The Buffalo Bills
recognized that their defensive tackles weren’t good enough last season. Given the heavy level of rotation the team employs at the position, general manager Brandon Beane knew that he had to find quality depth. He invested heavily in the position, drafting two players among the first 100 picks of the 2025 NFL Draft and signing a veteran free agent, as well.Now, head coach Sean McDermott has plenty of tools at his disposal. The question becomes just how he wants to deploy those tools.
Will he use a similar rotation to last season? Will he replace some underwhelming 2024 performers? Or, will he merely add to his tool belt, allowing him to pick and choose which players he uses?
In today’s edition of “90 players in 90 days,” we discuss a member of the defensive line whose position might not be as safe as once thought.
Name: DeWayne Carter
Number: 90
Position: DT
Height/Weight: 6’3”, 305 pounds
Age: 24 (25 on 12/10/2025)
Experience/Draft: 2; selected by Buffalo in the third round (No. 95 overall) of the 2024 NFL Draft
College: Duke
Acquired: Third-round draft choice
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Carter enters the second year of his four-year rookie contract, which is worth $5,618,048 overall. For the 2025 season, he carries a cap hit of $1,276,829 if he makes the 53-man roster. Buffalo will carry a dead-cap charge of $662,433 if he’s released or traded.
2024 Recap: Carter was extremely underwhelming as a rookie. He made some splash plays early in the season, notching nine tackles, four tackles for loss, two quarterback hits, and a pass knockdown in games against the Baltimore Ravens, Houston Texans, and Tennessee Titans. However, in games against the Arizona Cardinals, Miami Dolphins, Jacksonville Jaguars, and New York Jets, he combined for 89 snaps and totaled just one quarterback hit.
Those first seven games were clearly an up-and-down learning experience for the rookie, and a wrist injury suffered against the Titans didn’t help him continue to gain experience. He landed on Injured Reserve (IR) following Week 7, which caused him to miss five games.
When he returned, he was mostly invisible, as he once again went multiple contests without making a tackle. He was a healthy scratch against the New England Patriots in Week 16, but he played 75 snaps against the Los Angeles Rams, Detroit Lions, and New York Jets without so much as registering a single statistic. He started the regular-season finale against the Patriots, notching five tackles, one quarterback hit, and one tackle for loss.
He was a healthy scratch for the duration of the playoffs, as well. Carter finished his rookie year with 14 total tackles, five tackles for loss, one pass breakup, and three quarterback hits.
Positional outlook: Carter is one of nine defensive tackles on the current roster. Marcus Harris, Ed Oliver, T.J. Sanders, Deone Walker, Larry Ogunjobi, Casey Rogers, Zion Logue, and DaQuan Jones are the others.
2025 Offseason: Carter is healthy and participating in training camp. General manager Brandon Beane floated that he’ll be playing more one-tech this season. He missed one day of practice with an illness.
2025 Season outlook: Carter was wholly inconsistent last season, going large swaths of time doing seemingly nothing in the interior defensive line. It’s not as if he played a small number of snaps, either. When he was healthy, he rotated in for 42% of the team’s snaps on defense.
Even when you factor in the time that he missed, he played on 29% of the team’s overall defensive snaps, which was third only to starters Ed Oliver and DaQuan Jones at the position. With that many snaps going to a player so unproductive, it’s no surprise that Buffalo invested heavily in the position this season.
Carter will have to show that he can be impactful as an anchor at one-tech in order to earn playing time early in the regular season. With Ogunjobi suspended for the first six games of the year thanks to a positive PED test, Carter should have a place in the rotation.
Early reports on rookies Deone Walker and T.J. Sanders have been quite positive, and with both Oliver and Jones set to reprise their roles from last season, I think Carter is looking at being the fifth defensive tackle when camp breaks. The only way that’s not the case is if the team thinks they can manage the six games without Ogunjobi also without the veteran Jones, as they would have to release him before Week 1 in order to avoid his salary becoming fully guaranteed.
Frankly, I don’t see that happening. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Carter is the fifth defensive tackle, a healthy scratch on game days, and released to make room for Ogunjobi once he’s eligible to return.
If there’s an injury to a defensive tackle, a stint on IR could save Carter’s spot, and perhaps there will be some sort of injury to him that crops up to keep him off the waiver wire. However, combining a poor first year for Carter with the level of investment at the position, it tells me that the Bills might be ready to admit that they may be ready to move on if necessary.
More from buffalorumblings.com:
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- Madden ratings place Josh Allen as the best player in the league
- Sean McDermott wants the Bills to play ‘nasty, physical football’ as pads pop at training camp
- Sights, sounds, and observations from Day 5 of Buffalo Bills 2025 training camp
