After Preston Brown left in free agency, the Buffalo Bills had a gaping hole at the middle linebacker spot. The Bills didn't do anything in free agency to fill that hole and relied heavily on using their plentiful draft picks to fix that.
Tremaine Edmunds was a projected top-ten pick and luckily for the Bills he fell into the middle of the first round where they could make a move and trade up to get their guy to quarterback the defense for years to come.
Over the first couple of weeks of OTAs, Edmunds and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier were able to get familiar with each other. Frazier compared Edmunds to former first-round pick Tre’Davious White for his ability to soak in what he is being told and executing on the field:
“Tremaine has done a really good job up to this point, said Frazier. “There are going to be some rookie mistakes along the way, but his ability to gather information and then transfer it to the field has been very similar to what we saw with Tre’Davious. So, you don’t have some of the concerns that you ordinarily would have with most rookies because of it.”
Frazier doesn’t seemed concerned about a 20-year-old leader on the defense, either.
“It’s a challenge coming in as a rookie for sure, and then being a middle linebacker, to lead, you’re in a leadership role. If you’re a middle linebacker, you’re calling the defense, you’re setting the front, you’re doing a lot of things that are required to leading an entire group, and that’s asking a lot of a rookie, “ Frazier said. “But up to this point, he’s handled it extremely well, so I don’t really see any indication that he won’t continue. We’ll just keep putting a little more on his plate as he goes.”
Edmunds is going to play a lot of snaps for the Bills defense this year and be relied on to be a leader. It may be early in the process but all signs point to him being the right guy for the job.