That’s the exact gap Beane was trying to close on the back end, and Hooker gives the Bills a versatile pairing with Cole Bishop.
Beane also cleared cap space with contract restructures early Tuesday, a sign the Bills were ready to spend. Teams around the league believed Buffalo was looking for safeties and defensive tackles, Fowler wrote, and Baker was the biggest name on that list.
The 7-1 Bills get to see Hooker’s fit right away. He makes his Buffalo debut Sunday against the Jets, the team that beat him and the Titans in Week 1. After the way this deadline played out, Bills Mafia can say Beane didn’t stand still.
More on the Buffalo Bills
- Re-Examining the Bills’ D.J. Moore Trade Now That the Deadline Has Passed
- 2 Released Veterans the Bills Could Still Sign After the Deadline
- Is a B-Plus Fair for Bills After Amani Hooker Trade? His 5 Interceptions Make the Case
- “Put Your Guns and Knives Away”: Brandon Beane Admits He Feared Another Quiet Bills Deadline
