It turns out there was a silver lining to that horrible, awful, gut-wrenching ending in Kansas City seven weeks ago.
The NFL world watched Josh Allen put on his Superman cape and proclaimed: "That’s my quarterback!" Or: "I wish that was my quarterback!"
Less than three hours into the NFL's new league year, The Buffalo Bills reached a contract agreement with edge rusher Von Miller, a future Hall of Famer who is coming off a Super Bowl championship with the Los Angeles Rams.
Von Miller isn’t wishing about it after signing a blockbuster free-agent deal with the Buffalo Bills on Wednesday.
With one giant move, the Bills have upgraded their defense in their quest to get over their AFC playoff hurdles and into the Super Bowl. Let’s not kid ourselves about this. Yes, the management team of Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott has an excellent reputation around the NFL. The Bills are viewed as a rock-solid organization. Players like playing here. Players have fun with Bills Mafia. But there’s no way this would be happening if No. 17 wasn’t the jaw-dropping superstar that he has become over the past two seasons.
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Allen has lifted the possibilities for the franchise. With him on the field, the Bills are going to be a pretty good team – at the worst – for the next decade or so.
The optimistic view of the Bills’ offseason to this point is that it has been sensible. Operating within the confines of being tight up against the league’s salary cap, GM Brandon Beane's first few moves have been logical, and predictable.
But you don’t want to squander a great quarterback’s opportunities. Look at Green Bay. The Packers won the Super Bowl in the 2010 season. In 11 seasons since, they’ve had a slam-dunk, first-ballot Hall of Fame quarterback in Aaron Rodgers. They’ve never gotten back to the Super Bowl. The Packers also have been one of the least active teams in making free agent signings and trades since then. They mostly rested their laurels on drafting and developing. The Packers haven’t pushed enough levers to get Rodgers over the hump.
Credit Beane with taking advantage of his biggest advantage – the presence of Allen.
Every Bills fan knows the Buffalo defense wasn’t good enough in 2021, despite its No. 1 ranking. It was a good defense. But it wasn’t championship good. You watched the Cincinnati Bengals win in Kansas City in the AFC title game. The Bengals’ pass rush was better than the Bills’ pass rush, right? And the Rams’ pass rush – with Miller joining all-world Aaron Donald – was significantly better than the Bills’ pass rush.
The Bills were 0-6 in one-score games in 2021, including the 42-36 overtime loss to the Chiefs. As Hall of Fame coach Bill Walsh famously preached, fourth-quarter pass rush is essential to building a champion.
Miller gives them the late pass rush they need. Jerry Hughes had a wonderful career with the Bills. But the past two years, especially, Hughes was a half-step short of being Miller. All those times Hughes almost got to the QB? Miller gets there more often.
Howard signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal, with incentives that could push the total to $5 million, per ESPN's Adam Schefter. The 27-year-old tight end has played all five of his previous seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
The good news is, the Bills don’t have to overwork Miller, who is going to be 33 on March 26. Keep Miller fresh for the fourth quarter. Hughes’ snap percentage dropped from 59% in 2020 to 51.7% in 2021. Miller was playing 79% in his last full season with Denver. Last year, he was coming off injury and split the season between Denver and the Rams.
Meanwhile, Beane’s other defensive line moves offer more encouragement. New 1-technique defensive tackle DaQuan Jones is a bigger man than Harrison Phillips, who left for the Vikings. Jones is 322 pounds, Phillips 307. Phillips played well. Jones isn’t Vince Wolfork, but he’s an upgrade over Phillips as a run-plugger. The Bills know Jones. They’ve played against him each of the past four years and had problems with him.
The Bills surely think they’ve found an underrated talent in backup Tim Settle, who was stuck behind four great defensive linemen in Washington. He had five sacks in just 33% of the snaps for Washington in 2020. Settle has size, too. He was 329 at Virginia Tech and was listed at 308 with Washington. He can back up either defensive tackle spot and looks like an upgrade over Vernon Butler.
Sources told The News late Wednesday the Bills were in serious talks to bring back Jordan Phillips, who had 9.5 sacks in Leslie Frazier’s defense in 2019 and then cashed a big deal with Arizona. He was far less productive with the Cardinals the past two years, but for the right price, he’s a quality backup to Ed Oliver.
You have to think Star Lotulelei’s days are numbered. Maybe the Bills have the luxury of hanging onto Lotulelei into the summer in case someone gets hurt, then cutting him free before the season starts.
Zimmer, 29, is a 6-foot-3, 300-pounder who played in the first six games of the season, but had his season cut short by a torn ACL suffered in Week 6 against the Titans. He finished the year with eight tackles, six quarterback pressures and one sack before getting hurt.
Another cause for optimism on Miller: Great edge rushers tend to age gracefully.
We all know about Bruce Smith. Ex-Dolphin Cameron Wake had six-plus sacks from age 33 through 36. Ex-Raven Terrell Suggs had seven-plus through age 36. Julius Peppers had seven-plus through age 37 for the Packers. Colts great Dwight Freeney had 8.0 at age 34. Colts great Robert Mathis had 7.5 at age 34. The list goes on.
Like any free-agent signing, the Miller move comes with some risk. He’s going to be 33. We’ll see how his contract is structured. His reported $52 million in guaranteed money would rank roughly eighth most among edge rushers, according to Spotrac.com. The cap is going way up starting in 2023. The Bills probably will be able to get out from under the deal after three years. But if Miller he gets hurt or doesn’t produce over the next two seasons, it will be very bad for the Bills’ defense. And even with Miller, the Bills are counting on young edge rushers Greg Rousseau, A.J. Epenesa and Boogie Basham to develop. Rousseau is most promising. All of them have a high floor. It’s a must that the Bills see a higher ceiling from at least one of them.
You can’t win the Super Bowl in March. The sting from the “13 seconds in Kansas City” never will completely go away. But the Bills are off to a good start in trying to make amends for it.
