While the offseason is in full swing, it’s seen no shortage of activity off the field.
Pro Football Focus (PFF) has published a 2023 NFL Free Agency: Every NFL team’s biggest loss list, identifying which free agency loss had the most impact on their respective former employer.
Considering the Bills cap situation and how the market took shape for their free agents, there were bound to be some who wouldn’t return to their positions with Buffalo ahead of next season.
Whether it was players the team had drafted and developed, like RB Devin Singletary, S Jaquon Johnson, LB Tremaine Edmunds, and TE Tommy Sweeney, fixtures like WR Isaiah McKenzie or S Jordan Poyer, or placeholders like WR Jamison Crowder, not everyone would be brought back, whether for cap reasons or a desire to improve at the position.
Out of those names alone, Poyer was the only one among them who saw a reunion with the team. While there had been speculation that he could depart in free agency, the deep defensive back position group in the upcoming NFL Draft kept the market for safeties modest and Buffalo gave him the chance to compete for a championship.
But what of the rest of the players on that shortlist?
Singletary signed with the Texans, Johnson with the Raiders, Edmunds with the Bears, McKenzie with the Colts, and Sweeney and Crowder joined the Giants.
So which one was the biggest loss?
According to PFF, there’s no doubt it’s Edmunds, even making him the featured image of the article.
BUFFALO BILLS: LB TREMAINE EDMUNDS
The Bills simply could not afford to even come close to matching the four-year, $72 million contract Edmunds signed with the Chicago Bears — a deal that includes effectively $50 million fully guaranteed at signing — especially after linebacker Matt Milano earned a slight pay raise due to his stellar play the past few seasons following an extension of his own.
That said, it’s never easy to lose a player you traded up in the first round to draft and who finally blossomed in his fifth-year option season. Edmunds will start his sixth NFL season at just 25 years old and is coming off a season in which he earned a career-high 88.1 coverage grade. The NFL game is starting to slow down for him, with better play recognition enabling him to think less and use his athletic tools to their full ability.
Edmunds certainly leaves a void on defense, while he didn’t appear to bring fire, or a strong voice as a leader, he was the quarterback of the defense as far as receiving and relaying plays to that group.
In his fifth season as a pro he finally started to play to the ability the Bills selected him for then they moved up in the draft to take him at 16th overall in the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft. He was used in head coach Sean McDermott’s defense all over the field.
This after a slow progression during his first four seasons that included collective poor run coverage by Edmunds and the Bills defense. Whether Edmunds’s progression will continue in Chicago, or not, there’s no question the Bills emphasis on player development helped him reach the level of potential and achieve what he did last season.
Can they do it again?
Based on the lack of pursuit of a replacement on the free agency market, aside from reported interest in Bucs LB Lavonte Davis, if offseasons under GM Brandon Beane’s leadership have taught us anything it’s that he may be gearing up to select Edmund’s replacement in the 2023 Draft.