How Buffalo Bills’ New Defense Will TRANSFORM Roster Construction and Player Selection

0:00How will the bill's new defense impact roster construction? I'm sharing my thoughts on that right now on Lockdown Bills. You are Lockdown Bills, your daily Buffalo Bills podcast. Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. What's up, Bills Mafia? It's Joe Marino, author of the herd mentality sub stack cohost of the Lockdown NFL Scouting podcast. Cohost of the NFL first read podcast, and I am your host of Lockdown Bills. Lockdown Bills is a proud part of the Lockdown Podcast Network. Now the number one sports podcast network. Want to thank you for making Lockdown Bills your first listen every day in a big welcome and shout out to our every dayers. You know who you are. Those of you who never miss a single episode, I appreciate y'all being here very, very much today's episode is brought to you by Fandall.

1:01Fandall is giving you a way to turn that energy into even bigger potential wins with a college basketball parlay profit boost. Head to fandall.com to get started. Well folks, welcome in. I'm excited for our conversation today. We're going to dive into this new defense and try to figure out how it's going to impact the roster construction and in a week. Brandon Bean is going to be adding new players to this football team. And I think this is an important conversation for us to have to really gain an understanding of what this defense is going to look like. So they can figure out you know what players and how many players at each position they need to find. And I've received some great questions through our discord and through our sub stack on this topic. And I said, you know what let's do a pod on it. And so here we are doing a pod on it. So I want to attack this conversation by looking at where I think the direction of personnel groupings is going to go for this team.

2:02Where I think the structure of how the bills are going to play defense is going to go and then ultimately what does that mean for how many players in each position they're going to keep. And so let's dive into it. Let's start with personnel groupings. And what I'm going to do here is look at the bills and the percentage of base defense, nickel defense and dime defense that they ran last year under Sean McDermott and compare it to what Denver did last year. So it's not going to be perfect because Jim Leonard is his own human being. He was not the defensive coordinator in Denver last year or the year prior. He was defensive backs coach and past game coordinator and then in 2025 also the assistant had coach. So I'm sure he will be a little different than Vance Joseph and what he was doing in Denver. So it's not perfect. But I think it's the best way for us to get close on this to give us the most accurate conversation that we could have. So we're going to compare these numbers and then we'll get into some key takeaways and then we'll get into some of the structural elements.

3:06So base nickel dime let's first establish what those things mean base would be your base defense. So the bills under Sean McDermott ran a four three defense four defensive lineman three linebackers. The expectation and Brandon being said this during the NFL scouting combined is that the bills are going to a three four defense three defensive lineman four linebackers. So it's a different structure. So when you say base that's what we mean when you say nickel that means that you would have five defensive back. So there's 11 players on the field when you do a three four or a four three there are four defensive backs on the field two corners two safeties. When you're a nickel you drop a front seven player usually a linebacker and you bring in a fifth defensive back. So nickel dime means you have one more defensive back which would be six defensive backs as opposed to five because right six is one more than five nickel to dime.

4:08Maybe it doesn't make perfect sense, but that's that's how this all comes together. The bills in 2020 25 under Sean McDermott ran base defense 20% of the time that was 26th in the NFL in terms of frequency. The Broncos last year ran base defense 24% of the time which was 20th in frequency the league average is 27%. So both of these teams were under the league average for rate of base defense ran not a huge difference though between the bills and the Broncos. Nickel defense again now we have a fifth defensive back on the field. The league average was 61% last year the bills were 64% in nickel 12 highest Denver was 59% 21st again pretty close. And then dime the bills were 14% dime which was six highest the Broncos were 13% dime which was nine highest in the league average was 8.6.

5:21So I've given you some numbers what are the key takeaways here the first key takeaway is that the base rate is close the bills and Broncos last year both played between 20 and 25% base defense. But base does now mean something different. Under McDermott and then four linebackers or four defensive linemen three linebackers under Leonard it's can mean three defensive linemen and four linebackers. And so that bills for three defense was two defense events Greg Russo and Joey Bosa right two defensive tackles at Oliver Dayquan Jones and then three linebackers. To Robert our Matt Milano Dorian waves. Under Jim Leonard it means three four so you have three defensive linemen one knows tackle. A five technique and a four eye a five technique aligns on the outside shoulder of the offensive tackle a four eye aligns on the inside shoulder of the offensive tackle.

