Sports Radio Interviews

Aaron Maybin: Buffalo Is A Great Place For Me To Have A Long Career

Contract negotiations are just nasty irritants for fans of a team.  These rookie dealings seem to take so long, and the excitement team followers felt on draft day gets sucked out of them as the weeks progress.  And, these weeks suck even more when a kid like Aaron Maybin is the one waiting for his deal.  Maybin genuinely (says my gut) just wanted to get on the field and showed up with a Bills logo shaved in to his hair, along with two numbers – his and former Bill great, Bruce Smith – when he finally got the deal done.  He’s missed 23 practices and two preseason games and the highly talented defensive end would have stormed in to the season ready to play with those under his belt.  Camps are just so important in the NFL.  Maybin joined The Fan 590 in Toronto to discuss his hate for negotiations, his desire to play in Buffalo, and his football allegiance growing up in Baltimore.

Are you happy to have the negotiations over and are you ready to finally play some football?

“At the end of the day that’s what it’s all about.  Anybody that really knows me can tell you that that part of the game is really something I would avoid as much as possible if I could – I would just have, well, that’s why you hire an agent, you hire other people to take care of that aspect of it.  The players just go out and play football; it’s good to have that out the way, it’s good to now just be able to focus on the team and what we’re trying to do.”

Who did you cheer for growing up?

“Well, when I was growing up, I was a big Ravens fan, of course, because that was just the hometown team.  And, then later on when I developed my relationship with Ray, he became another mentor to me.  I was a real big fan of his but I think that most players would tell you that once you leave high school and you go to college, and the prospect of being an NFL player in the future becomes a little bit more real, you kind of stop becoming as much of a fan and start becoming more of a student of the game.”

What were your feelings the moment you were drafted?

“I knew it was gonna be 1 of about 5 teams going in that would pull the trigger.  I actually made a visit up here before the draft; this is one of the team’s that had flown me in for a visit.  So, I had gotten a really good feel for the team and I really enjoyed myself here on the visit, so when I did get picked I was very happy.  I was very, very excited just because of the fact I knew that this would be a great place for me to come and have a great career.”

Listen to Aaron Maybin on The Fan 590 in Toronto

Tags: Aaron Maybin, Buffalo Bills, Football, NFL