Is he a safety? Is he a slot corner? Is he a special-teams ace? Is he a goner?
The Buffalo Bills have a deep defensive secondary group that includes a stable of players who can fill multiple roles on the team. Some of those defensive backs are corners and special teams players, some of them can play slot corner and outside corner, some of them can play safety and corner, and some can do some mixture of all of the above.
Especially for players who don’t project as starters, it’s essential to know multiple positions and fill multiple roles. One of the more underrated pathways to a game-day roster is the ability to play multiple spots. If a player can do that, it makes them far more valuable to the team than they would be if they merely played one position.
In today’s edition of “90 players in 90 days,” we discuss a player who has filled multiple roles on defense for a number of years now.
Name: Cam Lewis
Number: 39
Position: DB
Height/Weight: 5’9”, 183 pounds
Age: 28 (29 on 4/13/2026)
Experience/Draft: 6; signed with Buffalo following the 2019 NFL Draft
College: Buffalo
Acquired: UDFA signing
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Lewis enters the final year of his two-year contract extension worth $3.1 million. For the 2025 season, he carries a cap hit of $1,968,500 if he makes the 53-man roster. If Buffalo releases him prior to Week 1, they’ll carry a dead-cap charge of $212,500. If Lewis is on the roster for Week 1, the entirety of his base salary, $1.262 million, becomes fully guaranteed since he is a vested veteran.
2024 Recap: Lewis once again served as a hybrid slot corner-slash-safety on defense, and he also maintained his role as one of the team’s most important special teams players. Due to a litany of injuries, both at slot corner and at safety, Lewis played more snaps on defense than he ever had before.
After Taron Johnson fractured his forearm in Buffalo’s first game of the season, Lewis started the next four games in his place. When starting safeties Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin both went down later in the season, Lewis started two more games — one against the Detroit Lions and then the following week against the New England Patriots — before moving back to a reserve role upon Rapp’s return.
Lewis finished fifth on the team in tackles with 68, adding four pass breakups, an interception, and two tackles for loss. He was one of 11 players on Buffalo’s defense to play over half of the team’s defensive snaps for the season. He was fourth on the team in total special teams snaps with 253. He had seven tackles on special teams, which was tied for second on the team. In the playoffs, Lewis had five tackles and a forced fumble in three games.
Positional outlook: Lewis is one of a whole host of players vying for roster space in the defensive backfield. He’s not going to play outside corner, but he could see time in the slot or at safety.
The defensive backs on the current Buffalo roster include Taron Johnson, Christian Benford, Tre’Davious White, Jordan Hancock, Maxwell Hairston, Dorian Strong, Ja’Marcus Ingram, Dane Jackson, Te’Cory Couch, Daryl Porter, Cole Bishop, Damar Hamlin, Taylor Rapp, Darrick Forrest, Daequan Hardy, Brandon Codrington, and Wande Owens.
2025 Offseason: Lewis is healthy and participating in offseason work.
2025 Season outlook: At this point in his career, we know what Lewis is. He’s a valuable member of the special teams and a liability on defense. He’s not a great tackler in spite of the high volume of tackles he had last year — while he was fifth on the team in tackles, he was also tied for first in missed tackles with 11 — and he’s not great in coverage, either.
When Lewis was the closest defender, quarterbacks completed 75% of their passes (46-for-61) for 493 yards and two touchdowns. The question becomes whether his versatility, knowledge of the scheme, and use on special teams trumps his general ineffectiveness on defense.
It’s clear that the coaching staff likes Lewis, as he wouldn’t have hung around for all these years if he didn’t show some ability. His story as an undrafted free agent from the college right around the corner is a great one, as well. However, the Bills also drafted multiple players in Dorian Strong and Jordan Hancock who have the same hybrid profile as Lewis does, except both of those players are bigger, faster, and stronger than Lewis is.
Is it worth keeping a low-ceiling fourth safety over two rookies with higher ceilings that you just drafted? I don’t believe it is, but if those rookies can’t pick up the defense quickly this summer, Lewis is at least someone with experience in the defense who can step up in a pinch.
After a 2024 season where he was relied upon more than he ever had been in his career, I bet the staff sees that they need to be better at this particular spot on the roster. I expect that Lewis will be released at the end of the summer.