{"id":167142,"date":"2024-03-23T12:34:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-23T16:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=167142"},"modified":"2024-03-23T12:34:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-23T16:34:17","slug":"bills-sign-mike-edwards-is-safety-still-an-nfl-draft-need","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/03\/23\/bills-sign-mike-edwards-is-safety-still-an-nfl-draft-need\/","title":{"rendered":"Bills Sign Mike Edwards \u2013 Is Safety Still An NFL Draft Need?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Buffalo Bills entered free agency with a glaring need at safety, and have turned to the veteran market to find what appears to be one of their starters in 2024 by signing Mike Edwards.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Buffalo Will Have A New Safety Duo<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Having stability in the defensive backfield is something that few teams across the NFL have had in recent years, but Buffalo has been one of the few that has. <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/03\/12\/jordan-poyer-signs-contract-miami-dolphins\/\" target=\"_self\">Jordan Poyer<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2024\/03\/07\/jordan-poyer-free-agent-next-teams\/\" target=\"_self\">Micah Hyde<\/a> both came to Buffalo in 2017 and have anchored the back end for the Bills since, proving to be one of the best safety duos in the league.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That era is gone \u2013 Micah Hyde wasn\u2019t re-signed in free agency, and the Bills made the bold cap-saving move to release Jordan Poyer, who has now signed with the Miami Dolphins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moving on from those two will be a challenge for the Bills to overcome. Their chemistry anchoring the split safety defense of Sean McDermott provided great stability to the defense when they were on the field. Now, it\u2019ll be up to Mike Edwards and Taylor Rapp to take the reins.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">A new face on defense! \ud83d\ude01<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve signed S Mike Edwards to a one-year deal: <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/6CiQEcXQYe\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">https:\/\/t.co\/6CiQEcXQYe<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/C2nJAF24tG\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/C2nJAF24tG<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BuffaloBills\/status\/1770532013331611718?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">March 20, 2024<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Mike Edwards Fills The Role Of A Split Safety<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edwards will fit in nicely in the McDermott defense, having played as a box defender, a slot corner, and primarily as a free safety. He has positional flexibility to move around the defensive alignment, while primarily anchoring the ranging free-safety position.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Since 2021, Edwards is tied for the second-most defensive touchdowns in the NFL with four and has picked off opposing quarterbacks eight times in his career.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Should The Bills Still Draft A Safety In The 2024 NFL Draft?<\/span><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Edwards and Rapp provide the Bills with a good safety tandem heading into 2024, but with Edwards only on a one-year deal entering his age-28 season, the Bills should still look to add youth to the position group.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What the Edwards signing does provide, however, is the ability to be patient. Brandon Beane won\u2019t be walking into the 2024 NFL Draft knowing that safety is a glaring need, meaning he won\u2019t feel added pressure to potentially reach on a prospect above where they feel comfortable selecting him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">If Buffalo sees a safety as the best pick at 28th overall, then so be it, but they now find themselves in a position where they are more able to simply take the best player available.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Image: Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Buffalo Bills entered free agency with a glaring need at safety, and have turned to the veteran market to find what appears to be one of their starters in 2024 by signing Mike Edwards.\u00a0 Buffalo Will Have A New Safety Duo Having stability in the defensive backfield is something that few teams across the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5077,"featured_media":167180,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3,36],"tags":[10073,177,32434],"class_list":["post-167142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bills","category-nfl-news","tag-2024-nfl-draft","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-mike-edwards"],"modified_by":"Drew Crabtree","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167142","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5077"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}