Labor Day’s right around the corner, and here’s a wild stat for you: 3,352 individual snaps from last season’s Buffalo Bills defense are currently unsigned. We’re talking about eight players from a team that made it all the way to the divisional round, and they’re not on an NFL roster right now. Think about that for a second.
Eight Core Bills Defenders Are Just Gone
This isn’t some fringe group either. Tre White, Joey Bosa, Matt Milano, Jordan Poyer, DaQuan Jones, Taylor Rapp, Jordan Phillips, and Larry Ogunjobi , these guys were core pieces. Each of them played over 200 snaps, making up a huge chunk of the 20 players on that defense who hit that mark. For a team that went deep into the playoffs, having eight key defenders completely off NFL rosters by September 1? That’s just flat-out rare, and Bills fans have been chewing on this all offseason.
What Do Those Numbers Really Say About Buffalo?
What does it even mean for Buffalo? Is it a brutal indictment that their 2025 defense just wasn’t good enough to begin with? Or does it show that Sean McDermott is some kind of wizard, squeezing every last ounce out of his personnel? The simplest take, and honestly, the one I’m leaning towards, is that the Bills had a bunch of rosterable veterans who just hit the end of their “rosterable” window all at the same time. While you gotta give some credit to McDermott and his staff for getting everything out of those vets, let’s not forget the defense was 13th in EPA allowed per play. Yeah, they were 7th in EPA per drop back, but a miserable 31st against the run, ignoring garbage time. And that divisional-round loss? They coughed up 33 points.
So, where does that leave us? Are we looking at a team that rode an aging core as far as it could go, or did a coaching staff just make gold out of what they had? It’s a huge question for the league, and honestly, what do *you* think these guys being unsigned indicates for the Bills moving forward?
This article was created with AI assistance and published under Seattle On Tap’s editorial standards. See our Editorial Policy.
Originally reported by Buffalo Rumblings.
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