Buffalo Bills position room preview: Safety

The sophomore: Siran Neal

A fifth-round pick out of Jackson State in 2018, Siran Neal didn’t quite crack the rotation during his rookie year. He proved to be invaluable on special teams, playing 249 snaps, but it wasn’t the same story on defense, tallying 15 snaps. With a full year under his belt, the hope is that he challenges Rafael Bush for the third safety spot.

When the Bills brought in Neal, he was flagged as a very similar player to Bush. In college, he split time between all safety positions, a jack-of-all-trades. Neal is a tad undersized (6-foot, 206-pounds) and has good, not blazing speed (4.56 second 40-time), but he plays with a certain type of tenacity that Sean McDermott can rave about. His energy, physicality, and gap discipline proved to be an excellent addition in special teams and during his limited defensive snaps.

Due to the depth already at safety, Neal has to find a more permanent role to receive more defensive snaps. Though he appears to be Bush’s heir apparent, there is a lot of young talent at safety. Luckily, he may have found that role. In minicamp, Neal has been making some noise as a slot cornerback, even swapping reps with incumbent starter Taron Johnson.

For now, Neal is listed as a safety; despite him working for the slot cornerback job. The likely outcome of the situation is that he’ll probably stay as a safety; it’s what he does best, and the team appears set at slot cornerback (Taron Johnson, E.J. Gaines). In an ideal world, he’ll earn snaps as their slot in heavier nickel situations; unless he proves that he’s a better snap-to-snap nickel option than Johnson or Gaines.