Buffalo Bills: Darryl Johnson has to show improvement to make roster

2019 Recap

Johnson was exceptional in preseason play, where he played in three games and had 2 sacks for the Bills. With flashy plays off the edge he caught the staffs eye and made his case to be a part of the roster.

In his first preseason game Johnson makes a great stunt and then takes down the Colts quarterback for the sack:

According to PFF, Johnson had an exceptional preseason posting gaudy pressure rates and didn’t look out of place against NFL talent.

A 90.5 pass rushing grade is exceptional, on PFF’s 0-100 scale it uses to grade players, players with an over 90 grade are elite. Johnson was an elite pass rusher in his first preseason game.

Going into the regular season Johnson was regarded as the fourth defensive end, behind starters Jerry Hughes and Trent Murphy and rotational end Shaq Lawson. In the first seven games of the season, Buffalo went with Johnson as a primary backup where he was allotted about 30 percent of defensive snaps but where he struggled at times.

Johnson had his best game in his rookie season in Week 5 versus the Tennessee Titans where he produced his first career sack and a crucial field goal block.

Teams would consistently audible to run plays targeting Johnson’s side of the line, where the raw defensive end would struggle to hold contain and would be consistently overpowered. After Week 7, the Buffalo Bills saw no other choice but to significantly cut Johnson’s snaps and roll with just three defensive ends.

Teams would target Johnson intentionally and Sean McDermott saw no choice but to bench him.

Finishing the season with 15 tackles, 2 tackles for loss and 1 sack it wasn’t anything amazing but for a seventh-rounder it was quite impressive for him to appear in all 16 games.

A consistent player on special teams, Johnson played 66.3% of special teams snaps and was quite reliable in that aspect of the game.