Bills pick up Ed Oliver’s fifth-year option

YEEEEHAAWWWWWW!!!

One of the most important pieces of the Bills’ elite defense is now locked in until the end of the 2023-2024 season. Defensive tackle Ed Oliver had his 5th year option picked up by the Buffalo Bills which keeps him next season for $10.75 million.

Before we can talk about the impact Ed Oliver is making on the Bills in today’s time, we first need to look back at his time heading into the NFL Draft and what all the experts were saying about the future Buffalo Bill.

The common thread of quotes from the media were praises like: “Ed Oliver is a 100% effort guy with exceptional 1st step quickness and burst”; “Plays with outstanding leverage on a snap-to-snap basis”; “Absurd range for a defensive tackle”; “Loves to scrap and won’t back down physically.”

With all these glowing reviews of his game and the tape showing he is an elite level prospect, why is it he fell to the Buffalo Bills at pick #9 in the 2019 Draft? Combined with a small off the field issue and drama with the Houston Cougars coaching staff during his final season with them, it led to his draft stock taking a slight hit from being a top-5 pick to falling in Buffalo’s lap.

The thing about Ed Oliver is that he wasn’t afraid to admit he had a lot to learn about his position at the professional level. In other words, he was ready to buy into ‘The Process.’ The second that training camp began, former Buffalo Bills DT Kyle Williams got right into mentoring him to help him become the player we all knew he could become. Oliver was open to the chance to learn the ins and outs of the professional game, new techniques, and how to best affect the line in both pass rushing and run stopping.

Oliver made an instant impact in his rookie campaign, helping the Bills get back to the playoffs as a wild card team who ended up losing to the Houston Texans. Throughout that season in 2019, Ed Oliver was making play after play every week. He shined the brightest on the national stage on Thanksgiving against the Dallas Cowboys where he had two sacks, a forced fumble, a pass breakup, and four tackles. When it mattered most, the Bills knew they could count on him even from the beginning of his career.

Jump forward to present day, and Oliver has been a stalwart on one of the top defenses in the league for the past 3 seasons. He hasn’t missed the playoffs during his career so far in Buffalo. Through 49 career games, “Big Ed” has 12 sacks, 117 total tackles, and 28 QB hits. This has all been without a consistent big man next to him. Fellow DT Star Lotulelei was constantly missing time and they didn’t have a dominant edge rusher. Now, with the addition of Von Miller, combined with 2nd-year DE Gregory Rousseau on the outside, along with new DTs in Tim Settle and Daquan Jones, Oliver has all the help he needs to take his game to another level. With all that in mind it makes way too much sense to have opted into the 5th-year option to keep him around an extra year at a cost-controllable rate before having to pony up a long-term contract extension.

All things considered, Bills Mafia should be ecstatic to have Ed Oliver around long term. Not only is he a dominant force along the line that opposing offensive lines are beginning to fear, he is also becoming a leader in the locker room and someone for the newcomers to look to to help guide them with the Leslie Frazier/Sean Mcdermott defense. Oliver is here to stay through 2024 and Bills fans should hope it’s even longer than that, as he and his agent have even more time to work with the Bills on a long-term extension.