By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page Columnist

Bill Brooks – Signed by the Bills in 1993

The Bills were in the midst of their Super Bowl run in the early 1990s when James Lofton’s time with the team came to an end. Buffalo needed a reliable wide receiver to replace him in the team’s explosive offensive. They turned to a free agent for help.

Billy Brooks had been a fourth-round pick out of Boston University by the Indianapolis Colts in 1986. He had the best year of his career as a rookie, catching 65 passes for 1,173 yards. Brooks kept it up through 1992, but he was a little sick of losing. Free agency became an escape hatch for him.

Brooks played three seasons with the Bills, helping out the Super Bowl team of 1993. In 1995 he caught 11 touchdown passes to easily lead the team (no one else had more than three). Brooks moved on to Washington, and retired after spending 1996 as a reserve there.

Here’s one of Bill’s biggest catches:

(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.

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