6:24Then you have these two outside linebackers that are like edge defenders and you have two stack linebackers traditional off ball type players so the base rate is close but base does mean something different when you compare these two defenses. Number two is that the nickel rate is the most notable difference but it's still close the bills were in nickel. Five point four percent more than Denver. But that is a difference in nine spots in the rankings the bills were twelfth in nickel rate. The Broncos were twenty first but the actual number is only five point four percent different. I'm going to assume that the bills under Jim Leonard will run nickel about sixty percent of the time. And then the dime component what's interesting to me about dime six defensive backs is that it will still be a thing you have a lot of range in terms of dime frequency across the league but both the bills last year in Denver last year war teams that ran a decent amount of dime defense they were both in the top nine the bills were sixth.

7:40Broncos were nine they were very close and percentage and they were both you know a little I would say pretty significantly higher than the league average league average is eight point six percent. The bills at fourteen point three percent the Broncos at thirteen percent that's decently above average. So I I'm expecting for the dime looks to continue to be a thing. That gets to the question of well who is it is this Jordan Hancock. Is this a new addition is this where you try to work in Terran Johnson. It's going to be fascinating to see what dime means for Jim Leonard but we do know that both defenses. Incorporate dime personal grouping six defensive backs and so that is my expectation that it will continue to be a thing for the bills moving forward. Alright so we've kind of established the personnel groupings and some of the differences there coming up next I want to get into structural differences man coverage rate zone coverage rate blitzes and then all of this will inform our conversation about how many they keep at each position so we're building towards something we're going to get there here next folks be sure to stick with us.

8:54It's tax time but for a lot of us the old way of doing taxes is a lot trying to book an appointment that's not the most convenient sitting in a waiting room with a stack of papers emailing back and forth and wondering if they really get your situation. But this year you're getting a major upgrade into it turbo tax now has in person locations nationwide you can meet face to face with a real tax expert and your documents get uploaded straight to your turbo tax app on the spot and just like that you're done. Your turbo tax expert works to get you every dollar you deserve while you get real time notifications as you go about your day it's the relief of walking in and meeting a real person and walking out knowing your taxes are being handled right at a turbo tax dot com slash local to find a store near you and book your appointment today. Welcome back folks let's shift this conversation to the defensive structure we talked about personnel groupings let's talk more about the structure in this conversation will again compare the bills last year to the Broncos last year where I think Jim Leonard is going to have a fair amount of foundation to what he's going to implement in Buffalo even if it's not completely perfect.

10:17So I want to compare coverage shells and blitz rate the bills last year where one of the most frequent too high middle of the field open safety teams alright so let me explain what that means too high middle of the field open means that you have split safeties this is that dreaded term that so many people don't really love split safeties it takes away all the explosive blazing the NFL. While the bills were a big split safety defense they ran split safeties 58% of the time fourth highest in the NFL the Broncos not nearly as much they ran split safeties 49% of the time which was 18th in the NFL so a team that's towards the top of the league in Buffalo and two high safeties and a Denver defense that's slightly below average. Which of course means that the one high middle of the field closed safety structures will be skewed the other way around where the Broncos were eighth in the NFL in one high middle of the field closed coverage concepts at 51% while the bills were 28 and one high middle of the field closed coverage concepts at 43% so you can see a major difference that's huge right so split safeties versus one safety in the middle of the field.

11:42I'm just giving you the numbers here I'll talk to you a little bit more about what they mean here in a second the Broncos as you would assume very high man coverage rate team 36% man coverage or highest in the NFL the bills 26% man coverage 15th in the NFL so the bills average amount of man coverage the Broncos towards the top of the league. Which again there's a relationship between that and zone coverage where the bills ran zone 70% of the time which was 18th and the Broncos ran zone 61% of the time which is 29th so Denver. A much more man aggressive defense Denver a much more zone aggressive defense and then lastly I mentioned Blitz rate the Denver Broncos were fifth in Blitz rate at 32% and the bills were 21st in Blitz rate at 25% so there are some notable things here to point out.

12:43Number one is that the bills will play more man coverage under Jim Leonard which naturally means less zone I'm thinking about a 10% spike in man coverage rate and I think they got the players to do it in Christian Benford and Maxwell Harrison I think both of those players can survive playing more man coverage and notice how Denver is or highest rate of man coverage in the NFL at 36% the most man aggressive teams are only around 40% it's still a zone league but this is a bills defense that is fully my expectation that they will play more man coverage. It is also my expectation that the bills will play fewer split safety looks meaning that you'll have more one high safety structures this is notable because I think this is really where that conversation about finding coal bishops running mate matters and on the podcast I did yesterday I went through and I talked about a lot of different free agent options that the bills could bring in to be coal bishops running mate.

14:00And I emphasize players that I thought were optimized in deeper zones and feeling that type of a role because I want coal bishops to be freed up to to play in lower alignments closer to the line of scrimmage be that man coverage player on tight ends. And I think in order to really unlock that you want to have that one high safety a guy that's rangel with ball skills that's comfortable in those deeper zones. And then the third big takeaway from these numbers is that the bills are going to blitz more Denver top five in. Blitz rate and the bills were 21st. So you can really kind of start to feel how this defense will play differently. Now for the part that we've been building towards which is the defensive roster numbers we'll talk offensive roster numbers as well. But all right we've went through all this stuff we've established similarities and differences what does it mean for how many players at each position they're going to keep.

15:07So one thing that I've done is I went through when I looked at well how many at each position to Denver keep and that should give us a ballpark of where we should expect the bills to fall this year and will of course compare it to Sean McDermott so. When it comes to defensive line. It's categorized a little bit different here where for Sean McDermott you would have like your detacles your defensive ends and you kind of parse those out a little bit. This new defense is just going to be defensive line. You'll put your five techs your four eyes your nose tackles all in one bucket. As opposed to the end and the tackle and then outside linebacker edge rusher is going to be its own thing and then off ball linebacker will be its own thing. So I expect the bills under Jim Leonard and Joe Brady when it comes to defensive lineman nose tackles five techniques four eyes so players like at all over Gregor so Dion Walker TJ Sanders those types of players I think the bills will keep about seven.

16:22Maybe six probably not eight but six or seven sevens probably the number I would expect there. In terms of rush outside linebackers your Michael Hoyt type players and players that the bills are sure you're going to add a Given Solomon type player I think the bills will keep five. At off ball linebacker I think the bills will keep four that's how many Denver has historically kept that's a normal number for three four defenses where this is a big discrepancy where in the past. Shama term would keep five or six. I think it'll be four under Jim Leonard. And so that just makes a lot of sense like when you're in base defense you only have two of these on the field. How many more do you need now obviously if you have a special teams ace or something you maybe that would play linebacker it would beef up there and you know maybe it'd be a safety or corner you beef it up based on one special team spot but.

17:24That linebacker position is one that you'll you'll feel you'll feel a difference in what the norms of the roster will be and then of course you're beefing up on those edge rusher rush outside linebacker type players as well. At corner I did the Broncos kept five last year the bills kept six I can see that being a five or six number. At safety the Broncos last year kept five I can see that probably being being a about that especially because they are going to play dime. And I think this defense will be more open to incorporating some of those versatile position list skill sets. And then at special teams of course three a kicker punner and a snapper. So you got a new category of edge rushers. So you have edge rushers you have your defensive line your defensive line bucket includes five tax four eyes and nose tackles.

18:25The off ball linebackers will be a lower amount probably four. You're going to have more versatility in the secondary so you can maybe beef up your numbers at safety a little bit but then of course be mindful. That there's a special teams component where you know Sam Franklin's back with the bills he'll count towards those safety numbers but not really you see what I mean. And then just generally some of these lines can be more blurry than they were. You could have a safety that's kind of also a slot corner where you're going to put them right where you're going to class my safety or corner. You could have an edge rusher that's also a player that can play on the defensive line is kind of a five tech those lines could be a little bit blurry. So it's all new and different so we're talking through it we're introducing it and try to try to get a line here as this roster is going to start taking shape here very very shortly.

19:26All right coming up next I want to talk about the offensive roster numbers and where they could be different and a very common thing for a Sean Peyton Pete Carmichael offense and I'll be curious to see if it carries over to this. New situation under Joe Brady will talk about that and more folks be sure to stick with me. Workplace chaos deadlines are stacking up the inbox is overflowing in the one position you have to fill is still sitting open when the pressure is on and you need to get the right higher this is a job for sponsored jobs. Indeed sponsored jobs helps you reach the people who actually fit what you're looking for skills experience location. So you're not just hoping the right candidate stumbles across your post and here's a stat that says at all in the minute i've been talking to you companies like yours made 27 hires on indeed according to indeed data worldwide so if you're hiring spend less time searching and more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. With indeed sponsored jobs there will be less stress less time more results when you need the right person to cut through the cast this is a job for indeed sponsored jobs and listeners of this show will get a 75 dollar sponsored job credit to get your job the premium status it deserves.

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21:47Alright so let's talk off fence now obviously the defense was kind of the the meteor part of this conversation because that's where we're expecting some some transition. And offensively the only the only real thought I have about the influence of the new coaching staff is that with Pete Carmichael coming on as the offensive coordinator and his like 20 year run when Sean Peyton and Joe Brady declaring himself as a Sean Peyton disciple. You just kind of get the sense that this is going to be an offense that resembles a lot of the philosophies that Sean Peyton has illustrated throughout his career. And I don't think there's going to be huge influence on roster numbers I think they'll be very similar at quarterback I think they'll keep to at running back slash fullback I think they'll keep for. Titan is where it gets interesting let's put three down for now wide receiver probably six maybe five and an offensive line I think will be nine.

22:51But I think where you have room for a conversation is really at the tight end position that is a spot where Sean Peyton has commonly kept for. And Sean Peyton has always been very very committed to certain players at the tight end position like right now Adam Troutman and little Jordan Humphrey are players that are just his guys they're always part of that mix carried over from the Saints to the Broncos and I think they really value those types of foundational players. I wonder if thoughts and nox is that type of player for the bills right now obviously the Tason Hill thing they love or Sean Peyton has shown an affinity for versatility at the tight end position where of course Tason Hill can do a lot of different things as a runner sometimes as a thrower he can catch a little bit play some special teams they love that Joker tight end role which is that flex move tight end.

23:56They have Evan Ingram now but Jimmy Graham in the past with the Saints and then of course you have Dalton Kate now. And so I do think that that tight end piece is one that interests me and I'll be curious to see what ultimately happens with toss and nox but also what type of investments they make or don't make do they want that Swiss Army knife type player are they're going to be those foundational tight ends that are just always with them. You know it's kind of a characteristic of what I've I've learned about Sean Peyton in studying him through the years. I think quarterback running back offensive line is the same wide receivers is another number that I think can make could be as low as five six kind of feels right I'd be surprised if they went to seven. But again if you have a special teams influence here whether that's a returner or just a very good overall special teams player that could beef up your numbers at wide receiver. Obviously there's been some fun conversation about maybe calista care and not being a limited player and him playing more on the outside that's something that's kind of come up in the last week or so based on some clips or some sound bites coming out of the combine.

25:11And so I do wonder about where the bills mindset is when it comes to the path for kill a little secure to play more on the perimeter does that is that really rooted in having different options in the slot that you trust to be the hot player for Josh Allen is that key on Coleman you know that's not a power slot if you think he on Coleman's optimized in the slot you it's because you think he's a power slot not necessarily as a good open quick guy right to get the ball into his hands and out of Josh Allen's hands when he's hot so I don't know if he on Coleman helps you there. Do they do we need to be more open to the bills adding more of a traditional slot receiver to free up a little to play more on the outside. Does the returner the punt return option answer or come in the form of receiver so I think that could influence some of these numbers a little bit but the offensive piece will will not have as much.

26:13Shift if you will which is a pretty logical takeaway when you consider how this off season has come together to this point so it'll be fast name to see how it all plays out will start to learn about those new investments next week the legal tampering period opens on Monday. So it'll be a busy week for new additions and then just kind of gaining that first glimpse as to the direction of of this 2026 version of the bills and so I'm very excited. Of for it all we've we've done a lot to preview free agency we've went through and discussed options at every primary need that I believe the bills have and then by the end of the week you'll get my mock off season so I'll go through and. Do all the things create the cap space sign the players a mock draft all those things ahead of next Monday when things get really real and of course we'll be here for you every step of the way to cover it all so don't miss anything make sure that you're subscribed would love it if you took a second to rate review and share the podcast have a great rest of your day go bells and I look forward to catching up with you again real soon.