The Buffalo Bills have been without their starting safeties for most of OTAs with Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer absent. These are two players that have created one of the best safety duos in the NFL and one of the reasons they are so great is their durability as they have combined to miss a total of two games over the past three seasons.
Every NFL team certainly hopes to have this from their starters but for the Buffalo Bills, it creates a question about the depth behind the two starters as they are relatively unknown with limited snaps during the regular season.
On Tuesday, defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier was asked about these players and the first player he mentioned was Jaquan Johnson:
"“He’s the guy who has had probably the most experience when Micah [Hyde] or Jordan [Poyer] haven’t been out there and it shows. Some of the things he is doing, he is playing with a lot of confidence in these OTAs. He was really good in Phase 1 and Phase 2 with taking charge and leading.”"
Johnson was a sixth round pick in 2019 and as Frazier noted, Johnson is the player who has usually stepped in when Hyde or Poyer has not played. However, it is still relatively infrequent and he has only one career start, which was last season against the Houston Texans.
The next player he mentioned was Damar Hamlin, who was a sixth round pick by the Buffalo Bills last season. He would appear in 14 games but had only two games where he played more than 10 snaps on defense.
"“Damar [Hamlin] is kind of still developing, still finding his way but he is growing. One of the benefits of our starting safety not being here is he is getting a lot of reps.”"
Nick McCloud getting reps at safety during Buffalo Bills’ OTAs
One notable player that Frazier mentioned was Nick McCloud, who is entering his second season with the Buffalo Bills after signing as an undrafted free agent last offseason. He was waived before the start of the season and was claimed by the Bengals.
However, the Bengals released him midseason and he returned to Buffalo as a member of their practice squad.
The reason it was surprising is that McCloud has primarily been a cornerback and it appears the team may be looking for him to make a position switch. It will be interesting to see if that carries into training camp and preseason.
The depth behind Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer is going to be an interesting training camp battle to watch and these three seem to be the favorites to earn roster spots.