AFC Notes: Bills, Dolphins, Patriots

Bills

• Mike Silver reports that the Bills were also in the running to sign TE Kyle Rudolph before he agreed to a deal with the Giants.
• New Bills WR Emmanuel Sanders believes Buffalo has a “complex offense” and is curious to see how he’s used under OC Brian Daboll: “I pride myself on being a great route runner. It’ll remain to seen on how Daboll wants to use me, but the different concepts & options we have based off of just one route, we’re going to be hard for defenses to stop. It’s a complex offense.” (Chris Brown)
• Sanders said that Bills GM Brandon Beane has been interested in him over the years and tried to acquire him from the Broncos last year: “Beane was telling me he’s been wanting me. Tried to get me in a trade from Denver, then tried to get me last year. But here I am now. Now we’ve got to capitalize on that.” (Chris Brown)
• Sanders added that he studied the Bills’ offense during his days off last season: “Just watching this offense last year from afar, I used to sit on my off days & watch this offense on my Ipad, the coach’s film & watch the routes they’re running. It was exciting to watch.” (Chris Brown)
• The Bills signed WR Emmanuel Sanders to a two year, $6M contract that includes $5.9M guaranteed, a $2.75M signing bonus, a $2.8M salary, a $350,000 roster bonus, $500,000 in catch incentives, and a $250,000 catch based escalator in 2022 that voids automatically if he’s on their roster as of the 23rd day of the 2022 league year. (Aaron Wilson)

Dolphins

• A report surfaced Thursday that free agent RB Chris Carson is nearing a deal with the Dolphins. However, Bob Condotta hears that the report is not accurate and where he lands is still “very much up in the air.”  
• According to Mike Garafolo, the Dolphins were in on veteran C David Andrews even after signing C Matt Skura earlier in the day. However, Andrews opted to return to the Patriots in the end.
• Dolphins’ new C Matt Skura said he had “a few different offers” on the table, but decided on Miami because of its “great culture, great locker room.” (Armando Salguero)
• The Dolphins signed C Matt Skura to a one-year, $1.75M contract that includes $400,000 guaranteed, $200,000 signing bonus, and a $1.55M base salary ($200,000 guaranteed). (Aaron Wilson)
• The Dolphins signed WR Will Fuller to a one-year, $10.625 million contract that can be worth up to $13.625M. He gets a $9.635M signing bonus, a $990,000 base salary (fully guaranteed), up to $3M in performance, catch, yards, and touchdowns incentives. (Aaron Wilson)

Patriots

• The Athletic’s Jeff Howe digs into some of the layers of the Patriots’ decision to use the second-round tender instead of the first-round on restricted free agent CB J.C. Jackson. He notes there is a possibility another team signs Jackson to an offer sheet with the second-round tender as opposed to almost zero chance with the first. 
• From there, Howe says the Patriots could either accept a second-round pick for losing Jackson in the final year of his deal. New England could also match if the offering team has negotiated a reasonable deal and end up getting a discount on what Jackson would have made as an unrestricted free agent in 2022. 
• Howe adds Jackson could also turn down any offer sheet if he thinks he’d do better in free agency next season.
• The Patriots signed LB Kyle Van Noy to a two-year, $12M deal that includes $6M guaranteed, a $4.9M signing bonus and base salaries of $1.1M (2021, guaranteed) and $4M (2022). He gets up to $1M per-game active roster bonuses and up to $600K in playtime and Pro Bowl incentives. (Aaron Wilson)