The Bills’ rookie pass-rushers can perfect their defense… in time

Last season, the Buffalo Bills went 13-3 in the regular season and made it all the way to the AFC Championship game for the first time since 1993. They did so on the arm of Josh Allen and a more than credible defense, but they did not do so on any sort of consistent pass rush. Including the postseason, per Pro Football Focus (who count half-sacks as whole sacks, as everyone should), defensive end Jerry Hughes led the team with eight quarterback takedowns. End Mario Addison finished second with seven, and while Hughes pretty good overall with 66 total pressures, Addison had just 45, and nobody else on Buffalo’s defense had more than tackle Ed Oliver’s 37, going with Oliver’s two sacks. One hopes for improvement from Oliver and end A.J. Epenesa in 2021, but it was clear to head coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane that more was needed.

“You’d love to have one, you really would,” Beane said of an elite pass-rusher at his end-of-season press conference in January. “There’s not even 32 of them, though, one for each team. So, I promise you we’re looking for those guys and would love pressuring the quarterback. If the quarterback’s on his backside, he can’t do too much damage to us so we want to be strong up front, we want to stop the run, things like that. But at the end of the day, there’s only so many Von Millers and that type of player.”

Not that first-round edge-rusher Gregory Rousseau from Miami, or second-round edge-rusher Carlos “Boogie” Basham from Wake Forest project to be Von Miller in his prime anytime soon, but they both bring interesting athletic potential to the Bills’ defense, accentuated as it now needs to be with technical refinement.

Rousseau, selected with the 30th overall pick, opted out of the 2020 season, but his 2019 campaign, in which he played 405 snaps at end, 28 over the tackles, 18 in the B-gap and 74 in the A-gap, totaling 15.5 sacks, 19.5 tackles for loss, six quarterback hits, and 24 quarterback hurries, spoke rather loudly on his behalf. As productive as Rousseau was in 2019, though, there’s work to be done, and Beane is well aware of that.

“The thing about Greg is a lot of his sack production came from the inside,” Beane said after the pick. “I mean, they played him all over. They played him in the zero [head up on the center]. They played him on the edge. They played him in the three-technique (outside shade of the guard), so we see him starting on the edge, but in pass rush situations you’ll see him reduced down and rush from the inside.