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2021 Worst Buffalo Bills values: No. 10—DE Boogie Basham

Even on his rookie deal, he wasn’t worth what he was paid

Matt Warren is Associate Director of NFL coverage for SB Nation and previously covered the Bills for Buffalo Rumblings for more than a decade.

The Buffalo Bills have been trying over and over again to address their defensive line, and the 2022 offseason has been no different. Part of the reason for that is that despite spending a lot of money and draft capital at the position, they haven’t hit on a defensive end in the NFL Draft. At number ten on our list of worst values for the Bills in 2021 is one of those defensive ends, Boogie Basham.

In the past when we’ve done our listing, we used cap hit to reflect value, but with the cap shenanigans employed by general manager Brandon Beane recently and the improvement of the databases, we’ve switched to yearly cash payments as our metric.

Because of his rookie contract’s signing bonus, Basham’s $2.1 million in cash was more than twice as much as A.J. Epenesa, the previous year’s second-round pick. On the Bills, Basham was 26th in cash, about $100k behind Tremaine Edmunds and just ahead of Levi Wallace, two of the team’s most important starters. Among all the edge rushers in the NFL, he was 102nd while being 60th among those labeled defensive ends.

Assuming there are two defensive ends in each starting lineup, that places Basham among the top 64 starters in the NFL in terms of cash, but he only played in eight games, starting zero. Not really starter snaps.

He was sixth among Bills defensive ends, playing less than 19% of snaps, and didn’t even contribute on special teams, logging just nine snaps in that phase. He finished ninth on the team with 2.5 sacks.

For Basham, his cash number drops down to under $1 million in 2022 and he has a clearer path to playing time with Jerry Hughes, Mario Addison, and Efe Obada gone. Maybe he can play his way onto the best value list this season.

Buffalo Bills 2021 Worst Values

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  10. DE Boogie Basham

Buffalo Bills 2021 Best Values

  1. QB Josh Allen
  2. LB Tremaine Edmunds
  3. TE Dawson Knox
  4. WR Gabe Davis
  5. CB Levi Wallace
  6. DT Ed Oliver
  7. DT Harrison Phillips
  8. S Jordan Poyer
  9. OT Spencer Brown
  10. RB Devin Singletary

Honorable Mentions