By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

  1. Sam Adams – Signed by the Bills in 2003

It’s almost too easy to say that Sam Adams was a big free-agent signing by the Bills. After all, he checked in at 6-foot-4 and 340 pounds, more or less.

Adams had always been a large part of any of his defensive units. He was taken in the first round (eighth overall) by Seattle in 1994, and eventually became a starter for the Seahawks. From there it was on to Baltimore (where he won a Super Bowl) and Oakland (where he lost a Super Bowl).

Adams was a free agent again in 2003, and he agreed to a four-year deal with the Bills. The defensive tackle might have had one of the great debuts in Buffalo’s football history. He intercepted a Tom Brady pass and ran it back 37 yards for a touchdown – a play that put him on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Adams had five sacks in each of his first two seasons with the Bills.

But his play fell off a bit in 2005, and he became a casualty of the salary cap the following spring. Adams spent the next two seasons with the Bengals and Lions before retiring.

Want to see that touchdown?

(Follow Budd on Twitter @WDX2BB)

Budd Bailey

Budd Bailey has been involved in almost every aspect of the local sports scene for the last 40 years. He worked for WEBR Radio, the Buffalo Sabres' public relations department and The Buffalo News during that time. In that time he covered virtually every aspect of the area's sports world, from high schools to the Bills and Sabres and everything in between. Along the way, Budd served as a play-by-play announcer for the Bisons, an analyst for the Stallions, and a talk-show host. He won the National Lacrosse League's Tom Borrelli Award as the media personality of the year in 2011, and was a finalist for that same award in 2017. Budd's seventh and eighth books, one on the Transcontinental Railroad and the other about Ichiro Suzuki, are scheduled to be released in the fall.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *