Levi Wallace, Kevin Johnson statuses
On Tuesday, we saw some confirmation here. Levi Wallace will be back, but that comes as no surprise. He was an exclusive-rights free agent. That designation means there are two options for the player. A team can simply not re-sign them and he leaves, or their club can offer a league-minimum contract and the player has to accept, or sit out the entire season. There are no other offers from other teams allowed, so they’re nearly forced to accept.
The day following Josh Norman’s signing, it was reported that Wallace did get that ERFA tag slapped on him by the Bills. He’ll likely compete with Norman for playing time.
Despite the differences in investment, McDermott has proven in the past that the salary cap will not play a role in his decisions. If Wallace is better, he’s the guy. Think back to Jordan Phillips getting starting time over first-round rookie Ed Oliver last season. The “earn it” mantra from the Bills is an actual thing.
On Kevin Johnson, it’s hard to imagine him returning now. Connecting some dots, Johnson had a solid season for the Bills and played 16 games. He came to Buffalo on a cheap deal because he had a slew of injury issues in his first few seasons with the Texans. Johnson was a first-round pick himself, so his talent levels, combined with the fact that he played 16 games last season for Buffalo, he’ll want to get paid this offseason, if he can. Plus, there could be an option with less competition for Johnson to choose from.
Perhaps he priced himself out of consideration for the Bills, or Buffalo felt like Norman was too good of an option to pass up. If Johnson does come back to the Bills now though, it would be something cheaper and similar to his deal in 2019, not the big payday he could be looking for.
Johnson earned a 71.9 overall playing grade last season via Pro Football Focus’ grading system. That made him the 23rd best cornerback in the NFL per the analytics outlet’s numbers (although, he split playing time, he was not a full-time start seeing the high number of snaps others would). Wallace played well too though, landing at 44th (67.6). Norman was among the worst in PFF’s cornerback rankings last season at 111th.