While most attention has been on which players the Buffalo Bills may get, they appear to be focused on keeping some of their key players. On Friday the Buffalo Bills announced they had extended safety Micah Hyde. Prior to the extension, Hyde was entering the final deal of his contract at the age of 30.
His future with the Bills was certainly up in the air because of his age and expiring contract. However, with this news, it’s obvious how much general manager Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott value his presence in the secondary of the Bills defense.
Although Hyde had a bit of a down year in terms of statistics and most specifically takeaways, his value to the defense is far beyond the box score. He and fellow safety partner Jordan Poyer consistently have other members of the Buffalo Bills defense in the correct position pre-snap. By making this move, the Bills retain the dynamic safety duo of Hyde and Poyer through at least the 2022 season. Last offseason, the Buffalo Bills had agreed to a contract extension with Poyer.
In his four seasons with the Buffalo Bills, Hyde has 282 total tackles, 5 tackles for loss, 25 passes defended, 2 forced fumbles, and 9 interceptions.
Before this extension, draft analysts had thoughts that the Bills would be looking for a Micah Hyde succession plan in this 2021 NFL Draft. Now that Hyde has been extended, that speculation can be put to rest and the Bills can focus on drafting immediate roster needs for this year.
The #Bills agreed to a terms with S Micah Hyde on a 2-year extension worth $19.25M, source said. He’s under contract through 2023, and his cap number for this season remains essentially the same.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) March 5, 2021
An interesting note for this deal is that it doesn’t free up cap space for this year by pushing his money throughout future years as NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport notes in his tweet. Instead, it was just a simple extension adding two more years to his current contract, keeping Hyde under contract with the Bills through the 2023 season.