The Buffalo Bills announced on Wednesday that they have placed cornerback Stephon Gilmore on Injured Reserve, bringing his excellent 2015 season to a close. Gilmore recently had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his shoulder, per Ian Rapoport of NFL.com.
The #Bills put CB Stephon Gilmore (shoulder) on IR because he had surgery on a torn labrum, source said.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 16, 2015
Gilmore injured his shoulder making a tackle in the third quarter of the Bills' Week 13 win over the Houston Texans. He did not practice at all last week, and his prognosis evidently had not changed enough to try to play through the injury. The surgery should mean that he'll enter 2016 training camp at full health.
The Bills signed rookie edge rusher Max Valles off of the Oakland Raiders' practice squad to fill Gilmore's spot on the active roster. Valles was a sixth-round pick out of Virginia this past April, and spent the entire season on the Raiders' practice squad after failing to crack their 53-man roster. He's an intriguing 6'5", 251-pound edge defender that profiles as a project heading into the 2016 season.
For Gilmore, he's now officially off of the original portion of his rookie contract, and will play on a one-year, $11.082 million fifth-year option that the Bills exercised last spring. 2016, then, will be a contract year for him, unless the Bills want to lock up the 25-year-old long term next summer, as the team did with Marcell Dareus this past summer. Gilmore had a career year, picking off three passes and recording a career-high 18 defended passes in 12 games.