At this time last week, the "tampering period" of free agency was only a few hours away. The official start of the league year, and also free agency, would begin two days later and over the past week plenty has changed for the Buffalo Bills.
They saw some key players from last year's team end up with new teams like Gabe Davis (Jacksonville Jaguars), Mitch Morse (Jacksonville Jaguars), Jordan Poyer (Miami Dolphins), and Leonard Floyd (San Francisco 49ers). However, they were able to bring back key players (A.J. Epenesa and DaQuan Jones) while adding some outside free agents (Curtis Samuel and Mack Hollins).
There is still plenty of time for the Bills to make moves in free agency and the NFL Draft is set for next month so the roster could still look very different. With that said though, these are five players who appear poised to have bigger roles than they did last year.
5 Buffalo Bills in line for bigger roles in 2024 after start of free agency
David Edwards
The Buffalo Bills signed David Edwards as a free agent last offseason due in part to his familiarity with offensive line coach Aaron Kromer, who was in the same role on the Rams. Edwards would only play 148 offensive snaps all season and a majority of those occurred with Edwards essentially lining up as a tight end.
The Bills were able to re-sign Edwards before the start of free agency to a two year deal. This move looks much bigger now after some additional roster changes after the new contract.
However, after the release of Mitch Morse the expectation is Connor McGovern will move over to center and Edwards steps in as starting left guard. The concern is that Edwards has played less than 400 snaps over the past two seasons after playing only four games in 2022 due to injuries.
It wouldn't be surprising at all if the Bills were to draft an interior offensive linemen at some point for depth and to potentially compete for a starting job.