TE Lee Smith
Lee Smith is Whaley-ish guy, but has a bit of an asterisk next to his name. Whaley didn’t become the Bills’ top-executive until 2013. Smith predates that. The Bills claimed Smith off waivers in 2011 and was with the Bills until 2014. So Whaley did keep him around, but he didn’t sign him.
From 2015 to 2018, Smith landed with the Raiders but as the story goes, he came back to the Bills under their current regime. In May, he signed a three-year deal to return to Buffalo. The known blocking tight end had four catches for 31 yards and a touchdown in 2019.
DE Jerry Hughes
To Whaley’s credit, we’ll finish things off with perhaps his best move as a GM. Defensive end Jerry Hughes was traded to the Bills for linebacker Kelvin Sheppard, a promising player for Buffalo. Turns out, Whaley was right about this one.
Sheppard only spent one season with the Colts, who the Bills landed Hughes from before the 2013 season. By comparison, Hughes is the longest-tenured member of the Bills currently. That, plus he’s good and he’s an iron man. In 114 possible games played with Buffalo, he’s played in 114 of them. In that time, he’s racked up 46.5 sacks with the Bills, including back-to-back 10-sack seasons early on in his Bills career.
Hughes re-signed with the Bills under Whaley in 2015, then the current front office added a two-year extension to his deal in May.
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