BUFFALO, N.Y. -- The Buffalo Bills may be early favorites to reach the Super Bowl LVII -- Caesars Sportsbook gives them 7-1 odds -- but there’s plenty of work still to do, including potential extensions for the likes of wide receiver Stefon Diggs, restructuring contracts, and drafting new players.
One of the hot button topics surrounds the future of linebacker Tremaine Edmunds.
The Bills picked up the fifth-year option on the 16th overall pick in the 2018 draft, and Edmunds is guaranteed $12.7 million in 2022. Edmunds wears the green dot on his helmet, so he's responsible for relaying coaches' signals to teammates and plays a key role in coordinator Leslie Frazier’s defense as the middle linebacker alongside Matt Milano, who signed a four-year, $41.5 million contract last offseason to return to the team in free agency.
As of now, the Bills will be investing $34.6 million in the linebacker position in 2022, per Spotrac, while the league average is $25.8 million.
In the past, general manager Brandon Beane has gotten ahead of expiring deals, extending developing players like Edmunds before their contracts are up. His peak may be years away -- although he already has four years of NFL experience, Edmunds won't turn 24 until May.
The question the Bills must answer is whether they want to invest further in Edmunds.
“I think [Edmunds] has improved a little bit each year to where he's at,” Beane said at the end of the season. “He'll be the first to tell you though, there's plays that he wants back that, 'Man, I should have seen that quicker or I should have reacted quicker. I should have been more physical, I should have gotten my eyes around to find the receiver in whatever pass play it was.'
"But he helps us in a lot of ways that sometimes don't necessarily get picked up by Joe fan or whoever.”
To Beane’s point, Edmunds’ 2021 season does not jump off the page statistically. Playing in 15 games (two missed due to injury), he had the fewest total tackles of his career (108), with seven tackles for loss and four passes defensed (second fewest of his career).
“Interesting guy (Edmunds) because they don't use him in coverage very much. He'll cover backs at times, but he rarely covers was tight ends, because Milano does that or if Milano blitzes, they have one of the safeties do that,” Greg Cosell of NFL Films, an analyst on ESPN's NFL Matchup, said. “Edmunds rarely matches up man-to-man to tight ends, which is kind of interesting in and of itself, given his length and his athleticism. … It just strikes me as odd given the athletic traits. I think he's a good player. My sense is he's not a dominant player.”
Not everything Edmunds did to help the league’s No. 1 defense will show up on the stat sheet. That’s partly the nature of his position. When compared to quarterback Josh Allen, who communicates the playcalls on the other side of the ball, Edmunds’ leadership style is quieter, choosing to lead more by example. Edmunds was a team captain in 2021 and has improved in his leadership and speaking up over the course of his career.
But the challenge for the linebacker going into his fourth season was to create more game-changing plays.
“To take that next step, I mean, he would tell you just like I would, he would like to get his hands on more balls, get some fumbles, some forced fumbles, maybe some interceptions, just those splash plays,” Frazier said before the season began. “... Being able to make those splash plays, that would take him to him to another level.”
He fell short of that goal. Edmunds finished the year with one interception (he had a career-high of two his rookie year) and zero sacks, a first in his career. He did not record a forced fumble or have a fumble recovery.
The Bills are just $3 million under the salary cap so they have work to do to create more space. While they are not expected to be big spenders in free agency, they will still add to the roster. Edmunds has the team's fourth-biggest 2022 cap hit behind Diggs, cornerback Tre'Davious White and Allen. Diggs is a candidate for an extension and White's deal could be restructured as he rehabs from a torn ACL.
The middle linebacker market was reset last offseason when Darius Leonard and Fred Warner -- two linebackers selected outside of the first round in 2018 -- received extensions averaging over $19 million per year. A deal for Edmunds wouldn’t get near that territory, but he will be looking to be paid appropriately.
“[The role of the linebackers in the Bills defense is] critical, because they play nickel on every snap,” Cosell said. “The two linebackers are absolutely critical, and you can make the argument that Milano and Edmunds together are among the best nickel duo in the league.”
Should the Bills be tying themselves to Edmunds for the foreseeable future? He’s likely to get paid somewhere else if they were to let him walk in 2023. Last season, New York Jets coach Robert Saleh described Edmunds as a “unicorn in the linebacker world” thanks to his combination of speed, length and range.
"The amount of space he takes away just by his mere presence in the middle of the field is unlike anything that’s been seen in a very long time," Saleh said of Edmunds. "I think [Brian] Urlacher would probably be one of those guys."
If not Edmunds, the team would need to invest in the position for the future. Finding a suitable middle linebacker for the long term is no easy task. Extending Edmunds for a couple more years to lessen this season's cap hit and allow him to continue to improve might be the most logical next step.
“Still a lot more I can learn from," Edmunds said at the end of the season. "Still a lot I can do as far as getting better, as far as developing, as far as just everything in general."