The Buffalo Bills had a glaring need at the safety position and general mangaer Brandon Beane addressed it at the NFL trade deadline Tuesday. The Bills have traded for Tennessee Titans star Amani Hooker.
Hooker is a former fourth-round pick of the Titans in 2019 and started 74 games for them, taking over as the starting strong safety in 2021.
Hooker’s base salary for the rest of the season is somewhere around $2 million, so the Bills were able to fit him under their cap. No word on if Tennessee ate
some salary to help Buffalo in the process.
Ian Rapoport has the details of this trade:
Earlier this week, we wrote on the report the Bills were “scanning the safety pool” before the trade deadline, and now they’ve made their move.
Hooker was the fifth installment in our trade-deadline candidate series here at Rumblings. This is how I concluded that article I published on October 26:
“Hooker would be an excellent in-season acquisition for this defense.
At the outset, the cost of a late Round 3 pick feels a little rich for my liking, but Buffalo shouldn’t be overly concerned with next year’s draft right now. And, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for the Titans to eat some of Hooker’s future money — by converting future base salary into a signing bonus — to facilitate a trade that features Buffalo’s 2027 third-round selection.
In that case, count me in.
Hooker is a still reasonably young, super-steady, do-everything safety… which is kinda-sorta what this Bills defense needs right now.
Plus, the financial obligations over the next two seasons for Hooker are hardly expensive for a player of his caliber who won’t be 30 until June of 2028.”
Matt Warren had this thought regarding this trade and how it stacks up with the Jaguars trade to acquire safety Jessie Bates:
“Unlike the Jaguars’ trade for Jessie Bates, the Bills can see a future with Hooker. Hooker is under contract for 2027 and 2028, where Bates is only under contract for the rest of 2026. Hooker is only 28 and turns 29 in June while Bates turns 30 in February.”
As for the type of player the Bills are getting, Hooker was one of the youngest players in the 2019 NFL Draft, and has 5,293 snaps of NFL experience. He has 17 career interceptions — including five this season, three of which came against the Bengals in Week 8 — and averages 77 tackles, two tackles for loss, and seven pass breakups per season.
At 5’11” and 210 pounds with plus ball skills and range, Hooker is legitimately versatile, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he moves into more of a ball-hawking free safety role in Jim Leonhard’s defense.
Brandon Beane did it. He made a move at the trade deadline (which he’s done plenty of times before) to make the Bills better right now.
