George Wilson had a European vacation planned for his upcoming 30th birthday. Less than 24 hours from his scheduled departure however, there was a breakthrough in contract negotiations with the Bills. Wilson hopped a morning flight to Buffalo, signed an extension in the Buffalo-Niagara International airport Tuesday and quickly flew back down to Atlanta for his international flight to Rome.
"It's been a crazy 12 hours, but this feels great," said Wilson while awaiting his trans-Atlantic flight to Europe. "Now I have another reason to be celebrating."
As impressive a 'feel good' story as any, Wilson went from undrafted rookie free agent, to practice squad player to active roster receiver to safety over the past six years.
"I've come a long way from being an undrafted rookie to now to get a multi-year deal to reward me for the work that I've put in," said Wilson. "It just shows that anything is possible through hard work. And in no way will I relax or have a sense of satisfaction or achievement. Now it's time for me to go out and show them that I'm worthy of it and that I should be in this position. I'm ecstatic."
Last offseason Wilson was a victim of the final league year rules when he was to become an unrestricted free agent. Instead he was classified as a restricted free agent and played under a one-year tender with Buffalo in 2010. This time around Wilson wasn't going to wait for a new set of rules.
"If I had it my way I would've liked to have get this done a year earlier, but everything happens for a reason and needed to fall in the right place at the right time," said Wilson. "So I'm thankful for the Bills seeing something in me and offering me an opportunity to stay and keep fighting this fight."
Voted a special teams captain the past three seasons, Wilson was the team's leading tackler on Buffalo's coverage unit in 2010 appearing in all 16 games last season, and also contributed a fumble recovery.
Wilson has also been productive in limited action on defense at safety. In two starts on defense in 2010 he posted a pair of interceptions in wins at Cincinnati (11/21) and at Miami (12/19). He hopes to challenge for a starting role in Buffalo's secondary in 2011.
The safety turns 30 on March 14th.
