7 players who are most important to Bills’ success in 2024 NFL season

Here are the seven Buffalo Bills players who we feel are the most important to the team's success in the 2024 NFL season.

Kyle Silagyi | Aug 31, 2024

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The Buffalo Bills have been one of the NFL’s most consistently competitive franchises over the recent past, qualifying for the postseason in six of the last seven seasons as they’ve won the AFC East in each of the last four campaigns. The team is coming off an offseason in which it saw significant turnover, but the roster is still generally stout and, barring unforeseen circumstances, should allow it to be competitive and remain in meaningful conversations into January yet again.

With that said, the altered unit will rely on some players more than others as it attempts to rattle off its sixth consecutive postseason berth. Here are the seven Buffalo players who we feel are most important to the team’s success in the 2024 NFL season.

QB Josh Allen

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We’ll kick off with the obvious choice: the Bills, in 2024 and every subsequent season in which the human rhinoceros in question is under center, will go as far as Josh Allen can take them. He’s the crown jewel of both Buffalo’s offense and general organization, a wrecking ball of a player who is capable of systematically dismantling teams with both his arm and legs. He’s working with a revamped unit this fall after the offseason departures of stalwarts in both the receiving corps and offensive line, but he’s been an immensely productive player regardless of his surroundings since his sophomore year; he leads the NFL in total touchdowns since 2019 with 203, particularly shining over the last four seasons as he’s totaled over 40 scores in each campaign (an NFL record).

Few voices worth listening to genuinely believe Allen is going to take a step back sans his normal supporting cast, and thus, there’s no real reason to be concerned about his potential production; that said, it’d be wholly ignorant to omit him from an article mentioning players who are paramount to the Bills’ success.

WR Keon Coleman

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The aforementioned departures of Allen’s premier targets prompted Buffalo to adopt a new offensive philosophy this offseason, a mindset now-full-time offensive coordinator Joe Brady describes as an ‘everyone eats’ approach. It’s, in simplest terms, an egalitarian approach to aerial production that will see Allen spread the ball out relatively evenly amongst his targets as opposed to funneling the offense through one or two players; the pass-catchers who figure to feature prominently in the new offense are Khalil Shakir, second-year tight end Dalton Kincaid, veteran wideout Curtis Samuel, and rookie Keon Coleman, with who ultimately leads Buffalo in receiving yards come the end of the season being anyone’s guess.

Though the offense is newly assembled, there’s no reason to have overwhelming concerns about its potential production; Shakir and Kincaid both shined down the stretch of the 2023 season, indicating that they’re ready to step into more prominent roles. Though Samuel hasn’t put up gaudy production throughout his seven-year career, he’s reuniting with the offensive coordinator who previously led him to his best production as a professional. The unit’s still helmed by Allen, which also goes a long way in mitigating concerns. The only question mark in which there’s not a professional sample size to point to is Coleman, who is coming off a 2023 season with the Florida State Seminoles in which he caught 50 passes for 658 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The rookie is coming off a summer in which he looked like the player many prognosticators expected him to look like at this juncture: he flashed frequent jump-ball and big-play ability throughout training camp, but he struggled to create separation throughout the preseason. Buffalo will give him every opportunity to meaningfully contribute immediately, but what he’s capable of accomplishing at this stage in his development remains to be seen.

The Bills’ offense will not live or die by Coleman’s immediate production—the team will move the ball through Shakir, Kincaid, Samuel, and other avenues should the rookie show immediate growing pains; that said, their offensive ceiling is directly linked to his immediate role. If he becomes a trusted target with big-play upside immediately, Buffalo’s offensive potential is drastically higher than if the 21-year-old is but a complementary piece whom Allen occasionally looks at to supplement the incremental gains he picks up elsewhere.

C Connor McGovern

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Connor McGovern’s big offseason move saw him shift a few feet to his right, but this is perhaps being reductive with regard to the importance of his new role. The 26-year-old, who started 17 games for Buffalo at left guard last season, is now penciled in as the team’s starting center following the offseason departure of long-time starter Mitch Morse; with the new position comes new responsibilities both on and off the field, as McGovern is now tasked with not only snapping the ball, but being a leader within his position group.

McGovern has past experience at center, describing it earlier this offseason as his “natural position.” He showed early growing pains as a snapper in training camp, but those concerns seemed to have quelled as the summer progressed; that said, the center’s consistency and play will set the tone for the entire offensive line, a unit that’s coming off a 2023 season that was its best in recent memory. The aforementioned ‘everyone eats’ approach will require Allen having the necessary time to progress through his reads on passing plays, making the performance of the line particularly important regardless of the passer’s ability to create magic out of broken plays; the unit’s performance starts with McGovern, making him a paramount player to team success this season.

