How Ed Oliver, Terrel Bernard & Taron Johnson unlock defensive playmaking upside for Buffalo Bills

earlier this week we got a players perspective on the bills defensive outlook for 2024 this time we're going to hear from the coaching and analytic perspective today on lock down [Music] bills you are locked on bills your daily Buffalo Bills podcast part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day what's up Bill Mafia H Joe Marino author of go bills and Buffalo's run also the co-host of the locked on NFL scouting podcast and I'm your host of lockon bills want to thank you for making lockon bills your first listen every day and a big welcome and shout out to our every dayers you know who you are those of you who never miss a single episode I appreciate yall being here very very much I'd also like to invite you to subscribe or follow for free on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts we're part of the locked on podcast Network your team every day today's episode is brought to you by FanDuel now through September 22nd all FanDuel customers can bet $5 and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday Ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV just visit fanduel.com locked on to get started I'm joined Now by Cody Alexander who is one of my favorite football people to learn from those are the people I like to talk to people that I learn from and I always do that when I get a chance to speak with Cody or read his work in fact Cody was on last year when the bills were getting ready to face the Miami Dolphins he gave us a ton of insight on perhaps what the Bills should do in that game and wound up working out quite well for Buffalo and uh look Cody's work on defensive scheme is unmatch and I'm really excited to get his perspective on the bills defense in 2024 in fact he recently dropped his preview article of the bills defense that is included in today's show notes that you can check out Cody thanks for being here thanks for having me on really appreciate it and you've really kind of done some interesting things recently in the space introducing Havoc ratings and that's a big part of the way that you're going about these previews for each team's defense and so as we're about to get into some of your thoughts in the bills defense why don't you fill us in on what Havoc ratings are yeah I really wanted to come up with a better way of evaluating player production I think we can all you know the eye test is so objective and we don't really necessarily have a really good way of like actually raing players against it so what we're doing at field Vision which is a Predictive Analytics company we're using play-by-play data to really look at what are actual plays worth what are the things that are happening in those plays actually worth in terms of like some sort of a point value and then being able to cut things play bypl so that we can actually look at the true production of players it's also scheme biased so if for instance if you're not running a lot of cover one uh then you're not going to be real high up on the list of cover one and so what ends up happening though is by formulating that and putting this all together we can then actually look Apples to Apples across the NFL of like how teams are built and not only that but how players are producing so it gives us just a more intuitive way than just a generic uh you know oh this guy's 90 you know Madden rating or uh kind of like what PFF does with their with their rating system this is more intuitive it's actually off of like machine learning and Ai and built off of what they're actually doing on the field how satisfied are you with the conclusions that it's coming to and how things have played out yeah I think it the way that we we did this um I've been working with a guy Jackson who he's the one that kind of built this built this system not a data guy I'm more of the bus driver I'm making sure that the numbers are actually correlating to what's happening on film and I'm really excited about this because I think it's completely different to deal with like like NFL pro just came out uh they can't do like the NFL is not going to do like anything predictive and they're not going to do player ratings or anything like that so really the only thing that we have out there are these PFF grades and so I wanted to create something that was a little bit more intuitive that's actually built off of the play-by-play data and what we're actually getting from these players in I'm I'm really ecstatic about how it how it turned out all right so if anybody wants to learn more about this again in today's show notes you'll be able to find a link to Cody's work where you can see a whole lot of information on this and of course the bills defensive preview which we're going to get into right now and one of the things that you wrote in the article was you described the edge pairing of Greg rouso and AJ Essa as The New Normal in Buffalo and so I'm curious let's start there I'm I'm a big I love defensive ends I love defensive line play so I always got to start there what's your outlook for those players in 2024 yeah I think that this is a good pairing and I think it's a pairing that now that they're getting full-time usage they're not having to look over their shoulder and think okay you know I'm getting subbed out right here these are the guys that are going to be playing on a normal down basis so I think their production is going to get up you know rouso is really good uh in the past rush along with epinesa now the thing that epinesa needs to work on his run stopping ability that's kind of been where he's he really needs to progress in that but in terms of like a a a total package at Edge that's where really Russo gets you and I'm I'm excited to see his growth going forward with the bills yeah a couple of players that are young draft picks and feels like their best football might still be ahead of them even though AJ pessa just signed a second contract Greg rouso entering his fourth season I think there's a lot of ceiling for those guys to develop into now the player in this Edge mix that's really fascinating is Von Miller and boy it's tough to kind of figure out what to expect from him of course when