We’re not quite to June, but have spent an inordinate amount of time speculating on the specific roles for Buffalo Bills defensive personnel in Jim Leonhard’s scheme.
At the start of Bills OTAs, we got the first real tangible indicator as to a new job responsibility for a Buffalo defender.
Jackson was the team’s third-round pick in 2025
and torn his ACL reasonably early in his rookie campaign. I wasn’t an enormous Jackson fan as an draft analyst, yet completely understood why the Bills picked him when they did — at No. 72 overall — because 6’6”, 265-pound edge rushers from the SEC with enormous, nearly 84” wingspans with 40” verticals aren’t typically available on the third day of the draft.
Here was my pre-draft scouting report on Jackson:
Landon Jackson is a tall, sturdy, and oversized EDGE prospect with impressive athletic traits for his towering frame. His length is a major asset, and while he possesses good burst, it won’t be a defining trait at the NFL level. His pass-rush move collection includes a swipe and cross chop, both effective, though he needs to deploy his length more frequently. His rushes often come in too high.
His bend is average, and despite his massive size, he’s not as dominant against the run as expected. He was used in space more than most EDGE defenders of his size, including as a stand-up A-gap blitzer. Contrary to what his frame might suggest, Jackson is more of a technical pass-rusher who still has room to improve in the power and run-defense aspects.
I listed his strengths as:
- Impressive athleticism for towering frame
- Major length asset
- Versatile usage including A-gap blitz
- Large tackling radius
And his weaknesses as:
- Rushes come in too high
- Average bend
- Not dominant vs. run despite size
- Not elite short-area quickness
I had him graded as the No. 98 overall prospect on my 2025 Big Board, and the Bills selected him at No. 72 overall, thereby making him a clear-cut reach, especially that early in the draft. He felt like an ascending edge with explosion, stiffness, and plenty of overall development needed.
Buffalo’s move to an odd-man front that unsurprisingly has led to a bulking up for Jackson which will come with new and less flashy on-field responsibilities all equate to the absolute best-case scenario for this young Bills defender.
Here’s the objective reason why.
In the summer of 2022, in an attempt to better my own pre-draft evaluations and provide a completely unbiased layer to said evaluations, I built RESIN — which stands for Reverse Engineered Scouting Index Number. I could write an entire article explaining everything on that front. In short, RESIN combines athleticism and collegiate on-field production to give every prospect a score, and it’s best used as position rankings in every draft.
Anyway, I tell this story here because now with data dating back to 2018, I’ve split RESINs at each position into tiers based on NFL player outcome.
And Jackson’s RESIN distinctly placed him in the lowest tier at EDGE.
0.0% of those players have become All-Pros, 9.2% have had 50+ pressures on their rookie deals, 12.6% have registered 25-49 pressures in a single season on their rookie deals, and a whopping 78.2% of them have never hit 25 pressures in a single season on their initial NFL contracts. Yikes.
In essence, RESIN indicated Jackson was a long shot to ever be a high-level pressure producer. Now, as a long, bulky, 285-pound block-eater handling two gaps in Leonhard’s scheme, generating pressures will not be at the top of Jackson’s list of job requirements.
