WEDNESDAY, 11:11am: The Bills formally announced that Clay has inked his offer sheet, according to Aaron Wilson of The Baltimore Sun (on Twitter). The Dolphins have until Sunday night to match.
TUESDAY, 6:33pm: The Bills’ offer is for five years and $38MM, according to Carucci (on Twitter). The deal includes more than $20MM guaranteed. Meanwhile, Michael Silver of NFL.com (on Twitter) hears that the Dolphins’ final offer to Clay was $27MM over four years with less than $15MM guaranteed.
The Bills’ offer is structured to attack Miami’s cap in 2016, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.
6:24pm: The Bills have given Charles Clay an offer sheet and the tight end has inked it, according to Vic Carucci of The Buffalo News (via Twitter). The Dolphins now have five days to match the offer.
On Monday, Carucci reported that the Bills were steadfast in their hopes of signing Clay to an unmatchable offer sheet. The Bills, for their part, have been confident and bordering on cocky in their pursuit of Clay. A source told Carucci that it was a 90% certainty that Buffalo would land the tight end. New head coach Rex Ryan has been pushing hard for the team to sign Clay and he knows just how hard he can be to defend from his time coaching against him in intra-divisional action.
Buffalo has been going over both their cap numbers and the Dolphins’ cap numbers in an attempt to structure a contract that Miami can’t match. Over the weekend, it was reported that the Dolphins were losing interest in retaining Clay and that’s not all that hard to believe, given the potential contract that Clay could command coupled with the presence of the newly-signed Jordan Cameron.
Wow, silly money. 2nd most guaranteed $ for a TE? Miami won’t touch that.
I assume he is over his knee and hamstring issues from last year…