Buffalo Bills: Leslie Frazier believes Tremaine Edmunds best football is ahead of him

One of the top storylines for the Buffalo Bills at this point in the offseason is whether they should sign middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds to a long-term deal this offseason. Edmunds was a first round pick in 2018 and the Bills did already pick up his fifth-year option so he will be with the team for at least the next two years.

However, the market could be changing significantly in the near future with players like Darius Leonard and Fred Warner expected to get new deals from the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers. It would make sense for the team to try and get a new deal done before those other players sign their extensions.

Recently, Leslie Frazier was asked about Tremaine Edmunds and said that his best football is still ahead of him. If Frazier is right, then the Bills absolutely need to ensure their starting middle linebacker is tied to the franchise long-term.

“He just needs to stay healthy and that is the key you know for any football player but as he stays healthy and continues to develop his best football is ahead of him. He’s going to grow as a leader, he’s going to grow in some of the things we ask him to do on the football field just being in those situations.”

While Tremaine Edmunds certainly has room for improvement, he has done a lot of good things in the first three years in the NFL. He has made the Pro Bowl the past two seasons and has had over 100 total tackles every season.

As Frazier noted earlier in his press conference, Edmunds is unique in that he is a big middle linebacker at 6’5″ with great length. This helps him cause problems for opposing quarterbacks when he is dropping back into coverage and is more of a hybrid linebacker, which is the type of linebacker NFL teams look for as the league moves towards being a passing league.

He also is incredibly young for a player with his experience being 23 years old and already has three years of experience. Frazier joked that there were some players the Buffalo Bills drafted this year that were older than Edmunds.

There is plenty of room for improvement for Tremaine Edmunds, and hopefully this is the year that it comes together, but what the starting middle linebacker has shown so far should be enough to give the Buffalo Bills confidence that a contract extension is a smart move.