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The Buffalo Bills defense continues to remain amongst the strongest units in the NFL heading into the 2020 regular season, according to The Athletic.
But no longer the best of the best.
Ranking the top defensive units in the league, The Athletic slotted the Bills as a top-10 unit, landing Buffalo at No. 8 overall. Despite another strong year in 2019, the Bills did interestingly slip from the sixth-best ranking a year ago. It appears there’s a few teams The Athletic felt very high on in terms of their improvements, which dropped the Bills and a few other teams.
First, here’s The Athletic’s explanation on Buffalo’s defense:
They had some things fall their way last season. The Bills faced the second-easiest slate of offenses and had the third-best injury luck of any defense. But this is a well-coached unit, and it’s obvious that the players know what Sean McDermott and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier want from them. Tre’Davious White is one of the top corners in the league, so if he opts out, the Bills would drop out of the top-10 here. But they have a solid safety pairing with Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer, and five of the six defensive backs who played at least 200 snaps last year are back. Buffalo has had some turnover in the front-seven and could really benefit from a young player like defensive tackle Ed Oliver or linebacker Tremaine Edmunds taking a step forward. But overall this group is positioned to once again be strong.
Evidently the Bills defense drops here because of something that’s out of their control. Buffalo can only play the hand they’re dealt and even if that’s an easier slate by comparison, it’s nothing their defense can control. But in that same sense, the Bills do play the fifth-hardest schedule in 2020, so Buffalo will have a chance to “prove-it” (again) in 2020.
In the rest of The Athletic’s rankings, the Chargers made a massive jump, from No. 21 to second. The Saints also leap from outside the top-10 (11th) to fourth. Such huge improvements from teams even knocked down a few other top defenses in the league from a year ago. The 49ers slid from second to sixth while the Patriots, previously ranked the No. 1 unit last season, is even behind the Bills at No. 9. Then again, opt outs were taken into consideration here and no one hard harsher ones than New England (Dont’a Hightower, Patrick Chung).
In terms of the rest of the AFC East, the Bills and Patriots are far-and-away the stronger, overall units. The Dolphins and Jets land at No. 27 and 29, respectively.
The lone team slotted ahead of the prior mentioned No. 2 Chargers is the Ravens.
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