the Bill signed him for those first 11 games before he got hurt with a torn ACL I mean he was everything they could have dreamed of and then of course since then it's been a tough road back from the ACL obviously nowhere near what you would expect from Von Miller last year and so you're hopeful that two years removed from the injury that you get a better version of V but he's also 35 so how are you calibrating expectations for Von Miller in 2024 I think he's going to be more of a package guy he's going to come on third down he's going to have one thing that he's going to do and that's going to be rushing the quarterback I think if you use him as an every down player you're just increasing that you know risk of reinjuring or just the production is not going to be there with what you want but I think if you keep him with hey kind of almost like like a pitch count if you keep a pitch count with him you package things where hey we're going to match you up in certain situations where we think we're going to get advantageous maybe we can manipulate a way to get you on a running back or we like this matchup with you Mo maybe even moving one it really what it does is it unlocks you to move one of like FNS or so inside on a guard and letting kind of Von Miller sit on that outside edge and just go go get the quarterback I think that to me is where you can gain a lot of production from him yeah I think that's a a good layer to the bills defensive end situation in general because between rouso epinesa and Dean smoo who I think will be the four any one of those guys you can reduce inside and then bring in Von Miller and I think you put everybody in a good position to maximize their skill sets and get your best four rushers on the field so I I am I do think that's certainly got to be part of the plan with Von Miller is being selective with him to get the most out of what's left in the tank now one player I'm I'm guessing did quite well with with the Havoc ratings is is that Oliver had that big breakout season uh for the bills last year after you know of course a top 10 pick and waiting for the big splashy play to really come they came last year so I'm curious like what do the ratings say and is there more to unlock with him and then just kind of some general thoughts on that pairing with him and dayquon Jones yeah so he actually was a top 10 interior defensive lineman for us last year in havoc in Havoc rating he was a 17 against a run and then he was a top 10 pass rusher and I think that's really what's going to be the key in this defense is is can you get those young guys one-on ones by requiring double teams on Oliver and so what that's going to open up is for a guy like dayquon Jones who is also kind of an above average pass rusher so this defense is set up like you typically see in these less aggressive and by that I mean uh Blitz rates are going to be relatively low with the bills the Jets are built in a similar fashion the the 49ers are built in a similar fashion of where we really want that defensive line Cleveland's another great example of like we really want that defensive line getting after the quarterback being pass rush and kind of holding Gap and Integrity on top of that and letting our athletic linebackers really kind of run and hit and this is this is with Ed aliver and and if he can continue the production that he has I mean we're talking about a top 10 interior defensive lineman which just unlocks a lot of things for especially when you have uh edges that are kind of just coming into their own yeah I think one of the underrated components of like defensive line play that I don't think gets enough credit is the collaboration of four guys working together and it was interesting I was I was list listening to I think it was Chris long and Chris long was asked a question he said would you rather play with another Dynamic Edge rusher or a really good inside pass rusher he said give me the inside pass rusher all day long the other Edge is great but that person next to you that can create issues as well that's going to free up one-on ones and and that's what that's what this is all about can you get one-on-one battles and can you win and I feel like to your point there Ed Oliver's kind of that piece that maybe draws a little bit of extra attention to make sure that the rest of the Rush gets the one-on-one match up so they'll be in position to win yeah and really what ends up happening is like especially if you set um Oliver at a three technique you're going to get the slide that way so the center's going to go that way just to ensure that they're going to do that to you know make sure that they have an extra hat over there which is going to open up a one-on-one for your nose so there's a guy like dayquon Jones who's already an above average pass rusher now he's gaining a one-on-one and then it also just kind of gives you now another one-on-one away from that to the no side so so you're really stealing a lot uh it's a simple math game right because we have four they have five if we can pull one of those away to create some sort of a double team now we've kind of Amplified our rush and we've got one-on ones in different areas so yes and and if you look at what happened in this off season a lot of these guys inside got paid and so I think we're seeing the NFL kind of Market adjustment of saying hey we probably need to start paying these inside guys that are really Dynamic and that are good against the run and the pass not just guys that are kind of you know pluggers and holding on to those double teams yeah the defensive tackle Market experienced a major boost and and what's funny is that Oliver got paid but he was on the low end of a lot of those New Deals and I think the bills got one heck of a deal assuming Oliver continues at the rate that we saw in 2023 this episode is sponsored by better help when your schedule is packed with kids activities big work projects and more it's easy to let your priorities slip even when we know what makes us happy it's hard to make time for it but when you feel like you have no time for yourself non-negotiables like therapy are more important than ever if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule all you do is fill