Buffalo Bills Sign OLB Keith Rivers

by Steve

Again Tim Graham reporting the Bills signed former Giants outside linebacker Keith Rivers to a two year $5 mil contract of which half is guaranteed.

Damn the Bills love former Bengals linebackers.  He was the 9th overall pick in 2008.  Two years ago the Bengals traded Rivers to the Giants for a 5th round pick according to Wikipedia.  Rivers played in all 16 games for New York last year putting up few notable stats on a horrible defense.

Walterfootball had River, 28, ranked as the 14th best OLB available when free agency started and as the 8th best LB still available at the time of the signing (with all of the top 5 still unsigned).

Walterfootball gave the signing a grade of D
"Maybe Buffalo is like the Twilight Zone. Perhaps it's lucrative to overpay for the worst free agents up there. I don't know; I've never been.

All kidding aside, this signing means one of two things: Either Jim Schwartz is planning to move to the 4-3, or he's completely oblivious to the fact that Buffalo ran a 3-4 last year. I'm not a fan of unnecessary scheme changes, and I'm also not in favor of giving seven figures to injury-prone backup fodder like Keith Rivers."

Ouch.  Pretty harsh for a depth signing but hey  1.8% of the salary is indeed 1.8% of the salary cap.

ProfootballFocus had Rivers ranked the 14th linebacker in their rankings (he played 429 snaps last season) albeit on that same list Arthur Moats was ranked 6th so take that FWIW. Although also according to PFF Reith Rivers was ranked the 11th OLB against the run in 4-3 defenses which is exactly what the Bills were horrendous at.