DT Ed Oliver

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Ed Oliver is coming off his best season as a professional, as he tallied 9.5 sacks in a 2023 season in which he established himself as one of the league’s premier interior pressure generators. He recorded a career-high 65 total pressures, per PFF, this despite the fact that the criminally underrated DaQuan Jones—whom Oliver has generally played better with than without throughout the veteran’s stint at One Bills Drive—was injured throughout the vast majority of the campaign. With Jones now back at full health, it will be interesting to see if Oliver can cement himself as one of the NFL’s upper-tier defensive tackles by tallying double-digit sacks and setting the tone for a Buffalo pass rush that was one of the league’s most productive last season (its 54 team sacks was fourth-most in the NFL).

LB Dorian Williams

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This is the second consecutive season in which a sophomore Buffalo linebacker will be thrust into a starting role due to the absence of a long-time starter; it worked well last year, as Terrel Bernard shined after he was forced to take over the middle linebacker role vacated by the offseason departure of Tremaine Edmunds. The defender in question this year is 2023 third-round draft pick Dorian Williams, who will man the team’s weakside linebacker post after Matt Milano’s recent bicep tear that will sideline him “indefinitely.”

It’s unfair to put Milano-like expectations on or project a Bernard-like breakout for Williams, as all three are completely different players; whereas Milano is a strong coverage defender with an innate nose for the football, Williams is a tenacious, hard-hitting linebacker who, while not consistently poor in coverage, is not consistently great, either. His ability to thrive alongside Bernard will force opponents to respect the middle of Buffalo’s defense and, thus, raise its floor significantly. He’s shown flashes in spot duty in the past, and the Bills’ defensive coaching staff has proven capable of developing young linebackers; there are reasons to be optimistic about Williams.

Whoever starts at safety alongside Taylor Rapp

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An unfavorable salary cap situation combined with Father Time to force the Buffalo to rework its safety tandem in the offseason, as both Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer were shown the exit door at One Bills Drive this spring. The two combined for 202 starts, three All-Pro selections, and two Pro Bowls throughout their time in Western New York; with both defensive backs now 33 years of age, however, the Bills felt now was the best time to get younger at the position.

Buffalo immediately penciled Taylor Rapp, who played on roughly 40% of the team’s defensive snaps last season, into a starting role, hoping to figure out who would start alongside him come Week 1 by hosting a three-way competition throughout training camp. The battle ultimately proved rather fruitless, as two of its competitors (Cole Bishop and Mike Edwards) picked up early injuries that kept them sidelined throughout most of training camp and the entirety of the preseason. The ailments all but gave fourth-year defender Damar Hamlin the role by default, but he, too, has been sidelined in recent weeks with a hamstring injury. All three may be healthy for Week 1, but none have a bevy of reps alongside Rapp and the rest of the first-team defense, meaning that no one has developed the rapport and communicative ability that’s so important to the success of the larger defense.

Who the Bills trot out alongside Rapp in Week 1 is an interesting question, at this juncture. Will it be one of Hamlin, Bishop, or Edwards? Will Swiss-army knife Cam Lewis get the start? Does recent practice squad signing Lewis Cine, who was a first-round pick just two years ago, factor into this conversation, and if so, how quickly would the team be willing to give him the proverbial ball? Buffalo still hasn’t ruled out the possibility of re-signing Hyde, making the entire safety position one of much volatility a week out from the opener. Regardless of who starts alongside Rapp in Week 1 and throughout the season, their rapid development of a rapport with the rest of the unit is paramount to the defense’s success, thus making them an incredibly important player this fall.

K Tyler Bass

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Tyler Bass’ recent woes have been the subject of several difficult conversations across Western New York throughout the entire year, as his struggles date back to last season. He made just 82.8 percent of his kicks throughout the 2023 season (22nd amongst kickers with 25 or more field goal attempts), his struggles most prominently displayed in the postseason as he missed two kicks in the Bills’ Wild Card round win over the Pittsburgh Steelers and another in their Divisional Round loss to the Kansas City Chiefs; his last missed kick of the year was a 44-yard attempt that would have tied the game with under two minutes remaining.

The veteran’s struggles have leaked over into the summer, as he was generally inconsistent throughout training camp before missing a 51-yard attempt in Buffalo’s preseason finale. What makes Bass’ woes particularly difficult to stomach are his contract (it’d be financially disadvantageous for the Bills to release him at this time) and his past dominance; the Buffalo faithful once called him ‘Bass-O-Matic’ because of the near-automatic nature of his kicks. General manager Brandon Beane recently expressed confidence in the 27-year-old, but the team needs a kicker it can trust, something it hasn’t been able to do with Bass recently; if his struggles persist, Buffalo may be left with no choice but to make a move.

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Published Aug 31, 2024

KYLE SILAGYI