out a brief questionnaire that'll get you match with a licensed therapist you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge never skip therapy day with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com lockon today to get 10% off your first month that's betterhelp hp.com lockon now the talk of this defense right now is linebackers uh for good and bad reasons the good reason is Terrell Bernard and what he showed last year again I'm curious to kind of see where he fell in with the Havoc I'm guessing pretty good but Matt Milano uh Gonna Miss probably you almost all of the season if he's able to come back late we'll find out but Matt Milano obviously one of the better linebackers in the NFL and of course the bills didn't have him for most of last season so unfortunately they're kind of getting used to playing defense without Matt Milano so I guess two parts of the question first is Terrell Bernard and then secondly the replacement option appears to be Dorian Williams what can you give us on Dorian Williams uh in terms of your Insight on him being a sufficient replacement yeah so Terrell Bernard was right outside of the top 10 last year he's one of the better coverage linebackers and he's really good even at man coverage even though the bills don't necessarily run a ton of man so this is somebody that comes from a relatively complex defense in what the what he was doing at Baylor um he's used to kind of being that off ball backer in front of a line and kind of that run and hit mode of I've got a primary Gap where's my secondary Gap so with me I really like trell Bernard he's a really intuitive player he's a coverage linebacker he's built in a very athletic mode and he can really run now with Dorian Williams the one thing that really stands out with him is again he's kind of built in the same mode as trell Bernard he's really good at man coverage didn't have a lot of snaps so his ratings obviously not high for us but he gives you that ability in the few snaps that he have of hey this guy can really add to value in the coverage department and really allow you to do that you know the other thing with trell Bernard is that he was he's really good pass rusher so and and a Blitzer so that gives you now and what we're seeing too in the NFL is you're building tandems that one guy is more of your off ball guy that's really just going to stay off the ball he's going to be stay at that second level whether it be coverage or just fit you know just fitting off its Gap and then you have another guy where you really want them to be the pass rush specialist in their Blitzer and so that's where you have Bernard and Williams and I will just say this one person to to keep an eye on is Nicholas Moro he was above average linebacker last year he's somebody that doesn't necessarily add a lot of value in the coverage game but he can add value in the Run game so maybe you we see a little bit more of a 4-3 um I know that this has been a pure almost kind of like what the Cowboys were where they were just pure we're only running nickel we don't have a three linebacker set but that's something to look forward to as more teams start using more 12 Personnel well an interesting piece of that conversation about three linebackers has been well Taran Johnson's here and Taran Johnson obviously second team All Pro in 2023 one of the best slot defenders in the entire NFL I'm curious from you what what makes him so important for this bill's defense yeah well if you're going to be a nickel-based defense the the two fulcrums of this are going to be your nickel position and then they're going to be that boundary safety or that free safety is what a lot of these NFL guys call it so having a nickel that can play in the box and can play in coverage especially one that is a little bit more of a corner that is really what you want that's kind of like that's the the crown jewel of slots it's one thing to be able to have three safeties and put a safety down there that can kind of play that in a 12 Personnel but they're really they're really guarding more of a tight end well what do you do when you know we get these teams that are now 12 Personnel but they have a tight end the flex tight end and it's really 11 personnel and you you start playing with these teams in these Concepts and they have to be able to cover and Taran Johnson really if you just look at it just in terms of just how he performs I mean he's a top 10 Corner in the NFL even though he's a primary slot guy he's really really good and one of the best slots in the NFL so one of the interesting Dynamics about how the NFL is evolving is I think you're seeing more offenses use bigger people right more 12 Personnel 13 I mean the Chiefs Chiefs game out in 13 Personnel during the playoffs right and that created some problems for a lot of teams you're seeing more two back stuff a lot of this is influenced by this the Shanahan tree for a bills defense that is typically static with back seven person personel how do you kind of thread this needle knowing that you're don't want to take teron Johnson off the field right that's not part of your plan that's not going to get your best players on the field do the Bills need to get creative with how they combat some of these bigger Personnel offenses you know one of the things that they could easily transition into and that is becoming more popular with four down teams is getting to these fiveman front reductions meaning that they're going to shift one guy inside they're going to walk a guy down so this is a situation where you could see maybe a guy like uh Bernard even though he's kind of a smaller body but like walking down on the edge you could even use a guy like Moro or Dorian Williams where hey we're just going to shift you down into a glorified nine technique and then you really just got to hold the edge and what that does is it gives you a fiveman front so you're kind of gapping out that front and you're you're combating kind of that nature of the 12 Personnel look but you're not having to work you know you're not having to take Taran Johnson out because that's kind of the key is you don't want to move outside like we're seeing what the Chiefs do with McDuffy they're kicking him outside mccary's