Buffalo Rumblings
We shift our attention to the trenches, where the Bills need more physicality
Last week, we began our multi-part series on top prospects at positions of need for the Buffalo Bills during the early rounds of the upcoming NFL Draft, focusing on cornerbacks and edge rushers. This week, we return to discuss defensive tackles, because just like that, free agency is roaring down the other side of the hill. After the legal tampering period opened for the NFL on March 10 at noon, the rush for teams to fill roster needs in a quest to meaningfully improve their chances for success in 2025 began.
By the time you get to this point in the offseason, most of the top free agents have committed and put pen to paper elsewhere. While the rest of the NFL watchers wait for the final quarterback seats to be filled in this year’s edition of “musical signal-caller chairs,” Bills fans can begin turning their attention to next month’s NFL Draft. (Most of the NFL community is focused there while we wait for Aaron Rodgers/Russell Wilson/Kirk Cousins news anyway.)
Bills general manager Brandon Beane has been very active in free agency. Not just re-signing previous draft picks Khalil Shakir, Terrel Bernard, Gregory Rousseau, and Josh Allen to extensions prior to their contracts running out, but also signing double-digit unrestricted free agents who could choose to sign with any team in the league.
However, a list of needs for the Bills would not be blank — even for the most optimistic of fans. So let’s take a look at some potential early round targets for the team at DT:
***note: neither needs nor player lists are ranked, nor are they exhaustive***
There’s a better-than-zero chance that both Harmon and Grant are gone by the time the Bills pick at 30 overall and possibly even before they got into range of a reasonable trade up in the first round. But we’ve seen crazier things before in past drafts.
Harmon represents an ideal two-gapping defensive tackle in the Bills’ scheme, doing an excellent job corralling offensive linemen to keep his linebackers clean (a necessity when playing nickel as often as the Bills do and with linebackers like the newly extended Terrel Bernard, newly restructured Matt Milano, and Dorian Williams). His hands are in a constant state of twitch and power and he has the requisite length and shedding ability to provide peek and clear value as a pass rusher even in a role that doesn’t ask him to consistently penetrate a single gap. He has a habit of playing higher than ideal and relying on his upper body to win reps and he doesn’t have fluid hips for change of direction, but his 10-yard split of 1.73 shows enough linear burst to help...
