College football season continues on and the draft season is getting closer. Players are continuing to put their best games on tape and rise up draft boards before the season concludes. Week 10 of the college football season has some pretty incredible matchups and we take a look at three prospects and one game of the week where we highlight these prospects and their potential fit with the Buffalo Bills.
Buffalo Bills 2023 NFL Draft: Prospects and games to watch in Week 10
Player #1: Brandon Joseph, S Notre Dame
#4 Clemson @ Notre Dame, 7:30 PM
Brandon Joseph could be the top safety prospect in the NFL Draft when all the pre-draft testing is set and done in the spring. Joseph started his career at Northwestern where he jumped on the national radar with several eye-popping plays during his redshirt freshman year. He recorded six interceptions, many of which were incredibly impressive plays.
Joseph projects as a free safety who really can make plays in coverage with really good ball-tracking skills and the ability to make plays on the ball. Joseph looks very comfortable in multiple types of zone coverages and really excels in the deep zones where he can keep his body faced toward the line of scrimmage.
Joseph does come with some concerns as a player. He did have a pretty interesting regression after his standout redshirt freshman season. He still was a solid player but he was not the eye-popping star that we often saw during that first breakout season. Joseph still made the routine plays often but those game-changing star prospect plays were missing from his 2021 tape. Joseph followed up that season with a transfer to Notre Dame where I have been really impressed with his season.
The Fighting Irish safety really has worked on some of the holes in his game this season. Joseph has really shown this year he is a solid and willing tackler. He is not known to be a huge hitter from the safety position but he has routinely shown Notre Dame that he is an effective reliable tackler from the safety position. Joseph also has shown more consistency for Notre Dame, something he struggled with at Northwestern.
Overall, Joseph is a similar prospect to last year’s Notre Dame safety prospect Kyle Hamilton. While not as physically imposing as Hamilton, Joseph can line up all over the field and make plays on the Ball.
As far as his projection on the Buffalo Bills, there is a chance Jordan Poyer is not re-signed and Micah Hyde certainly has questions now that he will be coming off season-ending neck surgery so the safety position is really up in the air for 2023. Joseph is less of a true safety replacement for a guy like Poyer or Hyde as you really would want to move Joseph around the field similar to the way the Ravens use Kyle Hamilton or the Saints’ Tyrann Mathieu.
Joseph may not be the type of typical safety prospect you replace Hyde or Poyer with but he would give the Buffalo Bills a unique option with some versatility for the future.