The strength of the Buffalo Bills defense through two games has been its play in the trenches and on the edge, and the team’s frontline is on the verge of becoming incredibly deep.
Let’s not take anything away from the inside linebacker group — Dorian Williams and Terrel Bernard have played quality football.
But Greg Rousseau just won AFC Defensive Player of the Month, Deone Walker has been unblockable in the middle, and DeWayne Carter is emerging as one of the better run-stopping rotational defensive
tackles in the NFL, out of nowhere.
August acquisition Greg Gaines has filled-in admirably too with 55 snaps through three contests. He only has one pressure yet has made four tackles with two stops and done the dirty work on stunts and when asked to eat double teams against the run.
Ed Oliver missed Week 2 against the Lions but has five pressures on 64 pass-rush snaps and made plenty of impact disrupting the Texans backfield in Week 1 that couldn’t be found on the stat sheet.
Landon Jackson has been the least-effective of Buffalo’s defensive linemen to date, yet he has seven tackles without a miss on 83 snaps through three games in a mostly non-sexy, two-gapping role.
Entering Week 4’s clash with the Patriots, the Bills those five defensive linemen have played between 25% and 67% of Buffalo’s defensive snaps.
And now likely adding to that group — 2025 second-round pick T.J. Sanders. Sure, his rookie season was underwhelming, and he dealt with a knee injury. He’s yet to appear in 2026 thanks to another knee ailment and an appendectomy.
He went from DNP on Wednesday to limited on Thursday, so he’s trending in the right direction for Sunday. I know there’s essentially zero buzz for Sanders right now. I absolutely still believe in him. He’s super talented. In August, I called him the biggest X-factor on Buffalo’s defense.
For a team that, on paper, wants to deploy two or three defensive linemen on any given play, Sanders’ return — along with veteran Phidarian Mathis on the practice squad — makes for significant depth.
The edge group isn’t as deep, but Jim Leonhard suddenly has plenty of horses on the interior of his defense that offer a variety of differing skill sets to opposing offensive lines.
