The Buffalo Bills will be without a key part of their defense for the rest of today’s game against the Jacksonville Jaguars
The Buffalo Bills have a 6-3 lead over the Jacksonville Jaguars midway through the second quarter. However, they did suffer a pretty big loss already with starting nickel Taron Johnson ruled out of today’s game due to a concussion.
The Bills defense primarily plays nickel defense and Taron Johnson is essentially a starter for this team. This season he has played 94% or more every game this season except one. He has 38 tackles, one tackle for a loss, one sack, five passes defended, and one forced fumble.
The team recognized how important he is to this team that they agreed to a contract extension last month that will keep Johnson with the team through the 2024 season.
Options to replace Taron Johnson limited for the Buffalo Bills
The options to replace Taron Johnson in this game are fairly limited with Siran Neal the primary backup. Neal hasn’t seen much playing time this year on defense with only 12% of the defensive snaps. This is on par with the average he has played over the past two seasons with 18% in 2019 and 11% last year.
He joined the Bills in 2018 as a fifth round pick and over the years has moved from safety to cornerback. During this past preseason, Neal saw some time as an outside corner but struggled there.
He is a bigger cornerback that is used more as a big nickel to help more against the run. He doesn’t necessarily have the coverage skills that Taron Johnson has. It will be worth watching in this game if the Jaguars start to target this part of the defense with quicker players like Jamal Agnew and Tavon Austin.
If this injury results in Taron Johnson missing more than this game, the Buffalo Bills will likely look to Cam Lewis to replace him. The former University of Buffalo corner is not available today as he is on the practice squad and wasn’t called up.