Opportunities await for rotation of Bills defensive ends

The Bills will be without Von Miller (ACL surgery) for the rest of the season, head coach Sean McDermott stated on Wednesday.

Von Miller was brought in to Buffalo to be the final piece to push the Bills to a Super Bowl, and he was paid handsomely to do so. Now, he will rehab and rest until at least early next season. Without Von last year, the Bills were arguably 13 seconds away from making a Super Bowl run. Now, they find themselves back in a similar position.

The Bills have used early draft stock on defensive ends recently. Since 2020, they have selected one defensive end in the first round (Greg Rousseau) and two defensive ends in the second round (AJ Epenesa and Boogie Basham). Those three, along with the recently reacquired Shaq Lawson, have a huge opportunity in front of them. And, instead of being on the field, Miller will be in the ears of this group, guiding them for the rest of this season.

Rousseau, Epenesa, and Basham all attended the Von Miller Pass Rush Summit this offseason, and now they’ll put those skills to the test. Before the season, Miller was quoted as saying he was feeding Greg Rousseau “gasoline and gunpowder” when asked about how he was mentoring the 6’7”, 270-pound University of Miami product. Now, with Miller out, a lot of the attention at the defense end position shifts to Rousseau.

“We’re all ready for the opportunity to step up,” Rousseau said on the news of Miller’s ACL, via Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN. “It’s unfortunate… it’s tough when you lose a really good player like Von, but we got a lot of guys in the room and we all just need to step up.”

Miller is the Bills’ highest-graded edge defender, according to PFF, with a grade of 85.8, good for seventh in the NFL at the position. Trailing not far behind on the list is Rousseau, who is ranked 14th among NFL edge defenders with a PFF grade of 82.3. More specifically, Rousseau’s pass rush grade (82.6) ranks 9th in the NFL among edge defenders. He has 5 sacks on the season and they all came over the first seven games. In his eighth game (at Jets) he went down with the ankle injury and missed the next three games. His first game back was last week, where he played in 34% of snaps against the Patriots, right around his average so far this year. Without Miller, we should expect that snap percentage to go up, even in the heavy d-line rotation which McDermott favors.

It would also be nice to see second round picks Epenesa and Basham continue to build on their confidence. Basham, selected the round after Rousseau in 2021 out of Wake Forest, has shown flashes of ability this year. His 67.1 PFF defense grade ranks 53rd out of 122 edge defenders, and his 70.5 pass rush grade is 38th out of 112. Basham has just two sacks on the season, but has generated 16 pressures and batted two passes down. His best game was in the opening night win over the Rams where he had a sack and an interception. He also added a sack in the Vikings game.

Epenesa, the third-year University of Iowa product, has a PFF pass rush grade of 69.0, which ranks 41st in the NFL out of 112 edge rushers. Like Basham, he has shown flashes this year. His snap percentage has been all over the place this season. He played a career-high 50% of snaps against the Vikings in Week 10 but he has also been limited in snaps at times, and has missed time due to an ankle injury. Along with 4.5 sacks so far this year (already a career-high), he also has a forced fumble and a fumble recovery under his belt.

Epenesa, along with Rousseau, should benefit from having more time to heal as the Bills schedule experiences more normalcy. Having ten days to prepare for this week’s game probably seems like a lifetime after three road games in 12 days.

Shaq Lawson, with 1.5 sacks on the year, will be the fourth rotational man. Lawson has given the d-line some attitude as he has returned to the team who drafted him in the first round in 2016 and to the head coach who inherited him in 2017. Lawson has shown in recent weeks that he has something left in the tank. He had to fill in as Epenesa and Rousseau worked back from injury, and he’s looked good in spots and made a couple big plays.

Welp, the Von Miller injury now marks two years in a row that the Bills have lost arguably their best defensive player for the season on Thanksgiving Day. But if you’re the Bills, all you can do is roll with the punches, as big as some of the punches may be. The organization has emphasized defense early in the draft in just about every year under Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane, and that has set them up to be able to overcome the loss of star players like Tre White, Micah Hyde, and now Von Miller.  And that’s not to mention that Poyer, Edmunds, and Milano have been banged up as well.

Rousseau, Epenesa, Basham and Lawson are ready to chip in and step up, and they know they have tremendous support behind them and in between them. Edmunds and Milano are perhaps the best LB duo in the NFL, White and Poyer will be buzzing around on the back end, and they have a ton of beef on the interior of the line with Ed Oliver and three new free agent acquisitions at DT.

The Von Miller signing was huge for Buffalo and it was supposed to be the final cherry on top of a Super Bowl run. But, the truth is that Buffalo can still win it all. They were the Super Bowl favorites before landing Von Miller and they are still the betting odds favorite to win the Super Bowl after the injury at +350 (Chiefs and Eagles tied for second best odds at +500).