Is he a roster lock, a starter, a specialist, or is he going to be released?
The Buffalo Bills under head coach Sean McDermott have done a nice job finding talent in the defensive secondary. The team and their personnel evaluators have done well to find players who fit their system and can develop into the best versions of themselves under the current staff’s tutelage.
Safety, in particular, has been a position where the team has found players that other teams didn’t necessarily value highly and allowed them to flourish in Orchard Park, NY. Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer showed flashes in their previous NFL stops, but they became All-Pro players with the Bills. Buffalo’s pass defense has consistently ranked among the league’s best in the regular season with McDermott in charge.
In today’s edition of “90 players in 90 days,” we discuss a 2025 free-agent signing whose potential role this season is entirely in flux.
Name: Darrick Forrest
Number: 28
Position: S
Height/Weight: 5’11”, 200 pounds
Age: 26 (27 on 5/22/2026)
Experience/Draft: 5; selected by the Washington Commanders in the fifth round (No. 163 overall) of the 2021 NFL Draft
College: Cincinnati
Acquired: Signed with Buffalo on 3/13/2025
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Forrest signed a one-year contract back in March. That deal contains just $167,500 in guarantees, which also represents the dead-cap figure Buffalo would carry if he were to be released prior to Week 1.
Forrest’s cap number if he makes the 53-man roster is $1,197,500 for the season. As a vested veteran, his base salary, which totals $1.17 million, becomes fully guaranteed if he’s on the Bills’ roster for Week 1.
2024 Recap: Forrest returned to a special teams role last season after having started the final nine games of the 2022 season and the first five games of the 2023 season. His 2023 season ended prematurely, as a shoulder injury caused him to land on Injured Reserve.
With a new coaching staff in town last year, Forrest took on a reserve role. He was active for 10 of the Commanders’ regular-season games, totaling just 13 tackles on the season. He started one game — Washington’s regular-season finale against the Dallas Cowboys — but was otherwise seldom used on defense. He played on 74 defensive snaps, with 32 coming in that final game and 31 coming in a Week 15 victory over the New Orleans Saints.
In the playoffs, Forrest was inactive for Washington’s Super Wild Card Weekend victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but he was active and used exclusively on special teams for the Commanders’ other two playoff appearances. He had two special teams tackles in the team’s blowout loss in the NFC Championship Game.
Positional outlook: Forrest is one of five players who exclusively play safety on the current roster. Taylor Rapp, Cole Bishop, Wande Owens, and Damar Hamlin are the others. Jordan Hancock and Cam Lewis are hybrid slot corners-slash-safeties.
2025 Offseason: Forrest is healthy and participating in training camp. While he has seen some time with the starting defense, he’s mostly worked in with the backup units.
2025 Season outlook: When the Bills signed Forrest, I thought he was a lock not only to make the roster, but to compete for a starting spot. I didn’t think he’d win a gig given that the club definitely expects Cole Bishop to step up and win that job, but Forrest is a plus-athlete who has starting experience, so I assumed he’d have a chance. With how camp has played out in the early going, I’m no longer sure that Forrest will even make the 53-man roster, let alone earn a starting position.
Taylor Rapp and Cole Bishop have the inside edge to start at safety this fall. That really leaves Forrest battling Hamlin for what I’d consider the only guaranteed “safety” spot on the roster beyond the two starters. With Buffalo’s depth in the defensive backfield and their propensity for cross-training players, I could see them keeping just three safeties on the 53-man roster with some combination of Cam Lewis and/or Jordan Hancock representing the other safety reserves. If the team does keep a fourth player who is a safety only, that player will need to be great on special teams.
Forrest is a superior athlete to Hamlin, but he has three things going against him in a battle to overtake the fifth-year Bill in a hypothetical head-to-head competition. Hamlin has experience in the system, he has clear history with the Bills’ in terms of both starting experience and circumstances that transcend football, and he also has $2 million in guaranteed money for 2025. You might not agree that those things should be reasons to keep Hamlin instead of Forrest, but those things point to the likelihood that the Bills intend for Hamlin to be on the team this season.
Forrest played well in his second pro season under head coach Ron Rivera, who is a mentor of Bills head coach Sean McDermott’s. Their defensive systems definitely share similarities, so I don’t expect Forrest to have trouble learning it. Forrest had 88 tackles, nine pass breakups, and four interceptions during that 2022 season. He could be an asset to the Bills this season, but the team could also treat this season for Forrest like they did the 2023 for Rapp, using him as a reserve behind two entrenched starters, but with a long-term plan to have him move into the starting lineup later.
I would like to see Buffalo find a way to keep Forrest on the team this season, and preferably as a member of the 53-man roster. A number’s crunch could lead them to try adding him to the practice squad, but that strategy risks losing him to another team. Forrest is someone I’ll be watching closely when the Bills open their preseason schedule on August 9 against the New York Giants.