Rasul Douglas is playing a different game
Rasul Douglas is playing a different game
McDonald's bags. Security guards. Sleeping on the floor. There's a reason the Buffalo Bills' playmaking corner is so fearless. For this team to (finally) get over the hump, he's the difference on D.
PITTSFORD, N.Y. — Exactly one decade ago, he was broke and starving. The only way Rasul Douglas could afford dinner was by working one hour a day at McDonald’s. That’d earn him one doggie bag. After his shift, Douglas was permitted to take home one bag of whatever he’d like. He wasn’t shy. “I’d fill that shit up,” he assures. “That was every day.”
He wasn’t exactly devouring this pile of grease in spacious living quarters, either.
Douglas returned to a house packed to capacity — 10 testosterone-fueled JUCO football players chasing down a dream at Nassau Community College in Long Island. Living conditions were grimy. But these 19- and 20-year-olds didn’t mind. Whenever Douglas heard a teammate signed a lease, he’d pounce. He’d secure his 60” x 80” of real estate on somebody’s floor and go full ninja mode when required. The landlord lived next door and, no, she didn’t want 10 people crammed into the house. She’d closely monitor a camera and count how many people entered, then exited.
One day, the math didn’t add up. A thunderous banging on the door jolted Douglas awake. Booms that were soon accompanied by the landlord’s voice. She entered the house and Douglas leapt into a closet. “I know you’re in there!” she yelled. “I checked the cameras!” It was right around then Douglas wondered what in the hell he was doing with his life.
He never felt lower.
Moments like this compelled so many of his teammates to quit.
Douglas, instead, blossomed into one the best playmakers in the sport. The ballhawk rose to fame with the Green Bay Packers in 2021, drew “Charles Woodson” comparisons from his Canton-bound quarterback, was dealt to the Buffalo Bills last season and — almost immediately — showed signs of being everything this unit’s been missing. In only 8 ½ games, he totaled four interceptions, two fumble recoveries, eight passes defensed and 29 tackles. And honestly? If anyone should walk on eggshells and never, ever, ever — under any circumstances — deviate from the Master Plan defensively, it’s Douglas. It’s a player who lived on the fringes of the sport back in junior college and then played for six teams through a 13-month stretch because the 53rd man on the roster cannot afford to screw up. Botching one assignment in a practice (forget a game) boomerangs such disposable bodies back to the airport in a full-fledged existential crisis.
Yet, Douglas plays free.
The lurking 6-foot-2, 209-pounder engages in two games at once. There’s the play called from the booth and, then, there’s his own streetball instincts. He baits quarterbacks, toys with wide receivers, takes massive risks and, occasionally, a risk will backfire. He’ll give up a big gain. Douglas also knows one truth that’ll forever separate those in the 44 Percent Club from those interested in winning Super Bowls.
“The ball is the only thing that matters,” Douglas says. “It’s a sport based off the ball. The only way you win a game is if you’ve got the ball. So, the more chances I can give Josh Allen to do what he does, we’ll be in a better position.”
Why play scared? That’s a defeatist’s mentality. Players and coaches who think about what could wrong instead of everything that will go right forever fall short. And that’s not Douglas. He shoots his shot — always — because of everything he’s experienced. Because of those McDonald’s shifts. Because an Arizona Cardinals security guard once emasculated him.
He’ll go down swinging, and that’s an attitude Sean McDermott’s defense has been missing in January. In their last four (of five) playoff defeats, here’s how the Bills defense has performed on 32 total non-kneeldown drives: 16 touchdowns, eight field goals, six punts, one missed FG… all while creating one turnover. A player who can match wits with Patrick Mahomes, and Joe Burrow, and C.J. Stroud, and whoever else emerges this winter is sorely needed.
Douglas believes he’s the difference.
No wonder he begins our conversation at training camp in a state of melancholy. Memories of Buffalo’s most recent postseason gut punch — a 27-24 loss to Kansas City — resurface and all he remembers is the pain in his left knee. Douglas reveals here that he played all 50 snaps that night on a torn MCL. An injury that dulled his superpower: He could read, but he could not react. All game, the cornerback was a hobbling, knockoff version of himself. An imposter in a knee brace. The Bills finally got their wish — finally got Mahomes in their house — but Mahomes, again, found a way.
This sting is a personal reminder that he has not arrived.
He played 100 percent of the defensive snaps that night, but his knee wasn’t anywhere near 100 percent. He stares ahead, disgusted.
“Last year, I thought we were going to win it because usually the team that’s doing the best at the end of the season, you carry that over,” Douglas says. “But that last game was still my fault. If I was healthy, we would’ve won. In my head, that’s how I feel. We beat ‘em already. If I was healthy, I could have made a couple more plays that I couldn’t make in that game.”