another good slot that you see the Titans kick him outside uh when they go into these base personnels you know Buffalo really doesn't want to run with a three linebacker qut they don't want to run from a 4-3 so how do you get into that you can get into what they're called Penny looks so it's a fiveman front with a solo backer in the back you know the thing with Johnson is he is so good near the line of scrimmage uh you know he's almost like and the Really his only comparison is like a Brian Branch who really is a safety I mean we're seeing this with the Lions they're kicking him back in base so for a corner playing run support he's one of the top people that are doing it he's not afraid to mix it up and really with a fiveman front you can do a lot of different things to cover him up and that's probably what they're doing is even if you get into a Personnel he's going to be mainly towards the strength and setting the front to him that way he's kind of gapped out and you're not asking him to ever be in an a gap that's fun that's an interesting idea I'm I'm going to be paying attention to that throughout the course of the season and see if the bills lean into some of those Penny fronts when you're hiring for your small business you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role that's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs LinkedIn jobs has the tools to help you find the right Professionals for your team faster and for free LinkedIn isn't just another job board LinkedIn helps you hire professionals that you can't find anywhere else even those who aren't actively searching for a new job but might be open to the perfect role in a given month over 70% of LinkedIn users don't even visit other leading job sites so if you're not looking on LinkedIn you're looking in the wrong place on LinkedIn 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours and over two and a half million small businesses use LinkedIn for hiring so hire professionals like a professional on LinkedIn post your job for free at linkedin.com lockon NFL that's linkedin.com lockon NFL to post your job for free terms and conditions apply now one of the Staples of the bills defense it's been really good under Shawn mcder has been the safety tandem of Micah Hyde and Jordan puyer and those guys are no longer in the mix Taylor W now kind of the guy at safety and then between Demar Hamlin Cole Bishop Mike Edwards that's kind of your group to replace them so my question here is how difficult of a transition do you expect this to be like do you think there's going to be growing pains I know that Hyde and puyer were not themselves last two years but their presence I think meant something to this defense at least from you know a communication standpoint making sure you guys are lined up their their knowledge of the scheme their knowledge of what mcder wants to do is so good I think that helps Elevate everybody else how big is this transition I think it's G to be this is the one thing that kind of worries you about the bills is this safety play um I think corner and at the slot I think you're pretty much set I think everybody feels really really good about what they are but that communication piece that comes from the safety you've got three guys that are pretty much all stacked together ratings wise they're they're kind of like you know out of 64 starting safeties all of them are right there at that bottom like right there at 58 through 60 um you know nothing necessarily stands out in a coverage aspect you know I do think rap has had experience starting he's probably the most seasoned one Hamlin has really kind of been more of a special teamer Cole Bishop getting hurt at a rookie and then missing all of camp and doing those things you know you can sit in a room you can kind of go through walkthroughs but in terms of actual playing and getting on that you know they really they drafted him to be a starter probably next to rap and now he's hurt he's not been able to play so I think that that's going to be a little bit of a lag this is a group though that can kind of grow over the season uh and maybe we look up at the end of the year and Cole Bishop is starting rap is basically a serviceable you know serviceable starter these are things that I think next year that are going to have to be adjusted but right now these are going to give you kind of a right around the average of what an NFL starting safety is going to look like now you mentioned a lot of comfort in the Bill's Corner situation of course which includes Taran Johnson but the outside Duo of rul Douglas and Christian Benford kind of curious to get your your takes on these guys especially kind of a young guy and Christian Benford who I think is got a chance to be really good in this league yeah the thing is is they they've really got some of the best Zone Corners uh in the NFL and I think with Rosell Douglas you're talking about one of the if not the best I charvarius Ward is a little bit ahead of him but he we're talking like one a and 1B in terms of Zone Corners the bills don't really want to run man at a high volume um that's one way to help the safety situation and that might be something that they can't they can kind of do especially if we can get you know elim uh to kind of step up and play a little bit more like he did he is a first round draft pick play a little bit more like he did in the SEC especially as an on ball corner but when you really look at this group this is a group that um are pretty much all going to be in the top 25 in terms of coverage and they are definitely going to be some of the best in terms of Zone coverage so what again this is part of that Havoc rating that we have at field vision is it really formulates how well they are they don't have to be good in man because they don't run a lot but man when they run Zone which is what the builds do they're some of the best in the NFL now when I think of the best defenses in the NFL and what what's important I think it's that ability to create negative plays can you get Negative plays can you get turnovers um these offenses are really good and I think you got to find ways to get them off schedule get them behind the sticks and I think negative plays and turnovers