The Buffalo Bills cannot catch a break.
The franchise, which has the longest active playoff drought in the NFL and has not finished above .500 since 2004, could use a strong offseason to compete with the Patriots, Dolphins and Jets in the AFC East. But Buffalo's hopes took a significant hit this week thanks to none other than Mother Nature.
After a quiet day Tuesday in which the Bills re-signed kicker Dan Carpenter, Buffalo GM Doug Whaley was hopeful that a blizzard rolling through Western New York would not affect players who planned on visiting.
“With looking at the weather you try to get him in here as soon as possible,” Whaley said during a radio appearance. “And knowing guys have a lot of dance cards we don’t want to get them skipped over if we can’t get them in. So it's a tricky situation and we’re going to try to do the best we can. We've got faith in the Buffalo airport that they’ll stay open at least for a little while, or don’t cancel flights the whole day.”
Unfortunately for Buffalo, the airport "slowed to a near halt" on Wednesday. And while the Bills were able to sign free agent offensive lineman Chris Williams, Whaley admitted the weather threw off the team's plans.
"Today’s storm challenged us in terms of getting free agents in-and-out because teams like to get them in as soon as possible. It's important to have plans for all scenarios. Today, we were prepared in dealing with this storm," Whaley said in a statement. "We’re excited about this start to free agency and our plans moving forward. With the signing of Chris Williams, I am particularly excited about the direction our offensive line is moving in because we wanted to address this position and we feel like we filled the need with a very good player."
Unfortunately, adding Williams and retaining Carpenter isn't going to do much for Bills fans, especially since the team lost its top available free agent, safety Jairus Byrd, to the Saints.
