Buffalo Rumblings
I don’t want this to come across as an early fitting session for Sean McDermott’s gold jacket, because I’ve certainly had my share of complaints about the man over the years. Overall though, I’ve applauded his ability to adapt and grow, and his uncanny knack to do things I didn’t believe were possible.
In my annual turnover predictions for instance, I just admitted that I’ve given up on math and common sense at this point. Buffalo should have regressed to the mean in takeaways in the McDermott era and that just isn’t happening, suggesting some capability to coach defense. But on the other hand, there’s been an objective decline in many major metrics in the last few seasons leading to valid concerns about the defense. If you’ve read the headline, you might know where this is going.
A football team is made up of more than coaches, which is a fact I assume everyone reading this is aware of. To be elite, you need coaching plus talent to execute. If we (okay, me) have faith in Sean McDermott to coach defense, is there a dearth of talent to execute? Here’s a table.
This is a very straightforward topic, but here’s some quick methodology. I wanted to compare this year’s squad to the two best McDermott years. To identify “best” I used my favorite metric of points per drive. The 2019 team was the second best team in the league that year allowing a scant 1.3 points per drive. In 2021, they allowed 1.51 points per drive, but with a shifting league that was best in the NFL. The current team is 23rd in the league with 2.4 points per drive.
Now that we’ve confirmed that the 2025 unit is not living up to the two best years under McDermott, let’s talk about the main premise of the article: which is defensive talent. A lot of this will be us commenting on our opinions, so here are some of mine. As a quick heads up, players are listed in order of playing time in their grouping and only players hitting 30% or higher of snaps are listed.
I’m going to be candid, I believe the change in defensive backs is the single biggest shift in talent. That’s primarily due to the combination of Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde at safety in their prime. The pair caused chaos, being able to swap fluidly and essentially erase the “strong” vs. “free” designation when desired. Poyer literally achieved All-Pro status and Micah Hyde feels like a snub.
Add in prime Tre’Davious White locking down large segments of the field and the 2019 and 2021 teams had insane talent on the back end. Nickel cornerback Taron Johnson is currently the only one in the running for “elite” status, and he’s been banged up.
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