The second-year safety is laying early claim to the top spot on the Bills’ safety depth chart.
The Buffalo Bills drafted safety Cole Bishop in the second round of the 2024 NFL Draft, and with that came very high hopes. A training camp injury put him behind the eight ball in the competition with Mike Edwards, Damar Hamlin, and Damar Hamlin and he started the season as a backup.
This year, Bishop doesn’t seem to be in the same billiard location. At this time of year, Bills beat reporters are prohibited from saying in communications where players are lining up and who is running with the first team or second team. Head coach Sean McDermott also said there isn’t really a depth chart right now while acknowledging that at least Josh Allen will be a first-team player.
But, there are some ways to figure it out by reading between the lines. So when Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic says the Cole Bishop was engaged in on-field conversations with the probable starters in the secondary, it carries some weight.
“Ahead of the snap, Bishop was a constant communicator with Taylor Rapp, Taron Johnson, Christian Benford and others. You could hear Bishop’s loud, booming voice as clear as day ahead of the snap to try to get everyone on the same page. The confidence in both of those equally important phases is a solid step forward from where things began around this time last year.”
I don’t personally put a lot of stock in how players play in OTAs since it’s non-contact and there isn’t game-planning. They’re trying out some stuff. But where players are lining up and the command they have over their own scheme is precisely the things you can take away from this type of environment.
Buscaglia noted that Bishop looked comfortable and how quickly he was reading his keys.
Safety is a notoriously difficult position to learn in the Sean McDermott defense. On a recent episode of the Centered on Bills podcast with Eric Wood, Bishop said he felt comfortable with the playbook toward the end of his rookie season.
“Having to watch training camp wasn’t fun in its own way and then kind of falling behind and everything didn’t really feel — not necessarily health-wise — just back to normal playing until a few weeks into the season,” said Bishop on the podcast. “Obviously hoping for health is the number one thing in sports so staying healthy and just going into the season with a little momentum.”
Bishop also noted on the podcast that being mentored by Micah Hyde and Taylor Rapp was helpful for him in his rookie season and into this offseason.
Hitting the ground running in Year 2 could really give the Bills secondary a shot in the arm, especially with the uncertainty at the CB2 position. (You’ll notice Buscaglia didn’t include that bit of information in his comments, perhaps because the Bills are rotating players there.)