By Budd Bailey, Buffalo Sports Page

Derrick Dockery – Signed by the Bills in 2007

An Internet search for the Buffalo Bills’ worst free agent signings produces quite a few hits. Derrick Dockery is on everyone’s list.

Dockery was a third-round pick of the Redskins in 2003, and quickly moved into the lineup as a starting offensive lineman. He was huge at 6-foot-6 and 325 pounds. Then general manager Marv Levy of the Bills thought Dockery could make a difference.

Levy handed Dockery a seven-year contract worth $49 million, with a signing bonus of $18 million. That was considered a lot at the time for a guy who had never made a Pro Bowl. Dockery lasted two seasons with Buffalo before he was waived in Feb. 2009, as the Bills told him he didn’t fit in with a new blocking scheme. Dockery went back to Washington for two seasons and finished his career in Dallas.

Here he looks back on his career:

(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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