Buffalo swapped out a rookie UDFA for a player who spent last season on the New England Patriots’ practice squad
The Buffalo Bills are continuously tinkering with their roster, trying to bring the best players on board to help the team win. When writing a series like this one, I often try to prioritize writing about the players I believe won’t make the roster early so that I have a chance to cover the player before his release.
We can’t do that all the time, though, as we work in some players who we think have a good chance at making the squad throughout just to maintain some balance. And, sometimes, the team makes moves that keep me from writing about a player at all.
Consider the swap the Bills made at defensive tackle last week. The person who was supposed to be fourth in this series, Devin Brandt-Epps, was released to make room for a new defensive tackle.
So, here’s to Devin, the defensive lineman who would have occupied today’s edition of “90 players in 90 days.” Instead, we’ll talk about Brandt Epps’ replacement on the 90-man roster, a productive NCAA defensive tackle looking to stick around with his third professional team in a calendar year.
Name: Marcus Harris
Number: 72
Position: DT
Height/Weight: 6’2” 298 lbs. (The Bills have yet to list his official height and weight, but this was the total from his FOX Sports bio after he signed with the Houston Texans)
Age: 24 (25 on 9/27/2025)
Experience/Draft: 1; selected by the Houston Texans in the seventh round (No. 247 overall) of the 2024 NFL Draft
College: Auburn
Acquired: Signed with Buffalo on 6/6/2025
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Harris signed a one-year deal worth the league minimum. He’s yet to accrue a year of NFL service time.
2024 Recap: Harris spent the preseason with Houston, appearing in four exhibition games with the club. He totaled six tackles, including one tackle for loss in the preseason, but he was released prior to the 53-man roster being formed. Houston re-signed him to the practice squad, but they released him from their practice squad on October 9. He signed with the New England Patriots’ practice squad on October 11, and remained there until the end of the season. He did not appear in a regular-season game with either club. The Patriots signed him to a reserve/future contract on January 6, but they released him from that deal on April 28.
Positional outlook: Harris joins a defensive tackle group that is definitely on notice, as the Bills continue their ever-present quest for greatness along the defensive front. Ed Oliver, DaQuan Jones, DeWayne Carter, and Zion Logue return from last year. Larry Ogunjobi signed as a free agent this April, but he’s suspended for the first six games of the regular season. T.J. Sanders and Deone Walker came aboard via the 2025 NFL Draft, and Casey Rogers was claimed off waivers after the New York Giants released him in May.
2025 Offseason: Harris signed after the Bills held their first phase of voluntary OTAs, but he is expected at mandatory minicamp from June 10-June 12.
2025 Season outlook: There aren’t too many realistic situations where Harris has a shot at making the 53-man roster out of camp. Oliver is a clear keep, and the Bills are likely to use Sanders heavily, as well. Uncertainty surrounds a few of the other players up front, as Walker is still recovering from a back injury he dealt with last year while at Kentucky, and neither Carter nor Jones played well enough last season to guarantee snaps this year. Add in the suspension for Ogunjobi, and there are plenty of question marks up front.
Harris was productive in college, notching 11.5 sacks, 24 tackles for loss, and 97 total tackles in his three seasons at Auburn. He played for two years at Kansas prior to that, totaling 7.5 tackles for loss and 29 total tackles in ten games played for the Jayhawks.
He’s ridiculously strong, as well, as he put up 27 reps of the 225-pound bench at the 2024 NFL Scouting Combine before doing 34 reps of that same weight at Auburn’s Pro Day later that spring. There’s definitely ability here, so he doesn’t have a zero-shot at the roster. However, if we’re grading long-shots, the guy added in June after toiling on a pair practice squads for a pair of “meh” defenses is one of the longer shots we’ll see.