Anybody Concerned About Our Defensive Backfield?

[Irv]

I'm a little worried.  Both Safety's are banged up and are not that young.  We have White out for who knows how long.  He might come back less than 100%.    We might be starting a rookie CB on one side.  The other CB doesn't have a lot of experience.  Just in our division, we make fun of Tua here a lot, but Waddle, Gisecki, and Hill are no jokes.   How will we defend Kupp?  Nervous.  

[Bookie Man]

Those are legitimate concerns. I think the pass rush will be dangerous this year hopefully taking some pressure off the secondary. 

[Over 29 years of fanhood]

8 minutes ago, Irv said:

I'm a little worried.  Both Safety's are banged up and are not that young.  We have White out for who knows how long.  He might come back less than 100%.    We might be starting a rookie CB on one side.  The other CB doesn't have a lot of experience.  Just in our division, we make fun of Tua here a lot, but Waddle, Gisecki, and Hill are no jokes.   How will we defend Kupp?  Nervous.  

McDermott can piece together a secondary from an arena football league squad… worry not. 

[scuba guy]

Yeah not one bit

[Freddie's Dead]

No.

[wppete]

Not at all. Actually the most confident in that group after the QBs

[AuntieEm]

31 minutes ago, ßookie_tech said:

Those are legitimate concerns. I think the pass rush will be dangerous this year hopefully taking some pressure off the secondary. 

 

   And our offense will be keeping opposing offenses desperately trying to keep pace with Josh and Co.  Good luck can be done but I'm not expecting it to occur with any frequency to be overly concerned.  If adjustments need to be made I believe this team has the right coaches and players to make them and not have too many bumps.

Edited August 26, 2022 by AuntieEm

[gobills404]

Unles we’re playing Patrick Mahomes or Tyreek Hill in the playoffs then I’ll never be worried about our pass defense

[BarleyNY]

29 minutes ago, Irv said:

I'm a little worried.  Both Safety's are banged up and are not that young.  We have White out for who knows how long.  He might come back less than 100%.    We might be starting a rookie CB on one side.  The other CB doesn't have a lot of experience.  Just in our division, we make fun of Tua here a lot, but Waddle, Gisecki, and Hill are no jokes.   How will we defend Kupp?  Nervous.  

I have been thinking pretty much exactly the same things. I don’t expect White to be back to 100% this season. Elam was the 1st round CB I didn’t want to end up with. Even if I’m wrong about that, rookie CBs almost always struggle. I still really like Tauron at Nickel though.  But I don’t love our depth. Ditto our safety depth behind our two dinged, aging studs. 

[Airseven]

Very concerned about the corners. White won’t be full go for quite awhile. But I’m even more concerned about the OL. This team isn’t as iron clad as a lot of people seem to be assuming.

[Irv]

6 minutes ago, gobills404 said:

Unles we’re playing Patrick Mahomes or Tyreek Hill in the playoffs then I’ll never be worried about our pass defense

OK Stafford is World Champion.  Who's going to stop them?  Kupp?  

[BigAl2526]

My only concern is that until Tre White comes back and demonstrates he is unaffected by his injury, Buffalo is without their top corner.  Dane Jackson, Kaiir Elam and  Christian Benford have all played at or above expectations when they've been on the field, but none of them are Tre White.  A team with a top notch WR could give Buffalo trouble.

[Playoffs?]

Yep, a little bit. 
Don’t know Tre’s status.  Rookie starter. Backup starter.  Poyer/Hyde should be good to go. 
 

You hope our stronger D Line should help….  But then you also look at last season and notice that our D may have seemed better because we played against garbage QB’s for much of the season.  This season we’re playing against much better QB’s that can get the ball to their WR’s. 
 

Hoping Elam develops quickly and Tre comes back soon at 100%

[Ghs24mike]

No, we have the best secondary in the NFL. Poyer hurt his arm, Hyde is perfectly fine.

 

Benford and Elam look solid against 1st string offenses already

[gobills404]

23 minutes ago, Irv said:

OK Stafford is World Champion.  Who's going to stop them?  Kupp?  

The Bills defense will because winning a ring doesn’t automatically make someone elite. A better question is how are the Rams gonna stop Allen if he picks up where he left off?

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

We have the same secondary we ended the season with  and they did ok.  Also have a 1st round raft pick and a hopefully a much better pass rush.  Safeties are more banged up because it's pre-season.  If regular season Hyde would be fine and another  2 weeks Poyer should be OK too.

[KDIGGZ]

Our CB's are going to be on roller skates vs Cooper Kupp week 1. It's going to be hard to watch. Our only hope is the DL has the QB under pressure and he makes mistakes

[PetermansRedemption]

The absolute least position I worry about in a McDermott coached team. 

[Simon]

5 minutes ago, YoloinOhio said:

Not right now - get in line behind the punter issue!

