Buffalo Bills: Mitch Morse ranked as 15th best center by PFF

This offseason there was some discussion about whether or not the Buffalo Bills might release center Mitch Morse. The reasoning wasn’t necessarily because he is a bad player but due to the cap savings the Bills would have generated by the move.

However, Mitch Morse agreed to a pay cut to stay with the team that he can earn back some of that with play incentines.

This ultimately was the best route for the Buffalo Bills as if they were to cut Morse it would have created a big hole that they need to address. They also would have unlikely been able to find a player who would be better than Morse.

The veteran center is one of the better at the position and Pro Football Focus agrees in a recent ranking of the position that had Morse at 15th in the NFL.

"Morse has yet to grade below 70.0 in pass protection in a single season over his six-year NFL career. On the other hand, he has never graded above 70.0 as a run blocker. That’s about what you can expect him to provide moving forward. And in that case, Buffalo is as good a spot as any for Morse. The only team with a higher pass rate than the Bills on early downs in the first three quarters of games last season were the Chiefs."

This is an interesting spot for Morse because when the Buffalo Bills signed him as a free agent, he became one of the highest paid at the position with an average salary of $11.125 million. The other big name at the position that free agency was Matt Paradis, who would sign with the Carolina Panthers, and came in one spot ahead of Morse at 14th.

After Morse is another interesting player in Kansas City Chiefs’ center Creed Humphrey. He is the first rookie on their rankings at the position but more importantly, was likely a player the Buffalo Bills were paying close attention to during the 2021 NFL Draft.

If the Buffalo Bills were to make a switch, Humphrey would have been a likely candidate in the second round. The Bills ultimately decided to go with Carlos Basham Jr. and the Chiefs would end up selecting Humphrey.

As PFF notes, Mitch Morse doesn’t bring much in run blocking but excels in pass blocking. The passing attack is the strength of this offense so it makes sense for the Bills to have one of the better at the position in this area.