The Buffalo Bills have been working through free agency to find new pieces for a brand new defensive scheme, and on Thursday, they found a potential starting solution in safety C.J. Gardner-Johnson. Gardner-Johnson has agreed to terms on a one-year deal with the Bills, according to a league source.
The deal is worth up to $6 million, according to various reports. Gardner-Johnson, 28, appeared to confirm on X that he was heading to Buffalo shortly after.
Gardner-Johnson had perhaps the best season of his career with the Philadelphia Eagles in 2024, when he was an impact player who brought in six interceptions to go along with 116 tackles. However, his 2025 season did not go as planned. The Eagles moved Gardner-Johnson in an offseason trade to the Houston Texans. The safety spent the entire summer with the Texans, though the Texans released him after only three games.
After his stint in Houston, he landed on the Baltimore Ravens’ practice squad in early October, but was released one week later. Then, in late October, Gardner-Johnson signed with the Chicago Bears, where he spent the rest of the season and made eight starts — one of which came in the Bears’ divisional round loss to the Los Angeles Rams.
Originally a fourth-round pick by the New Orleans Saints, Gardner-Johnson spent three seasons there before being traded to the Eagles. He signed as a free agent in 2023 with the Detroit Lions. An injury-mired campaign followed, though it was enough to land a three-year contract with the Eagles the following offseason.
How he fits
Gardner-Johnson heads to a Bills safety room that had been depleted this offseason, following the change to defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard’s new scheme. The Bills released 2025 opening day starter Taylor Rapp in a cap-cutting move, and have yet to re-sign any of Jordan Poyer, Damar Hamlin or Darnell Savage. The only sure thing at safety still on the roster is up-and-coming third-year player Cole Bishop, who was one of the team’s best defenders in the second half of the season. The Bills will hope that they can get the 2024 version of Gardner-Johnson on a one-year prove-it deal if he earns the starting job this summer.
2026 roster impact
Gardner-Johnson comes to a Bills team with a great chance to earn a starting job. Bishop is a locked-in starter, and the only current Bills safety who might offer some resistance to Gardner-Johnson winning the job is second-year player Jordan Hancock. After being a healthy scratch early in the season, Hancock showed some promising flashes in a rotational role during the second half of the season. The 2025 fifth-round pick was also being crosstrained at nickel during his rookie year, so it remains to be seen how they’ll deploy him. However, having Gardner-Johnson, an experienced starter, will be a big thing for a young safety room.
Cap update
The Bills had to work to get under the cap before the start of the new league year, but that was only to onboard the contract of new wide receiver DJ Moore as it was previously constructed. The Bills were very likely to have performed a simple restructure on Moore’s 2026 cap hit, which would open up room for the Gardner-Johnson move and others, like the Bradley Chubb signing. With how the Bills usually structure their contracts, they are likely to have additional cap space remaining to make some more moves.
Joe Buscaglia’s takeaway
With some middle-tier free agent safeties coming off the board on Wednesday evening, it appeared as though the Bills may have missed their chance on a younger type of safety to pair with Bishop. Of the remaining options, Gardner-Johnson was one of the better in-prime players available. President of football operations and general manager Brandon Beane has long been known to perform low-cost bet-on-talent signings after someone has a down year, and that’s the case here with Gardner-Johnson. There is some volatility to the move, and the Bills may be best off addressing the position as well in the draft as insurance if they aren’t sold on Hancock as a potential starter one day. It really all depends on what version of Gardner-Johnson they’re getting, but if he finds his playmaking form from his big season in Philadelphia, the Bills could be on to something. At this point in free agency, that’s about as good as you can ask for. Until we find out, it’s a big ‘ol to be continued.