obviously accomplish that how do you feel this bill's team is set up as a defense to create those negative plays yeah so they run they're the third most Middlefield open team in the NFL I think right behind the Cardinals and the Chiefs so in order to do that you've got to really have that front four that's really taking up some space up front they're they're requiring those guys to really hey at some somewhere we're going to have to get a double team and somewhere you're going to have to win uh your matchup and those linebackers have to be athletic and they have to be able to run and they have to be able to kind of get off blocks as well so I do think uh what they really try to do I call it passive pressure so they are a top 10 team in simulated pressures meaning that they're GNA it's they're going to have it's going to look like five or more but they're really only going to rush for and they're also fourth in middle of the field disguise meaning that what you see pre- snap is not always what is going to be post Snap so they're really trying to make these quarterbacks work post Snap and they're really trying to make make these offensive lines in the running backs in terms of protection work post Snap so what you look is going to be a static uh 425 to and they mostly do everything from a two high shell so what you get is a a static 425 with a two- High shell but post Snap it can be something completely different and they're doing that at probably about a third of the time and so you know you don't do this every down really the only teams that are doing this at a really super high volume are are Morris and evero so the Panthers and the Falcons this year so the the NFC South will will be like that but what we're seeing in the NFL is this trend of middle of the field disguise simulated pressures let the four fourman front eat a little bit and then let our athletic linebackers go to that so how are they creating pressure that's how they're creating pressure and then obviously you want that timely Blitz maybe it's on a you know second and medium or a third and short where you're really plugging a backer in there and you're letting him just shoot a gap or you're using some sort of stunt in the front to really kind of create a little bit of Havoc up front all right all kind of boils down to this you're looking at this defense the outlook for 2024 what are you most excited about what are you most concerned about I'm most excited about the Corner Room I really do I think that they have one of the better pairings I you know I just put pause on the best pairing in the NFC just because the I I'm a big fan of DJ Reed and obviously SAS Garner that but this is this is one of the better cornerback Duos in the NFL you add Taran Johnson into that and it just completely changes the picture this is a you know when you're looking at it in a group of three this is one of the best in the NFL and they're going to give teams a lot of problems my concern off of that obviously in the back end is going to be that safety play and can you actually get production out of you know any of those three and it builds on top of the overall way that this defense this defensive roster has been built is that there's just not a lot of depth and in that depth are a lot of question marks whether it's can Von Miller produce on third down when all he has to do is do that uh what about you know what happens if we have another injury at safety and now we're relying on somebody that was really a reserve or a practice team or a special teamer now has to be kind of thrust into a starting role so those are the one thing those are kind of the couple things that I'm concerned about but in terms of a defense this really looks like a defense that if it can produce and if everybody can stay healthy that this is a team that can push for maybe a top 10 defense in the NFL well that's kind of where they've been under coach McDermot we'll see if that continues once again in 2024 Cody thank you so much for giving us some of your time before we let you get out of here plug to work I know that I said that there's a link in today's show notes but you got a lot going on you've written books on defensive scheme where can people find all this stuff yeah the best place to find everything that I do is match quarters.com if you're interested in these Havoc rates we also have threat rates for offense I would go to fieldvision sports.com and go ahead and sign up we're going to have an app that's going to drop that's going to have all of this information in it and it's going to drop uh on week one so we're really excited about that so match quarters.com is probably the best place to find everything that I have I have links to everything yeah I'll make sure that match quarters.com is in today's show notes Cody thanks for being here really appreciate it really appreciate it thank you all right folks a big thank you to Cody for coming up on today's episode and sharing his Insight on the bills defense entering 2024 always enjoy chatting with Cody and I hope that you enjoyed listening to the conversation all right next up the Bills play the Panthers Saturday to close out the preseason as a reminder join the lockon bill subtext community that way you will get my in-game text after every Drive I send out a synopsis of my thoughts and things that I'm seeing in real time so be part of that and then of course that'll get you access to all of that throughout the course of the Season you get one-on-one text messaging with me I also send out my first reaction to all major Bills news through the subtext you also get access to our Discord Channel where we've got hundreds I think over 800 Bills fans in there talking bills Sabers what we're grilling this weekend all kinds of cool stuff so make sure you join the lockon bill subtext community and let's continue the conversation there there's a link in today's show notes for you to join all right folks that's it for today our next conversation comes at after bills Panthers so make sure you don't miss it make sure that you are subscribed would love it if you took a second to rate review and share the podcast have a great rest of your day go bills and I look forward to catching up with you again real soon