Sports blog information from USA TODAY.
#Bills at #Chiefs: 3 key matchups in Week 5:
The Buffalo Bills will face the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 5. The Bills (3-1) enter the game as underdogs for the first time in 2021.
Regardless of that, the games, within the game, will still make all the difference.
With that, here are three key matchups to watch between the Bills and Chiefs (2-2):
#Bills shuffle offensive line, Cody Ford benched vs. #Texans:
The Buffalo Bills made a notable change to their offensive line in Week 4 against the Houston Texans.
Announced as the team’s starting lineup was an offensive line that did not include Cody Ford. It appears he has been benched.
In place for Ford was an interesting twist as well.
Starting at right guard is Daryl Williams, who slides over from right tackle. In Williams’ place is rookie third-round pick Spencer Brown on the outside at tackle.
At left guard is Ike Boettger, who’s starting in place of Jon Feliciano, who was ruled out due to a concussion.
Still starting at left tackle and center, respectively, are Dion Dawkins and Mitch Morse.
Ford was a second-round pick of the Bills in 2019.
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#Bills vs. #Texans: 3 key matchups in Week 4:
The Buffalo Bills will face the Houston Texans in Week 4. The Bills (2-1) enter the game as big favorites.
Regardless of that, the games, within the game, will still make all the difference.
With that, here are three key matchups to watch between the Bills and Texans (1-2):
#Bills’ Daryl Williams make’s PFF’s ‘All-Underrated Team’
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Buffalo knows that Bills offensive tackle Daryl Williams is good.
Now he’s starting to get his well-earned national attention.
Pro Football Focus released their “All-Underrated Team” heading into 2021. At right tackle, the pick is Williams:
After an injury-plagued, up-and-down five-year stint with Carolina to begin his NFL career, Williams joined the Bills to be their starting right tackle before the 2020 season. Not only did he play in all 19 games, but he also played at an extremely high level. His 80.0 pass-blocking grade ranked fourth among right tackles.
Williams has been a pleasant surprise for the Bills. At one point after 2020, even Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane admitted what we all thought.
He didn’t think Williams had it in him. But then at last offseason’s training camp, Williams he forced the team’s hand, almost making them start him.
Signing Williams, and rolling the dice on the 29-year-old, paid off.
It paid for Williams, too. His efforts also convinced that Bills to sign him to a long-term extension this offseason.
PFF graded Williams a 79.2 overall in 2020, only slightly behind left tackle Dion Dawkins’ grade of 80.6.
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Four Sooners crack PFF’s Top 32 offensive tackle rankings entering the 2021 NFL season
The big guys in the trenches often get unnoticed with the spotlight going to skill positions but PFF turned attention to the protectors at the line of scrimmage. Continuing the series of 2021 NFL position rankings, offensive tackles are up next. The top 32 tackles are evaluated by PFF’s advanced database to create the compiled list of talent across the league.
Four former Oklahoma Sooners are among the group: Trent Williams, Lane Johnson, Orlando Brown Jr., and Daryl Williams. Here is a breakdown of each premiere tackle.
After taking a one-year hiatus in 2019, Williams returned to the field for a new squad in 2020 and looked like the same elite player. He notched a 91.8 PFF grade in San Francisco last season, leading all offensive tackles. While his pass protection was strong, it was his performance in Kyle Shanahan’s wide zone rushing attack that really solidifies his spot here. Williams earned a career-high 91.8 run-blocking grade and laid down more big-time and positively graded blocks than any other tackle in a season during the PFF era (since 2006).
The 49ers gave Trent Williams a lofty six-year, $138.06 million paycheck to retain his services. The lucrative deal made Williams the highest-paid offensive lineman in NFL history. He was acquired by the 49ers last offseason following a nine-year tenure in Washington. The blindside left tackle returned to peak form in 2020 after missing the entirety of the 2019 season, earning him an appearance in his 8th Pro Bowl. If the dollar amount given to a left tackle is not testament enough, his accolades/production at the line of scrimmage sure are.
Now, let’s move to the NFC East.
Buffalo Bills takeaways from 2021 free agency.
Free agency kind of never ends in the NFL. Teams can still sign players whenever they want.
But as we all know, the true excitement for free agency exists in the early stages when the big fish in the pond find new teams.
Not only are those types of signings well in the past, we’ve now turned the calendar to April. That causes attention to shift toward to the NFL Draft. Before doing so, let’s take one last look back at the free agency period that was for the Bills.
Here are six takeaways from Buffalo’s relatively quiet but important free agency:
Updating status for every current Buffalo Bills free agent.
The Buffalo Bills and NFL are now turning their attention to the 2021 NFL Draft. The rookie event always becomes the forefront of everyone’s attention once the calendar turns to April.
Despite the draft being in the crosshairs, free agency continues to roll on. For the Bills, there’s still plenty of players from their 2020 squad that are still free agents, while others have signed contracts with other new teams.
