![]() The key here for him will be as to what blocking scheme new offensive coordinator Brian Daboll uses. Now, down the stretch, he saw his level of play dip to a more average level, but the whole season effort was good enough for there to be no questions as to who the superior player was at right guard. Over that span, he turned a position of weakness into a temporary strength. ![]() He seemed like a much more natural fit and even carried a GPA around 3.00 through his first five starts. However, Ducasse was head and shoulders above Miller in terms of efficiency as the starting player at that position. In Week Five, he was given the starting right guard position after John Miller had struggled, to the complaints of many fans out there. Following a poor training camp and preseason, Ducasse was made inactive through the first four weeks of the season and he was written off - although remained on the roster. In my opinion, the positive performance of Vladimir Ducasse in 2017 was one of the biggest surprises of the year. Now, Groy can shift into the starting center role which has proved to be his most natural fitting position since coming to the Bills.Ģ018 Contract Status: $1.533 million cap hit, signed through 2019 Groy started the rest of the way and proved his value to the team - so much so that they matched an offer sheet that he signed as a restricted free agent last year. In those instances, he did fairly well - just as he did in extended duty in 2016 when Eric Wood went down with an injury just a little past halfway through the season. In 2017, all of Groy’s snaps came either when Richie Incognito was temporarily out of the game, or when the Bills went to a heavy set with six offensive linemen. Although there was some clamoring from Bills fans for Groy to be inserted into the lineup at right guard rather than either John Miller or Vladimir Ducasse, the Bills never agreed with that notion. He’s still got plenty of game left, despite his age by NFL standards.Ģ018 Contract Status: $2.5 million cap hit, signed through 2018 The Bills could conceivably walk away from Incognito and get savings on their cap of over $6 million in 2018, but given the Eric Wood surprise, I would think they want to keep their best remaining and healthy offensive lineman on their roster for the upcoming season. Heading into a season in 2018 where he’ll be 35 years old and with only one year left on his deal - and now with his best buddy in the locker room Eric Wood unable to play any longer - you have to wonder if the upcoming season is the last one for Incognito’s career and if he’d elect to retire. However, what we also saw was a few more beats than we were used to - mainly because he was so good in his first two seasons that we rarely witnessed it happen. ![]() He was a good player for the Bills for much of the year and made a lot of key blocks when the running game was going, or when he was in a one-on-one matchup. It was another Pro Bowl year for Richie Incognito, who was one of the lone representatives in the game for the team. Wood was a leader in their locker room, and a steadying force along the offensive line - to which the Bills will sorely miss his presence.Ģ017 Season GPA: 2.88 (Snap Count: 1,111)Ģ018 Contract Status: $7.575 million cap hit, signed through 2018 It’s definitely a setback for the Bills, who just have to add one more position to add on the offseason list. Wood has now been deemed unable to play due to a neck injury, no matter if any surgery or rehab is done, meaning the Bills will now see one of their deepest positions become quite weak like all the rest. That is until his end-of-season medical check happened. The highest graded interior offensive linemen that they had in 2017 by my grading, the Buffalo Bills thought they had their center spot locked up for at least the next two seasons after they had inked Eric Wood to an extension ahead of the past season. Up next, a position that is about a year away from what could be a complete reboot, the interior offensive line:Ģ017 Season GPA: 2.89 (Snap Count: 1,132)Ģ018 Contract Status: Signed, but unable to play due to health The grades you’ll see attached to the players are the result of film study of each and every week throughout the 2017 season for the Buffalo Bills. So as the next deadlines start to creep up, is taking a hard look at the roster and evaluating what happened in 2017, what could be on the horizon in 2018, and a recommendation for what to do moving forward. Preparations by teams of how to attack the offseason, their own free agents, and late April’s draft are starting to take hold. For the Buffalo Bills and every franchise in the NFL, the reality of the offseason has set in.
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