{"id":13415,"date":"2017-03-09T09:02:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-09T14:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonprofootball.com\/?p=13415"},"modified":"2017-03-09T09:08:19","modified_gmt":"2017-03-09T14:08:19","slug":"stephon-gilmore-signs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2017\/03\/09\/stephon-gilmore-signs\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Stephon Gilmore To Sign With New England"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to reports <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/G\/GilmSt00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephon Gilmore<\/a><\/strong> is slated to move to the New England Patriots after spending his first five NFL seasons with the Buffalo Bills. ESPN&#8217;s Adam Schefter\u00a0initially reported on the deal.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Bills free agent CB Stephon Gilmore expects to sign with New England barring any final snags, per sources.<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AdamSchefter\/status\/839837410087272448?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">The expected price tag for free agent CB Stephon Gilmore for the <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/Patriots?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#Patriots<\/a> is slated to eclipse $14M per year, I\u2019m told. Hefty but worth it<\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/RapSheet\/status\/839839602366087168?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 9, 2017<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Report: Stephon Gilmore To Sign With New England<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Despite another season without postseason football in Buffalo, Gilmore enjoyed a relatively solid campaign. He had five interceptions on the year, a total bested by only four other players. And only the Atlanta Falcons <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/J\/JoneDe01.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Deion Jones<\/a><\/strong>, who returned two picks for touchdowns, accumulated more yardage from his interceptions than Gilmore&#8217;s 135. As a result, he made his first Pro Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>Gilmore anchored a Bills secondary which proved reliable against the pass in 2016. Buffalo finished tenth or better in pass defense, passing first downs conceded and opponent completion percentage per game. The unit as a whole gave up a mere 19 passing touchdowns, the fourth best total in the league.<\/p>\n<p>A year earlier in Rex Ryan&#8217;s first season as head coach, him and rookie <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/D\/DarbRo00.htm?utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Ronald Darby<\/a> formed among the more formidable corner tandems in the league. The two excelled at forcing incompletions, combining for 39 pass break-ups. Gilmore accounted for 19, tied with Carolina&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=NormJo01,NormJo00&amp;search=Josh+Norman&amp;utm_campaign=Linker&amp;utm_source=direct&amp;utm_medium=linker-\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Josh Norman<\/a> for seventh in the NFL.<\/p>\n<p>Injuries haven&#8217;t been too much of a concern over Gilmore&#8217;s career. He&#8217;s started at least 75 percent the Bills regular season games in four of his five years in the league. But did miss the first five games of 2013 due to a wrist injury and the final five of 2015 after having surgery on a torn labrum.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old enjoyed a standout collegiate career at South Carolina. He earned first-team all-SEC honors in two of his three years with the Gamecocks. As a result, he came into the 2012 NFL Draft as one of the top pro prospects at cornerbacks. The Bills selected him tenth overall.<\/p>\n<div class=\"getty embed image\" style=\"background-color: #fff; display: inline-block; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif; color: #a7a7a7; font-size: 11px; width: 100%; max-width: 594px;\">\n<div style=\"padding: 0; margin: 0; text-align: left;\"><a style=\"color: #a7a7a7; text-decoration: none; font-weight: normal !important; border: none; display: inline-block;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gettyimages.com\/detail\/636821656\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Embed from Getty Images<\/a><\/div>\n<div style=\"overflow: hidden; position: relative; height: 0; padding: 66.666667% 0 0 0; width: 100%;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" style=\"display: inline-block; position: absolute; top: 0; left: 0; width: 100%; height: 100%; margin: 0;\" src=\"\/\/embed.gettyimages.com\/embed\/636821656?et=0d28O0KkQf18YuiaeYXK_g&amp;viewMoreLink=on&amp;sig=LfCrxgd4kQNBiD03-fWRDwfZN0TFfnSXZUjijRkW-KY=&amp;caption=true\" width=\"594\" height=\"396\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/div>\n<p style=\"margin: 0;\">\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As the former tenth overall pick in the 2012 draft, Stephon Gilmore always faced high expectations during his five years in Buffalo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":742,"featured_media":13416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,3,5],"tags":[177,61,40,1063],"class_list":["post-13415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-bills","category-patriots","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-stephon-gilmore"],"modified_by":"Ben Kerr","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/742"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}