Here’s an updated list of what’s going on with Buffalo’s current free agent class:
Bleacher Report on the Buffalo Bills re-signing offensive tackle Daryl Williams.
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Bleacher Report continues to sing the praises of the Buffalo Bills for re-signing offensive lineman Daryl Williams.
After previously naming Williams as a “must re-sign” player for the Bills, the outlet now praised the contract Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane got Williams to sign. B/R named their top-10 best “Best Bang-for-the-Buck Free-Agent Signings of 2021” and Williams’ deal is third-overall on the list.
A combination of Williams’ play and the recent breakout by quarterback Josh Allen were contributing factors:
The Contract: Three years, $24 million ($13.8 million guaranteed)
You don’t let players at two positions walk when they’re playing well and in their prime: quarterbacks and offensive tackles.
The Bills have two good tackles on the roster in Dion Dawkins and Daryl Williams. It was crucial for the future success of Josh Allen to maintain good protection on the perimeter, and they got it done on a cost-conscious deal.
Williams’ new contract pays him an average annual value of $8 million, which makes him the 10th-highest-paid right tackle in the league, per Spotrac. It’s less than Jack Conklin and Halapoulivaati Vaitai both signed for in 2020.
Williams was a player that came out of nowhere for the Bills. Beane even admitted following the season that the Bills did not expect him to start at right tackle last season, but when the deck was shuffled at last year’s training camp, Williams excelled so much that he forced the team’s hand.
Allen certainly wasn’t mad about that and shouldn’t be moving forward. In an offseason where Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes lost both of his starting tackles, it turns out that Allen will keep both of his. Not a bad position for the Bills to be in.
On B/R’s list, the only two signings pegged as better deals were the Browns signing former Rams safety John Johnson III and Shaq Barrett re-signing with the Bucs.
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Buffalo Bills OT Daryl Williams breakdown via Pro Football Focus.
Pro Football Focus is a fan of the Buffalo Bills’ free agency decision to re-sign offensive tackle Daryl Williams.
The football analytics outlet recently called it a “very good” signing by the Bills. But in explaining why, PFF put Williams in some pretty solid company.
Per PFF, over the past two seasons, only three pretty highly-rated tackles have played as well as Williams: the Eagles’ Lane Johnson, the Browns’ Jack Conklin and the Saints’ Ryan Ramczyk:
The seventh-year tackle has played up and down the offensive line since being drafted by the Panthers in 2015, playing 187 snaps at left tackle, 409 snaps at left guard, 226 snaps at right guard and 2,851 snaps at right tackle.
Williams has graded above 78.0 as both a pass-blocker and run-blocker at right tackle over the last two seasons — Lane Johnson, Jack Conklin and Ryan Ramczyk are the only other right tackles who have graded as high in both facets of the game.
In re-signing Williams, the Bills pulled off a move many thought wasn’t possible. After making room to sign linebacker Matt Milano to an extension, doing so with Williams seemed unlikely. Buffalo general manager Brandon Beane managed to get both back, though. Perhaps PFF’s comparisons like this played a part as to why Beane thought getting Williams back was so important.
The Bills inked Williams to a three-year extension. The 28-year-old helped keep Bills quarterback Josh Allen very clean during his 2020 breakout season.
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Pro Football Focus on the Buffalo Bills’ re-signing of offensive lineman Daryl Williams during 2021 NFL free agency.
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Pro Football Focus didn’t give their highest of marks to the Bills for their work so far in free agency… but it’s still a good one.
The football analytics outlet only gave out a grade of “excellent” to the Browns, Broncos, and Football Team. Their next level below that, “above average” made mention of the Bills and in their explanation, there was a note that stood out.
Some might peg the Bills’ decision to re-sign linebacker Matt Milano as the club’s most important move. Nope, says PFF.
That honor recently went to Buffalo’s decision to re-sign Daryl Williams instead. Here’s why PFF thinks so:
Buffalo’s free agency was primarily about retaining key players who were scheduled to test the market. They were able to lock down linebacker Matt Milano just before the legal tampering period, as well as a pair of offensive linemen, Jon Feliciano and Daryl Williams.
Williams was the critical move of the two, and he should guarantee a level of quality blocking in front of Josh Allen. Though Williams’ NFL career has featured only two seasons with an overall PFF grade better than 75.0, they have been his two full-time seasons as a starting right tackle. Last year, Williams had the best overall PFF grade of his career and topped 80.0 in pass-blocking grade for the first time in his career.
Both Williams and Milano are important pieces the Bills hung onto, but PFF does make a good point in Williams. The key thing to recall here is how the Bills’ 2020 season went down.
Buffalo’s offense finally entered the realm of being a modern-day unit that’s pass-heavy. Allen is the top factor there, but next most important thing might be just keeping him on his feet.
In locking up Williams to an extension, Buffalo’s offense will have him and Dion Dawkins blocking on the edge for Allen for the foreseeable future. The QB will be happy with that after the strong season the pair of tackles put together last year.
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