Buffalo Bills safety duo named best in NFL by Touchdown Wire
The Buffalo Bills have one of the best defenses in the league and that is due in large part to their safeties, which was recently named the best in the NFL by Touchdown Wire.
One of the first moves the Buffalo Bills made after they named Sean McDermott head coach in 2017 was address the safety position. The Bills went out and signed free agents Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer and these two quickly became one of the best duos in the league.
TouchdownWire recently put together their ranking of the 11 best safeties in the NFL and while Micah Hyde was the only one to make the list, he was ranked ninth, the duo of Hyde and Poyer were named as the best safety duo in the league by Mark Schofield.
"Earlier I mentioned the idea of a safety tandem frustrating a quarterback to no end. Over the past few seasons, perhaps no tandem has frustrated a quarterback more than what the Buffalo Bills’ pair of Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer has done to Tom Brady. Whenever you get a chance, study the Bills’ defense and their tandem of Hyde and Poyer. They do such a tremendous job of rolling their coverage, disguising looks and moving in concert that it is difficult for any quarterback – including arguably the best of all time – to get a read on what the defense is doing. Poyer is on the outside looking in with this list, but I wanted to give them a special mention as the game’s best safety pair."
As Schofield notes, one of the reasons this tandem is so good is that they compliment each other very well. However, it is not complimenting in the typical sense because these two players do the two main things safeties are expected to do, which is play in the box against the run but also be able to play centerfield against the pass.
Hyde and Poyer do both very well which allows the coaching staff to be creative and not forced to use one for a specific ask. On any given play, opposing offenses could see Poyer or Hyde in the box playing the run, and then the other safety on the next play. They could also see both back in coverage as Schofield writes “moving in concert.”
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The Bills secondary is coming off an excellent season and they were one of the toughest defenses to pass on last year. This is certainly due in part to the breakout year of Tre’Davious White but the Buffalo Bills safety tandem of Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer are a significant piece to this success.