Deone Walker

They have Ed Oliver back.

Dion Walker was really good last year.

But I just think David Montgomery is gonna get...

I think he could basically do what Rhamondre Stevenson did on Wednesday night, where, yeah, maybe it's not the most efficient rushing performance, but if you're getting 23 touches and you're catching a couple balls out of the backfield and, and if you score a touchdown, I mean, you're gonna be a low-end RB1 almost guaranteed.

Shout out Newt Weston with the Riley Mills love, but...

I think if you can get them into a pass-first option or a pass-heavy option, it's going to be a situation where you're going to have guys like Ed Oliver and Dion Walker who work much better as pass-rushing interior defense linemen than run-stuffing.

They can definitely be able to feast.

And then you talk about the edge rushers who they have a deep class of them on their D-line between Michael Hoy coming off the bench, Greg Rousseau, Bradley Chubb.

But, um, I think Leonard's gonna be a little more intentional about getting guys in spots, like he mentioned, where the offense is gonna have to find them.

So using Ed Oliver and Dion Walker's penetration skills, uh, to get in the right spots.

And, and, you know, sometimes those are gonna hit.

You saw the first play, Dion Walker in the Carolina game just came out and absolutely wrecked the play.

But I think it was actually two of the first three or something like that, Dion Walker did that against Carolina, and that's sort of the thing you're looking for is a continuous downhill motor from the front and then, uh, you know, solid on the back end.

So we'll see, uh, both linebackers can come downhill in Elarms Orre and Dorian Williams from that spot.

So, and then you have super athletic, uh, Tre'Von Ard, so we'll see if he's fully back and able to fly around in coverage there.

I think the, you kinda hit it on the head as far as the question here in the outline, let's say, is that, you know, the Bill's gotta, are gonna be tested to shut down David Montgomery.

He should be that good.

But does this coaching staff, Jim Leonard and the likes – are they able to develop these young defensive players into stars? Like is Dion Walker going to be a star is, you know, IGB eventually going to be a star is Maxwell Hairston going to be a star is Cole Bishop going to be like, I, like I said earlier.

And that to me is when you look at the bills top one, or you look at the NFL top 100, and I know it's a player's poll and a lot of people don't care.

And they, they take that with a grain of salt, but, The Bills typically don't ever have very many players on there, which to me says that that's peer versus peer, right? So this year you had Dawkins, Josh Allen, and James Cook, which I think was the guys that were on there last year, was the same three, right? And I'm not saying it matters if we have top 100 players, but what stars do the Bills have? because when you look at all these executive polls and all this stuff that comes out, like there's no bills on there anywhere except Josh Allen, maybe James Cook and some honorable mention guys like Dion Dawkins.

Get after Bryce Underwood, but then at the same time, show that discipline as a rusher that you don't give him easy access – to climb the pocket and get out right get out the side door and now that's a really good that's a really good athlete at quarterback he can easily run for a first down so be able to rush but rush under control and like you said if they throw double teams your way i'm not asking you to um park the red sea like jordan davis but at least don't just don't let them blow you off the ball right and everything like that's gonna be yeah we for him

What's our guy DP that came from Kentucky Walker? Dion Walker.

Don't Dion Walker.

Right.

Like, you know, battle, battle, battle, battle, show up, you know, fight back, be in the trenches.

We'll see if he does anything through the air.

But ultimately, I'm looking at shutting down the run game, especially between the tackles, especially the Ed Oliver, the TJ Sanders, and Dion Walker.

What can they do? Is Greg Gaines part of the mix? Can we shut down the run and can we shut down Nico Collins?

Can we do that? Indeed.

And so I look at this defensive line and I see Dion Walker.

He's going to be going up against a rookie center.

And so I see Bradley Chubb, who is going up against Trent Brown.

if I had to bet what he's going to do, it's honestly a similar approach to run defense that McDermott had in the back half of last year, which is we're going to blitz our way into being a good run defending team, right? They started bringing nickels and safeties off the edge last year, just to, just to get bodies in the backfield.

Now, if we operate under the premise that Dion Walker is, is like a gem of a player who's gonna completely transform the interior defensive line of the Bills, then they won't have to do that.

I'm not yet convinced that Deion Walker Is that guy now doesn't mean it can't be.

I don't think he's there yet.

And I still feel like the bills interior defensive line is vulnerable because Dion Walker hasn't turned into just larger Chris Jones yet.

So I think they're going to have to blitz their way into being a sound run defense again.

And that then leads to, OK, well, how do the Texans respond? Because if they're just getting DBs off the edge over and over and over again and they're just pressuring their way into being a run defense, how do we attack that? So do we get the screen game going? You know, are they just going to be throwing hot over and over? Like there's answers here, but I'm curious to see a does Jim feel like he has to blitz his way into stopping the run again? And B, how does how do the Texans respond to those blitzes? Because honestly, Jim's going to blitz regardless.

technique.

And also Shaq Thompson, a candidate to overcome one of those players in the starting lineup as well.

At defensive tackle, Greg Gaines was listed as Dion Walker's backup over Dwayne Carter.

And that's somewhat of a surprise as Carter was A former third round pick of the Bills and somebody that gained weight this offseason trying to force his way into the conversation as a depth piece at nose tackle.

But Gaines signed by the team in free agency and really impressed in limited time on the field during camp.