The next morning, Douglas woke up in excruciating pain. His knee was swollen to comical proportions. “Like this,” says Douglas, cupping his hands about 3 to 4 inches wide each direction. “I couldn’t really walk,” he adds. “I was f--ked up.” So, there’s zero doubt in his mind.
He repeats it again just case nobody heard him the first time.
“If I was good,” he says, “we would’ve won that shit.”
Next, his mind wanders. Win that game, and he could’ve theoretically had three full weeks of rest up to the Super Bowl. Granted, the Baltimore Ravens still stood in the Bills’ way but Douglas believes three weeks would’ve been enough rest time to then be himself by Super Bowl LVIII.
Now, he’s back at base camp. Buffalo’s next ascent begins, fittingly, against one team that gave up on him and sparked his NFL rise: Arizona. This reinvented Bills roster enters the 2024 season with many questions: How will the Bills replace Stefon Diggs? What does Von Miller have left? Is Dorian Williams ready to start? How will coordinators Joe Brady and Bobby Babich fare calling plays?
The good news for Buffalo is that in Rasul Douglas, they’ve got one potential answer for when football matters most.
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‘The whole picture’
Initially, he cites right-place, right-time instincts as purely a “God-given” talent. He cannot explain it.
“I see it,” Douglas says, “and then I do it.”
On second thought, it’s no accident. His ability to keep his eyes glued to the quarterback, redirect and hit the gas pedal a different direction is perfected in practice. Not that any of us can tell. This day, it appeared the cornerback was cooked by inferior receivers in practice when — in reality? — Douglas was perfecting the fine art of freelancing during Buffalo’s 11-on-11 work. He’s learning to “see something” he hasn’t before. Douglas thrusts himself into as many uncomfortable positions as possible in August so he can confidently jump that route when the games count. Chances are, he’ll continue to experiment into the season, too.
He turns the dimensions of the field into his own board game.
To him, this position isn’t mano-a-mano warfare vs. a wide receiver. The quarterback is his adversary. The opportunity at one turnover that wins a game is worth that extra second peeking into the backfield.
“Once you start getting comfortable, once the season comes, it just happens,” Douglas says.
Most cornerbacks are terrified of screwing up. Maybe they even saw on film that Quarterback X has a tendency to panic and throw hot toward a specific spot. The fear of being humiliated is too strong to actually pull the trigger. So, the Scared Corner winds up playing it safe. The Scared Corner is the equivalent of anyone in any profession who wafts through life without a purpose. Punch in, punch out, hope you don’t piss off your boss.
Douglas can’t live like that. He knows he’ll get beat, but this is the business he’s chosen.
If a 320-pound defensive tackle stays on a block too long or shoots the wrong gap, he explains, no one at home knows he’s at fault. He’s not embarrassed in front of millions. If a corner misses a tackle, you’re to blame. If a receiver catches a ball on you, you’ll be blamed even if someone else technically blew the coverage.
His point: The position is high stakes by nature.
“No matter what happens,” Douglas says. “you’re already in that position where there’s risk. You might as well just take it.”
He’ll go down swinging, And he was always inspired by those who possessed such guts: Woodson in Green Bay, Asante Samuel in New England. He views “the whole picture,” and he’s been this way since his days of playing safety at East Orange (N.J.) High School. Teammates often asked how in the hell he knew a certain play was coming. The more he studies formations, the more light bulbs turn on in his head before the snap. He sees how all 11 players are aligned and… voila. That’s it. Out of this exact look, the second receiver on his side of the field is running an under route. He’ll wait before it’s too late for the quarterback to signal an audible, too, cheating right before the snap.
Acquired on the fly, that’s how Douglas was able to make so many plays in the Bills’ defense.
Without him, Buffalo loses to the New England Patriots in Week 17 last season. He was directly responsible for three interceptions in the narrow 27-21 victory. Douglas picked off Bailey Zappe twice — returning one for a 40-yard TD — and deflected another corralled by Ed Oliver.
None of it was by accident.
One week prior, New England faced a team that ran a similar defense in the Denver Broncos. Douglas watched the game three times, zeroing in on the cornerback who played his position: Patrick Surtain III. One quirk Douglas picked up on through those 58 snaps? Every time the Patriots lined up in 4-by-1 set — four eligible receivers to one side, one to the other — Bailey threw a slant route to the back side. “Especially,” he adds, when Demario Douglas (no relation) motioned into that cluster. A split-second before the snap, the rookie receiver looped the opposite direction and one word crossed Rasul’s mind: “Slant.”
