It certainly didn’t have to be Greg Gaines, but the Buffalo Bills were in dire need of a veteran rotational piece at nose tackle behind 22-year-old budding star Deone Walker.
Jim Leonhard’s new system, which will feature a front that’s more amorphous than stagnant, does have a three-man defensive line foundation — maybe you’ve heard. Quite naturally then, it requires more classically built nose tackle types on the roster.
And for as good as Walker may become as the man in the middle of the Bills defensive
line in Year 2 and beyond, it was painfully obvious the 2026 iteration of this team was lacking in the depth department behind him.
DeWayne Carter, a 2024 third-round pick, is returning from a torn Achilles in his second season and was drafted to be an upfield, one-gap disruptor. Even if he’s packed weight onto his 6’2” frame, he’s learning on the fly this summer in a new, blocking-eating, two-gapping role.
And he’s hardly been up to the task. Carter’s training camp was quiet, and he was on the field well into the fourth quarter in Buffalo’s opening preseason game against Carolina. On 19 snaps, Carter did not make the stat sheet, including 0 pressures on 13 pass-rush snaps against the Panthers second and third-team offensive line.
Add to this too — Phidarian Mathis is set to serve a three-game suspension at the start of the season. While he has ample two-gap experience at Alabama (and his expertise in that role was a large part of why he was a second-round pick in 2022), he doesn’t possess a classic nose tackle body frame at 6’4” and 310-plus pounds. Mathis is much better suited for a 4I or 5-tech role in a traditional three-man front — either on the inside or outside shoulder of the offensive tackle as a sturdy edge-setter — than a 0-tech or 1-tech, which is the defensive lineman closest to the football before the snap, where Walker plays.
Zion Logue has a Mathis-esque body frame and played the Mathis role at Georgia before being selected by the Falcons in the sixth round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Bills rookie Zane Durant is stockier than both Mathis and Logue, but at 6’1” and 290 pounds doesn’t yet possess a modern-day nose tackle height-weight combination for the NFL.
That defensive line depth chart rundown was to explicitly illustrate Buffalo’s dire need for depth behind Walker, a role best handled by a shorter, compact defender well north of 300 pounds. And Walker’s youth, experience was a plus for this job listing.
Gaines is listed at 6’1” and 312 pounds. He was 308 at the 2019 University of Washington Pro Day, so it’s reasonably safe to assume he can or already has played well into the 320s across 117 games in the NFL over the past seven seasons.
As a rookie, Walker appeared on 47.2% of the Bills defensive snaps during the regular season. Even if that percentage jumps into the 60% range in 2026, Buffalo’s front can’t afford a massive drop off in productivity — or, capable beef — at nose tackle when the towering, 330-pounder needs a rest.
Now with Gaines, they have established a reliable dirty-work brawler to spell Walker in games and throughout the season. Gaines establishes a reasonable floor at backup nose tackle. He’s a career 35-40% snap player with loads of experience battling on the interior, which is precisely what the Bills needed.
