The Buffalo Bills are looking to forge a new defensive identity in the post-Sean McDermott era. While McDermott’s defenses were known to include multiple checks and relied on the ability of its players to know their individual assignments—doing their “one-eleventh”—the Bills’ defense in 2026 is looking to be more physical and more aggressive than its previous iterations.
In today’s edition of “91 players in 91 days,” we discuss a young safety whose best football is ahead of him, and whose overall
style of play is likely to benefit tremendously from the new scheme. _____________________________________________________________________________
Name: Cole Bishop
Number: 24
Position: S
Height/Weight: 6’2” 206 lbs.
Age: 23 (24 on 10/24/2026)
Experience/Draft: 3; selected by Buffalo in the second round (No. 60 overall) of the 2024 NFL Draft
College: Utah
Acquired: Second-round draft choice
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Bishop enters the third year of his rookie contract, a four-year pact worth $6,547,996 overall. For the 2026 season, Bishop’s cap hit is $1,785,817 if he makes the 53-man roster. Buffalo will carry a dead cap hit of $791,090 if he’s released.
2025 Recap: After an up-and-down rookie season that saw Bishop experience plenty of growing pains in limited field time, he showed the tremendous potential Buffalo saw when they drafted him in Round Two of the 2024 NFL Draft. He started all 19 of Buffalo’s games, including both playoff contests, and led the team in total tackles on the season with 85. He made his first career interception on a circus catch to stop a potential touchdown drive in Buffalo’s 31-19 victory over the New Orleans Saints in Week Four. His second and third career interceptions came in consecutive weeks, as he intercepted Tua Tagovailoa in Buffalo’s 30-13 loss at Miami in Week Ten and Bake Mayfield in Buffalo’s 44-32 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Week Eleven. He also clinched Buffalo’s 27-24 Wild Card victory over the Jacksonville Jaguars with another acrobatic interception on Trevor Lawrence’s final attempt of the game. Against Bo Nix and the Denver Broncos, he allowed all six passes thrown his way to be completed for a ttoal of 80 yards, but he also led the team in tackles in the game with 12. He totaled 85 tackles, seven pass breakups, three interceptions, two sacks, and four tackles for loss in the regular season.
Positional outlook: Bishop is one of six players listed at safety on the current roster. Jalen Kilgore, C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Damar Hamlin, Geno Stone, and Wande Owens are the others. Sam Franklin is listed at defensive back, but he is a safety when he’s not playing on special teams. Jordan Hancock is also listed at defensive back, and he plays a hybrid role as a slot corner and safety.
2026 Offseason: Bishop missed time this summer due to a shoulder issue; he sat out the team’s preseason opener as a result of the injury. However, he has since returned to practice. He also had a minor knee scope in the offseason.
2026 Season outlook: There are some uncertainties about Buffalo’s new-look defense in terms of role, but Bishop is a clear starter at safety. He is likely to start alongside Gardner-Johnson when both players are healthy, and while both of them have missed time this summer due to injury, it seems that their absence has been mostly precautionary. Bishop is a phenomenal athlete who can help the defense in multiple phases and at multiple levels. He has the speed to patrol the back end of the defense, the toughness to mix it up in the run game, and the quickness and agility to handle everything in between. He has star potential from the safety position, and I think that he only scratched the surface of that potential last season.
In new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard’s scheme, Bishop will likely be asked to do less reacting and more attacking, something that should help him to accentuate his athleticism. The principles he learned over the last two years in former head coach Sean McDermott’s scheme can easily be applied to other styles of defense, and now Leonhard can allow him to play more aggressively since he understands the nuances of the position. How fortunate for Bishop, really, that his former head coach was a safety, and now his new defensive coordinator was also a safety.
Bishop has greater physical tools, though, than either his former coach or his current coach ever had. Leonhard, for his part, was a scrappy safety whose heart and mind propelled him to greater heights than his physical talents alone could have. If Bishop can continue to learn that mental part of the game from his current coordinator, look out, because that very good 2025 season could be the start of something outstanding.