 
Please don't drag this into other threads or it will take over the entire board.

[Victory Formation]

Not at all. I trust Beane/McD here, no questions asked. 

[Buffalo_Stampede]

No. 

[NewEra]

Not in the least.  

[Simon]

Just now, Starr Almighty said:

I'm more worried about the punter position for some unknown reason

 

11 minutes ago, Simon said:

 
Please don't drag this into other threads or it will take over the entire board.

 

[billsbackto81]

Hyde and Poyer should be fine plus J.Johnson and D. Hamlin have looked solid. As far as CB I'm a little concerned, especially against higher end receiving corps. I would've like to see a vet like Haden or Rhodes brought in as a security blanket in the event the game is too big for Elam right away or if Jackson has a setback. Benford has been a pleasant surprise for a rookie. 

[Don Otreply]

So I take it this is the latest worry, concern, fear, we are doomed, may as well just concede the whole bloody season right now, thread, why do folk get worked up over this stuff? Damn near every pundit / talking head out there thinks we are the favorite to win it all, yikes, some of y’all need a 🍸 & a 🚬 desperately, not to mention some “time” with your important other…, 

 

Go Bills!!!

 

[Patrick Duffy]

Nothing to be concerned with. If anything I have more confidence. Unless one is concerned Elam may get lots of holding called on him

 

 

[RiotAct]

They might struggle against the Rams, since that’s the best receiving corps we face all year (at least on paper), plus it’s opening day and things can get kind of shaky one way or the other… as we found out last season against the Steelers.  Woof.

[JohnBonhamRocks]

We know both safeties and nickel corner are set. Dane Jackson is no slouch. We just need him plus the 2 draft picks to not be abysmal at outside corner for a few games. 

[John from Riverside]

Nope

[Thurman#1]

Least of my worries. 

 

After White is back particularly I expect them to be a real strength as usual.

[GETTOTHE50]

McD is a secondary specialist. He makes anyone look good, asides from Levi Wallace. Thankfully hes pittsburghs problem now

[ndirish1978]

I am concerned that Tre will not actually be Tre at all this year even when he's back on the active roster. Yes, this is the one position on the team that I have reservations with.

[machine gun kelly]

The sky isn’t falling.  Our Safeties were just named 1st and 2nd team all pros, have one of the best Nickel CB’s in the league, and reports of Tre’s demise are largely over reported.  He may be out a few games, but we didn’t have him for the last four games of last year nor the playoffs.  Dane did just fine.  Bedford and Elam will be fine.  We don’t face KC until week 6.  
 

The Ravens were the 32nd rated passing offense last year, and we upgraded our run defense with Settle, Jones, and Phillips.  Oh and we have this wrecking crew of a DE named Von.

 

I know we hoped Tre would be there for the opener, but hope is not lost.

[LeGOATski]

what a mess

[H2o]

If we get more pressure on QB's, that will make our Secondary look that much better. Hurried QB's are forced to make quicker decisions, throw the ball before they want to, and they are more prone to mistakes. The Secondary is then able to make more plays and they aren't forced to cover as long. I'm hoping the front really gets after it this year, which will make the whole defense look even better. I believe we'll be fine until Tre gets back, and then we'll be even more scary on defense when he does. 

[Matt_In_NH]

The safeties have/had injuries that will be healed by week one, they could play now if it was in season, that is not a concern.  Safety depth also not a concern.  Some questions at corner with the rookies and Tre but this defense seems able to plug guys in at corner without them getting smoked all day consistently.   I think the scheme protects the corners to a degree.   The rookies have good size and Elam has great traits.  I trust this team to coach well.  Pass rush should be improved, that helps the secondary....short answer no not worried.

[CNYfan]

Yes.   I am concerned about the DBs.  Good question.   I asked myself the other day, "Do I feel more comfortable with Elam than I did with Levi?".     I do not.   I hope I am wrong.

[colin]

it is a concern w injuries and young players learning, but our d is set up to put the backfield into a maximum advantage mode taking away big plays and letting them play aggressively and often going forward.  it makes the LBs job harder than most, and more or less requires constant pass rush.  given our improvement IMO in pass rush, i think a lot of the drop off w white out will be covered up for the most part.

[Beast]

I'm not. Poyer and Hyde are fine. They will be great once again. the Bills are better at CB right now than they were at the end of last season, and they are much stronger on the d-line than they were last season.

 

This is the best Bills team I have seen going into a season in my 49 years of fandom.

[Back2Buff]

Extremely.  These young kids are way to "handsy".  The amount of first downs we will be giving up due to penalties is really concerning to me.

 

Last year I thought we were playing with fire with our CB depth and we were burned.

 

I have a bad feeling about how this is going to turn out.  I didn't understand why this wasn't taken care of in FA, especially when Bradberry was cut.