Former Seahawks DE Quinton Jefferson Strikes Deal with Bills

Suffering their second free agent departure in as many days, the Seahawks will now be counting on L.J. Collier and Rasheem Green to step up with Jefferson bolting for Buffalo.

While the team continues to attempt to re-sign Jadeveon Clowney, the Seahawks lost another one of their most important defensive linemen in free agency.

According to Ian Rapoport of NFL Network, versatile defensive end Quinton Jefferson has agreed to terms with the Bills on a two-year, $13.5 million deal. The player tweeted goodbye to Seattle before news broke about his new contract.

Selected in the fifth round out of Maryland in the 2016 NFL Draft, the 26-year old Jefferson overcame a rocky, injury-riddled start to his career with the Seahawks to emerge as one of the team's most underrated players.

Starting 24 games over the past two seasons, Jefferson produced 50 combined tackles, 6.5 sacks, and five pass deflections. Lining up both as a five-tech defensive end and three-tech defensive tackle, he also generated 25 quarterback hits during that span, proving to be a disruptive interior pass rusher.

While Seattle struggled as a team to generate consistent pressure on opposing quarterbacks last year and produced just 28 sacks, Jefferson posted one of the top four ESPN pass rush win rates for qualified defensive tackles last year, joining elite company alongside Arik Armstead and Chris Jones.

Double team rate as a defensive tackle (x) by pass rush win rate as a defensive tackle (y) in 2019 for players who were in the last season of their contract.

Lower qualifying threshold than usual to get a few more players in. pic.twitter.com/rcYxSA877M

— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) March 6, 2020

Jefferson performed well in the playoffs, registering a pair of sacks in the Seahawks 17-9 wild card round win over the Eagles in January. Before going down with a broken foot the next week against the Packers, he added a quarterback hit against Aaron Rodgers.

Now that Jefferson has left for Buffalo, Seattle will be banking on 2019 first-round pick L.J. Collier and 2018 third-round pick Rasheem Green to pick up the slack. Both players will be expected to take on expanded roles seeing action at the base defensive end spot along with reducing inside on passing downs.

If Collier and/or Green can fill the void and Clowney winds up back with the Seahawks, Jefferson's departure may not sting as bad come September. But there's no doubt this is a significant loss for a defensive line that already needed major help this offseason.