Roster Work Remaining for Bills GM Brandon Beane
What by all accounts has been a great offseason of roster tweaking by Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane isn't over. The process actually never stops, even into the postseason.
Beane reminded everyone of that right after the NFL Draft.
"The job between now and when we show up at St. John Fisher [for training camp] is to try and make this team as competitive as possible every single day," he said. "So we're not done today or tomorrow. There will be more veterans on the streat. We'll continue to kind of circulate through the waiver wires at this point."
One area in particular is worth watching before or during training camp: The secondary.
As expected, the Bills addressed their cornerback shortage in the Draft, taking Florida's Kaiir Elam in the the first round and Villanova's Christian Benford in the sixth. They followed that up by adding undrafted free agents Travon Fuller and Ja'Marcus Ingram.
The question, in the wake of losing starter Levi Wallace to free agency and other outside starter Tre'Davious White indefinitely to a wrecked knee suffered last Thanksgiving, is whether they've done enough. White is still months away, with no clear timetable, from even being cleared to practice.
In the meantime the Bills are carrying just five safeties on their 90-man roster. One of them is starter Jordan Poyer, who is absent from OTAs because he hasn't been able to get the contract extension he's seeking.
Fellow starter Micah Hyde also hasn't shown up, leaving most of the offseason work to this point to Damar Hamlin, Jaquan Johnson and Josh Thomas, who have combined for one start and 250 snaps with the defense in their careers. Cornerback Siran Neal also can play safety too.
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For Beane, there's not necessarily a rush, though some cornerbacks like Kyle Fuller and James Bradberry have recently been taken off the market.
Beane and the coaches likely will determine during OTAs and the mandatory minicamp that run through the middle of June whether they need to add to their secondary or stand pat.
How they choose to deal with Poyer also could affect their actions in the free-agent market as they attempt to improve upon the NFL's top-ranked defense in 2021.
The top corners on the market now are Joe Haden, Trae Waynes and Xavier Rhodes.
Landon Collins, who's been limited by injury to 20 games over the previous two seasons, is nevertheless the top safety option at age 28.
None of the other position groups are immune from tweaking, either, even though the Bills may seem on paper to have their finest roster of the free agency era.
In that sense, it sometimes can be a positive when key veterans like Poyer and Hyde aren't around or White remains unavailable, because it gives the coaches a chance to better evaluate those behind them on the depth chart.
There are no certainties.
But the roster they have now almost certainly will not be identical to the one that takes the field at St. John Fisher in July.
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Bills offseason schedule
OTAs
May 31-June 2
June 6-7
June 9-10
Mandatory minicamp
June 14-16
Training camp
TBA at St. John Fisher College and ADPRO Sports Training center
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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.
