{"id":818449,"date":"2026-08-19T05:36:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T05:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818449\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T05:36:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T05:36:17","slug":"buffalo-bills-signing-of-greg-gaines-was-desperately-needed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/818449\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Bills signing of Greg Gaines was desperately needed"},"content":{"rendered":"

It certainly didn\u2019t have to be Greg Gaines, but the Buffalo Bills were in dire need of a veteran rotational piece at nose tackle behind 22-year-old budding star Deone Walker.<\/p>\n

Jim Leonhard\u2019s new system, which will feature a front that\u2019s more amorphous than stagnant, does have a three-man defensive line foundation \u2014 maybe you\u2019ve heard. Quite naturally then, it requires more classically built nose tackle types on the roster.<\/p>\n

And for as good as Walker may become as the man in the middle of the Bills defensive line in Year 2 and beyond, it was painfully obvious the 2026 iteration of this team was lacking in the depth department behind him.<\/p>\n

DeWayne Carter, a 2024 third-round pick, is returning from a torn Achilles in his second season and was drafted to be an upfield, one-gap disruptor. Even if he\u2019s packed weight onto his 6\u20192\u201d frame, he\u2019s learning on the fly this summer in a new, blocking-eating, two-gapping role.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s hardly been up to the task. Carter\u2019s training camp was quiet, and he was on the field well into the fourth quarter in Buffalo\u2019s opening preseason game against Carolina. On 19 snaps, Carter did not make the stat sheet, including 0 pressures on 13 pass-rush snaps against the Panthers second and third-team offensive line.<\/p>\n

\"ROCHESTER,<\/a><\/p>\n

ROCHESTER, NEW YORK – JULY 29: DeWayne Carter #90 of the Buffalo Bills embraces the rain during a break in drills during training camp at St. John Fisher University on July 29, 2026 in Rochester, New York. (Photo by Joe Hrycych\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Add to this too \u2014 Phidarian Mathis is set to serve a three-game suspension<\/a> at the start of the season. While he has ample two-gap experience at Alabama (and his expertise in that role was a large part of why he was a second-round pick in 2022), he doesn\u2019t possess a classic nose tackle body frame at 6\u20194\u201d and 310-plus pounds. Mathis is much better suited for a 4I or 5-tech role in a traditional three-man front \u2014 either on the inside or outside shoulder of the offensive tackle as a sturdy edge-setter \u2014 than a 0-tech or 1-tech, which is the defensive lineman closest to the football before the snap, where Walker plays.<\/p>\n

Zion Logue has a Mathis-esque body frame and played the Mathis role at Georgia before being selected by the Falcons in the sixth round of the 2024 NFL Draft. Bills rookie Zane Durant is stockier than both Mathis and Logue, but at 6\u20191\u201d and 290 pounds doesn\u2019t yet possess a modern-day nose tackle height-weight combination for the NFL.<\/p>\n

That defensive line depth chart rundown was to explicitly illustrate Buffalo\u2019s dire need for depth behind Walker, a role best handled by a shorter, compact defender well north of 300 pounds. And Walker\u2019s youth, experience was a plus for this job listing.<\/p>\n

\"ORCHARD<\/a><\/p>\n

ORCHARD PARK, NEW YORK – NOVEMBER 16: Greg Gaines #96 of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers looks on prior to the NFL 2025 game between Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Buffalo Bills at Highmark Stadium on November 16, 2025 in Orchard Park, New York. (Photo by Bryan Bennett\/Getty Images) Getty Images<\/p>\n

Gaines is listed at 6\u20191\u201d and 312 pounds. He was 308 at the 2019 University of Washington Pro Day, so it\u2019s reasonably safe to assume he can or already has played well into the 320s across 117 games in the NFL over the past seven seasons.<\/p>\n

As a rookie, Walker appeared on 47.2% of the Bills defensive snaps during the regular season. Even if that percentage jumps into the 60% range in 2026, Buffalo\u2019s front can\u2019t afford a massive drop off in productivity \u2014 or, capable beef \u2014 at nose tackle when the towering, 330-pounder needs a rest.<\/p>\n

Now with Gaines, they have established a reliable dirty-work brawler to spell Walker in games and throughout the season. Gaines establishes a reasonable floor at backup nose tackle. Plus, I don\u2019t believe there\u2019s a rule prohibiting Walker and Gaines from aligning at two defensive tackle spots at the same time. That combination will be much more challenging to move than any other interior-defender combo the Bills fielded in 2025.<\/p>\n

Gaines is a blue-collar 35-40% snap player with loads of experience battling on the interior, which is precisely what the Bills needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It certainly didn\u2019t have to be Greg Gaines, but the Buffalo Bills were in dire need of a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":818450,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[187931,71477,187365,349,99],"class_list":["post-818449","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-buffalo-bills-analysis","tag-buffalo-bills-depth-chart","tag-buffalo-bills-opinion","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818449","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=818449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818449\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/818450"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=818449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=818449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=818449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}