Mentioned as team pursuing cornerback help, the Bills will acquire it in the form of Rasul Douglas. The Packers are sending their Jaire Alexander sidekick to Buffalo, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport.
The Bills have lost No. 1 corner Tre’Davious White for the season, after an early-October Achilles tear, and have not seen much from 2022 first-round pick Kaiir Elam. While Elam remains on Buffalo’s roster — after trade rumors swirled last week — the team will have a veteran boundary corner en route to help the cause. The Bills are sending the Packers a third-round pick in exchange for Douglas and a fifth, CBS Sports’ Jonathan Jones tweets. These are each 2024 draft choices, per The Athletic’s Matt Schneidman.
Green Bay re-signed Douglas to a three-year, $21MM deal during last year’s free agency period, doing so after the 2021 waiver claim showed quality form to help that Packers edition earn another No. 1 seed. With the Packers (2-5) no longer near that point in their first post-Aaron Rodgers season, they will sell at the deadline. This would give Eric Stokes a starting spot to return to, but the 2021 first-round pick is on IR. Rumors of Douglas moving to safety were unfounded, and the latter opened the season as the outside starter opposite Alexander.
This will not be a difficult contract for the Bills to absorb this season. The Packers restructured Douglas’ deal previously, leaving a prorated $1.1MM in base salary coming to the Bills’ cap sheet. Douglas is due $6.25MM in nonguaranteed money next year.
On the field, Douglas will be expected to step in as a starter at some point. The Bills have used former sixth- and seventh-rounders — Christian Benford and Dane Jackson — as their primary outside cover men since White’s injury. Elam has not shown enough growth, and he will have a tougher road to late-season playing time now.
Buffalo pursued Chicago contract-year standout Jaylon Johnson, after the Bears granted him permission to seek a trade. The team made what is believed to be an aggressive effort to pry him from the Windy City, Bleacher Report’s Jordan Schultz tweets, but the Bears rebuffed all Johnson inquiries today. Chicago holding onto Johnson led to Buffalo finding its upgrade on another NFC North roster. The Bears were seeking a big return for Johnson; the Bills will make a midlevel move for Douglas, who is in his age-29 season.
Douglas intercepted nine passes between the 2021 and ’22 seasons, doing so despite playing different positions. After successfully replacing Alexander in 2021, Douglas moved to the slot to accommodate the highly paid defender’s return last year. That effort did not go well, but the Packers moved him back outside after Stokes’ midseason injury last year. Douglas and Alexander began this season as Green Bay’s perimeter corners, with Keisean Nixon inside. The Bills have Taron Johnson entrenched in the slot, which stands to allow Douglas to see boundary reps soon.
Pro Football Focus slots Douglas 18th overall among corners this season; he has one interception and six pass breakups. The Bills are in a crucial year, as Von Miller is now 34 and Stefon Diggs turns 30 next month. They also have rental pass rusher Leonard Floyd (31) on a one-year deal. A 2017 Eagles third-round pick who contributed to the team’s Super Bowl LII-winning season as a rookie, Douglas will be in position to help a Bills defense that ranks 14th in DVOA. With games against the Bengals, Chiefs, Eagles, Cowboys and Dolphins still on the schedule, the Bills were probably wise to at least upgrade at one defensive spot. The team will still not be at full strength for those games, with Matt Milano and DaQuan Jones out indefinitely.
Gute has to be fired. What is this clown doing.
He’s making sure the Lions get about 3 or 4 division titles in a row,
While I agree that Gutekunst is a stubborn, incompetent, rudderless chair tyrant, I actually like this return for Douglas. A third and a fifth for a player who won’t be around when the Packers are competitive again is a decent return. Now, they can go ahead and pick another first round corner or package those picks to move up for a half year starter with 58.3% completion percentage out of Youngstown State.
A 3rd for Douglas and a 5th. They didn’t even get the full value of a 3rd round pick for one of their team leaders on a good deal with years left on his contract. This is another awful Gutekunt trade where he will pick a 3rd round bust for the SEVENTH year in a row.
Douglas store up I. The locker room and declared the D had to win games because the offense has no idea what it’s doing. He said this publicly. Who runs the offense? Douglas wrote his own ticket out of town.
Sad, but true
I really love it.
And basically trading down two rounds when we will have a comp pick in round 3.
And barely even two rounds either. The Bills third rounder should be pretty low while the Packers fifth should be near the top of that round.
Right! Like 1.5!
I think Id rather have Rasul over the Jaylin.
And, two years of control vs 1.
Great deal for us, I think.
Good for Sul, he deserves to be on a contender. And hey, getting a third in return ain’t bad! Better than aimlessly trying to acquire guys on offense in hopes of finishing, like, 6-11 or something.
Fire Gutenmoron!
Why? We get a 3rd round pick. We are not winning this year or next. Packers are working toward 2025
They had to also give up a 5th round pick for a team leader on a cheap deal with more than a year left on his contract. If you want to make this move, you do it in the offseason where you can get more value. This has a negative impact on the locker room. Gutekunt will just pick another 3rd round bust anyway. What, is this now his SEVENTH year in a row missing in the 3rd round? You almost have to be trying to mess up at that point.
I agree with the fire Guth chance because he’s an idiot… But this is a good trade for the pack. I thought we should’ve unloaded even more guys for more pics in the next couple years
As I stated in a previous article, I have no issue moving on from Douglas. I do have to chuckle though, because he was the 1 guy who was healthy in the secondary. Here’s to a couple more mid-season undrafted, street free agent scrubs being brought in by Gutentoot tomorrow!
Douglas was literally one of those guys so you never know
He had a previous NFL run though. I’m talking guys who weren’t drafted, AND haven’t been on a roster in 2 or 3 years.
Yes, please fire Gutknuts! I thought LaFleur was supposed to be innovative and a great “offensive mind.” I’ve rarely seen it since he’s been HC. I mainly see a lack of imagination and too predictive specifically on first down. Makes things a lot tougher for any QB when it’s constantly second and long yardage. Especially, for an offense lacking healthy weapons. Let alone lacking overall weapons due to the drafts for the last several years. Shining examples of why AR was so frustrated at times over the past few years. We’re now seeing that AR made LaFleur look like a better coach than he actually is!
Oh well, they (front office & some coaches) will probably make Love the sacrificial lamb and mostly blame him for this season instead of looking in the mirror.
No doubt the Bills will get better value with the Packers fifth round pick they are getting than the Packers will from the third they are getting, especially if it’s Gutekunst making the pick, nobody and I mean NOBODY blows third round picks with more mind boggling consistency than Brian Gutekunst and this packers front office.
2018 – Oren Burks (at least he was a good ST player?)
2019 – Jace Sternberger (roidhead)
2020 – Josiah Deguara (picked ONE spot before Terry
McLaurin!)
2021 – Amari Rodgers (More career fumbles than catches)
2022 – Sean Rhyan (Can’t get on the field)
2023 – Tucker Kraft (blocking TE that can’t block for sh*t)