Bills' Greg Rousseau is AFC Defensive Player of the Week
Sean McDermott's recommendation to Bills Central on Monday was to pump the brakes on the hype surrounding rookie defensive end Greg Rousseau.
Yes, Rousseau's doing some great things, but the coach was correct in pointing out that Rousseau also has a long way to go in his development after playing just five career games.
Nevertheless, Rousseau on Wednesday morning was named the NFL's AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his work in Week 5's 38-20 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
The 6-foot-6 Rousseau used his enormous wingspan to tip an interception to himself, sacked quarterback Patrick Mahomes on another attempt and finished with five total tackles.
He leads the team with 3.0 sacks and becomes the third Bill in this young season to be named Player of the Week, joining LB Tremaine Edmunds (last week) and QB Josh Allen (Week 3).
On Monday's Zoom press conference, we asked McDermott if he's surprised that Rousseau looks to be such a complete player so quickly.
"All right, can we just hold our horses a little bit here, Nick," McDermott replied. "These guys are rookies. And yeah, he made some really good plays — I don't want to take that away from him — and those plays made a big difference in the outcome of the game. But there's still so much to be had yet in terms of his growth and development and all those things.
"So, respectfully, if we can just slow our roll here, I guess they say, right? We got a lot of work to do with these young guys, including our entire football team. But these youg guys have got to learn that it's a week-to-week league, and when you think you've arrived, you haven't. So Greg, I know, embraces that, which is refreshing and very welcomed here at the Bills."
Anthony Treash of Pro Football Focus wrote that fellow defensive end Jerry Hughes "was hands down the best defensive lineman in this contest. He racked up nine total pressures and a 22.7% pass-rush win rate on 44 pass-rushes, his second-largest single-game workload since 2016."
Still, the report noted that Rousseau was able to add three pressures to his stat total.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
