Bills offensive lineman Quinton Spain is a pending free agent. He said he’d be willing to come back to the Bills before even testing the market when free agency opens in March.
As fellow players, the Bills locker room hopes to see their teammate get paid. After four years with the Titans, Spain signed a one-year “prove-it deal” with the Bills this past offseason. But they’re hoping it happens in Buffalo.
“We’d love to have him back. He deserves to get paid this offseason. The guy started every game, I don’t know if he missed a snap. A great person to be around, smart as hell, he made this offensive line so much better, helped me out a lot. I owe a lot to Quinton Spain,” center Mitch Morse said via WGR-550 Radio.
Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen echoed Morse, calling Spain someone he could depend upon.
“He’s been awesome for us. Just his mindset, his attitude, the way he plays, he brings a fire. He’s a really good dude, too,” Allen said. “I love him and I wish we’d get him back too. I know it’s the nature of the business. If I had a say, we’d have in back.”
Reflecting upon Spain’s season, there’s no real statistics to fall back on in regard to offensive linemen. But there’s the analytics approach.
There, Spain is at a 50-50 split.
The good? Football Outsiders credited Spain with only allowing one sack this season and only being flagged for a penalty twice in 16 starts. Not bad.
Per Pro Football Focus, the Bills could possible do better. The 28-year-old only earned a 55.9 overall grade this season from PFF’s grading system, good for the 60th best guard in the NFL. His 45.7 run blocking grade isn’t pretty, either.
But there’s also one other factor that could weigh-in on the Bills’ decision with Spain: continuity.
The Bills revamped their offensive line last offseason. It was a far-and-away better group overall than 2018, but in terms of league-wide, the Bills offensive line was likely an average crew. Keeping the group together could pay dividends, though. Another offseason together next summer could help the Bills’ offensive line gel together even further, helping the crew improve. Guard Jon Feliciano touched on that during locker cleanout day as well.
“It would be huge. Whenever you can keep the same core group of guys together… it’s hard to do that, but whenever you can do that, and keep building together, it’d be huge,”
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