The defense for the Buffalo Bills has gone under a revamp with a new scheme coming into play. After Joe Brady was officially hired as the new head coach, his next biggest task was to hire a defensive coordinator who could come in and fix the unit. While the pass defense was great, stopping the run was Buffalo’s biggest problem.
Now with Jim Leonhard running the defense, and a bunch of new pieces to the unit, the defense will have to show that this scheme change is what they needed from Sean McDermott’s 4-3 unit.
With this change, the linebacker position becomes extremely important since you need more depth at linebacker. You also need to make sure that you have quality linebackers on the field who have a little bit of versatility, or are fantastic in one specific area. During OTAs and mandatory minicamp, the Bills got the chance to see a rookie linebacker impress early on.
LB Kaleb Elarms-Orr shines early for Bills during summer practices
NFL Nation writers from ESPN all listed the biggest surprises for each team, and Bills writer Alaina Getzenberg talked about Kaleb Elarms-Orr getting the chance to show coaches what he can do since Dorian Williams did not particiapte due to an injury.
"Elarms-Orr had an opportunity this offseason and took advantage of it. Linebacker Dorian Williams wasn't on the field during OTAs and minicamp due to an unspecified lower-body injury. With the increased snaps, Elarms-Orr made an impression in the battle for the open inside linebacker job next to Terrel Bernard." said Alaina Getzenberg, ESPN.
The Bills drafted Elarms-Orr in the 4th round this past May, and there were a lot of people who thought that he would have gone off the board sooner. He fell right into the Bills’ lap, and he could easily be the team’s next Matt Milano; the linebacker who could do it all against the run and the pass.
Milano is still available on the free agent market and while there could always be a reunion, it’s more than likely not that the Bills and him have parted ways for good, especially with Elarms-Orr coming into the picture.
Training camp starts next month for the Bills and out of all the rookies, including T.J. Parker, Elarms-Orr could be the only one that earns a true starting role heading into Week 1 against the Houston Texans.
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