The Buffalo Bills have been lying stagnant in the free-agent pool over the past week and a half since signing the likes of Bradley Chubb, Dee Alford, C.J. Gardner Johnson, Geno Stone, and Kyle Allen, while also making the trade for D.J. Moore official, but that changed yesterday afternoon when news broke on Monday that the team hosted veteran interior offensive lineman Austin Corbett on a free-agent visit at One Bills Drive.
Corbett, an eight-year veteran who entered the league as a second-round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 2018, has spent the last four seasons with the Carolina Panthers after originally joining the team back in 2022 on a three-year, $26.25 million deal in free agency.
Set to turn 31 in September, Corbett has also played for the Los Angeles Rams in addition to the Browns and Panthers, as he was a member of the Los Angeles team that won Super Bowl LVI at the conclusion of the 2021 season.
For his career, the 6-foot-4, 305-pound offensive lineman has registered 78 starts in 94 regular-season appearances across his three NFL stops, while making six postseason starts during his time in Los Angeles and one playoff appearance with Carolina in 2025.
A former walk-on at the University of Nevada after coming out of Edward C. Reed High School in Sparks, Nevada, the “hometown” kid finished his collegiate career by becoming a semifinalist for the Burlsworth Trophy in his senior year while also becoming team captain ever since manning the left tackle position for the Wolfpack as a redshirt freshman in 2014.
Corbett parlayed that stellar climb to success by eventually becoming the 33rd-overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft — nearly a first-round selection.
Once in the league, however, things didn’t start out as Corbett would have hoped, especially considering he was immediately shifted to guard — an entirely new position for the Nevada native — and he never quite got his footing at the position while in Cleveland, making just eight starts while appearing in 22 of 32 games in his first two seasons before ultimately being traded away to Los Angeles in exchange for a fifth-round pick on October 15, 2019.
That’s when Corbett’s professional career began taking a turn for the better, and where his subtle connection to Buffalo comes into play.
During his two-and-a-half years out West — a fitting place to be for the former Nevada standout — Corbett was under the tutelage of now former Bills offensive line coach and run game coordinator Aaron Kromer in 2019 and 2020 when Kromer held the same title with the Rams from 2018 to 2020.
While working under Kromer, Corbett went on to start 23 of 24 games at both left and right guard in their one-and-a-half seasons together following his trade from Cleveland before going on to start all 17 regular season games and all four postseason games in that magical aforementioned 2021 season.
The versatile veteran lineman started all 17 games once again in 2022 when he first joined the Panthers via free agency that offseason, but unfortunately battled injuries the following two years as he started the beginning of the 2023 regular season on the PUP list before sustaining a season-ending knee injury in Week 11, and then suffered another setback in 2024 when he tore his biceps in Week 5 of that season, which once again landed him on season-ending injured reserve.
It was a tough stretch for the longtime veteran, and one that included an attempted switch to center on top of it all, but in the end Corbett never wavered, re-signing on a one-year deal with Carolina last offseason en route to starting 11 of the 13 games he appeared in back at guard, while also helping the Panthers reach the playoffs for the first time since 2017.
Despite the comeback story, the soon-to-be 31-year-old has failed to find another NFL home so far this offseason, with his visit to Buffalo yesterday marking his first reported visit with any team so far this spring.
The Panthers’ Walter Payton Man of the Year club winner for 2025, Corbett would presumably fit right into the established culture that has been entrenched in Buffalo since former head coach Sean McDermott arrived in 2017, and new head coach Joe Brady would be smart to bring in a versatile established veteran like Corbett to continue upholding the standard that’s in his locker room.
If a signing were to eventually occur between Corbett and the Bills, it would be an eerily similar move to the one made by President of Football Operations and General Manager Brandon Beane a few seasons ago when he acquired veteran David Edwards, who also spent time with Aaron Kromer in Los Angeles in 2019 and 2020 and who just recently parlayed 37 starts with Buffalo into a four-year, $61 million contract with the New Orleans Saints in free agency as he enters his age 29 season.
With all that said, the connection between Corbett and the Bills is there . . . and in more ways than one.
Given the veteran’s ties to Kromer, as well as to former Bills’ director of player personnel Dan Morgan, who is now the general manager in Carolina, it’s obvious to see why there is an initial mutual interest between Buffalo and the current free agent.
And, taking into consideration that Corbett likely finds the idea of competing with fellow guard Alec Anderson for a starting spot between Dion Dawkins and Connor McGovern quite attractive, there’s more than enough reason to believe that an agreement between the two sides on a free-agent pact could come sooner rather than later.
Accustomed to living out West, the veteran lineman could find a home in Western New York very shortly.
Stay tuned, Bills Mafia. Remember — head on a swivel.
Editor’s babble: We continue to be blessed by our writers and John Green is certainly a dude. Many thanks for all the contributions John makes to our blog. You can also find John on X @JGreen_PRsports.
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