Quinton Jefferson is quietly enjoying a successful start to his Buffalo Bills career. But that’s not coming as a surprise at all to Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll.
As a free agent this offseason, Jefferson decided to leave the Seahawks (6-1) for the Bills (6-2) via a two-year contract. But there wasn’t any hard feelings at all on Wednesday when Carroll chatted via conference call with the western New York media. In fact, he wishes Jefferson was still on his side.
“We miss the heck out of Big Q. He was a real favorite of ours, a guy we drafted and all that. It just came a time in his contract where he had a chance to be a free agent,” Carroll said. “He’s a really good ball player, really versatile… he was banged up early in his career, it took him a couple of years to get going, but once he did, he was a nice player enough where [the Bills] recognized it and were able to put him on their club.”
Jefferson’s deal landed him $13.5 million with the Bills. Carroll added he understands players have to cash in when they can.
“It’s the game that we play. I wish we had him on our team, but we couldn’t at the time. That is the way the league is,” Carroll said.
In his first half of a season with the Bills, the defensive lineman has been a bit of a bright spot for Buffalo’s otherwise woeful defense. He’s forced two turnovers, a fumble and he tipped a pass which was then intercepted by teammate Jerry Hughes and in total, Jefferson has two sacks and four QB hits as well.
According to ESPN’s Net Gen Stats, Jefferson is doing so against a lot of double teams, too. Only a handful of guys in the NFL, such as the Rams’ Aaron Donald, has faced more double teams. Efforts like that have also led to Pro Football Focus grading him a 61.2 overall mark so far in 2020, the best grade among all of the Bills’ defensive tackles.
It’s easy to see that Carroll’s right… Jefferson adds plenty of value to Buffalo’s defense.
But Jefferson had an interested thought last month. Perhaps the best is yet to come. Following Buffalo’s win over the Raiders, Jefferson said he’s still only just settling in, so things could get better and better for not just him, but the entire defensive line.
“It’s a long season, we’re just starting to mesh together, still getting a feel for each other… we’re only going up,” Jefferson said. “We’re going to keep growing and keep meshing together, I’m excited for what the future holds.”
The Bills are going to need efforts from the likes of Jefferson and others on the defensive line this weekend especially. His former team sports quarterback Russell Wilson, who’s the MVP front-runner at the mid-point of the 2020 campaign.
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