The ball was snapped and he deftly placed the peanut butter on the mousetrap. He made Zappe think the slant was open for a split-second, then pounced for a pick deep in Patriots territory.
On film, Douglas also noticed that when the Broncos sent a safety blitz, Zappe was quick to throw a slant to Jalen Reagor on Surtain. He licked his chops. On third and 11, the Bills had safety Micah Hyde sneak toward the line of scrimmage right before the snap, knowing he’d rush completely unblocked. Running back Ezekiel Elliott needed to slide in to take an inside rusher.
Hyde blitzed free.
Douglas squatted in place. He didn’t give a damn that his receiver ran a deep route.
Once Zappe cocked his arm back, it was over. Pick-six.
Over time, Douglas mentally logs the subtle tendencies of all quarterbacks. Many try to play the quick game in the first quarter to get into a rhythm. In this case, he was determined to take a sledgehammer to that rhythm. By gambling early, he knew Zappe would get skittish and start seeing those proverbial ghosts in the secondary. Which leads to hesitation. Which leads to sacks. Everything’s connected on defense. Looking back, Douglas is only pissed he didn’t score touchdowns on both returns.
The team’s 14th-year vet on the edge, Von Miller, has played with a handful of the best cornerbacks this century: Champ Bailey, Chris Harris Jr., Aqib Talib and Jalen Ramsey. While the size and athleticism combo is rare, it’s Douglas’ “edge” he loves most.
Miller believes Douglas plays with the same “bully energy” as Talib, calling this the secret to greatness in the NFL. Energy. Confidence. All at what Miller labels the most difficult position in the sport.
“When you’re going against guys like JaMarr Chase, Justin Jefferson, Tyreek Hill,” Miller says, “you can’t touch ‘em, you can’t grab ‘em, you can’t hold ‘em down the field. You can’t be physical with ‘em. You’ve got to match those guys from an athletic standpoint. They know where they’re going. You don’t. And you’re going off of a reaction standpoint. So it’s the toughest position in all the sports: hockey, soccer, basketball. Cornerback in the National Football League is the toughest position. And Rasul Douglas plays it at a high level.”
Rules stacked against them, NFL cornerbacks have to make a choice.
They can tighten up, and play not to lose.
Or they can take matters into their own hands.
‘Eat Sleep’
The memories are not fond. Junior college represents the armpit of the sport itself. This is the world of cockroaches and rusting showers and B.O. the likes of Rachaad White and D.J. Reed never wish to experience again.
Rasul Douglas provides a public service announcement to all aspiring football players.
“JUCO is the f--king worst place,” he says. “If you don’t have to go there? Don’t go. You’re wasting your time. It’ll literally make you give up.”
That’s exactly what six of the 10 players crammed into his house did. All six quit with Division I offers in-hand, too. But not Douglas. Something willed him through the muck. Growing up, he says he learned the word “no” doesn’t always mean “no.” Raised by his grandmother with six siblings in a three-bedroom apartment, he knew as a teen that a world of drugs and guns right outside of his window could trap him for good. That’d never be him. Adds Douglas: “If you want something done, it’s got to be on you.”
Out of high school, Douglas had zero scholarship offers. The only school that showed any love was FCS Delaware State.
One player on his team landed at UConn, but nobody else was heavily recruited. Most colleges passed through East Orange, N.J., on their way to bigger high schools.
Douglas was good — damn good, he promises — but, frankly, he never applied himself. He never attended the camps that typically get preps noticed because Douglas never envisioned himself in the pros. The NFL was not a realistic dream. “Hell nah!” he says. “I ain’t ever cared for it. It didn’t make sense.” He fully expected his football career to end at age 18 and to get a job that paid a decent salary.
That explains why he ignored a strange number on his phone. The same digits appeared, repeatedly, and Douglas assumed it was a pesky scammer.
Finally, he answered. The man introduced himself as “Curtis Guilliam from Nassau.”
Turns out, Guilliam was the head coach at Nassau Community College. Fifty miles away, he liked what he saw on tape. The coach informed Douglas that 10 of his players already had offers at some of the best D-I powers in the country. For the first time, Douglas connected dots and realized he, too, could earn a scholarship at a JUCO and turn football into a career. Douglas switched from safety to cornerback and instantly realized how much his vantage point deep in the secondary paid off on an island.
Those three hours of football each week were fun. Douglas even played a game against Erie Community College, a school that resides exactly where the Bills are now building their new stadium.
Everything else was wretched. Living on his own was already hard. He wasn’t on scholarship, of course, and he had precisely zero dollars to his name. His grandmother was busy squeezing pennies together for his siblings back home. But as an out-of-state student, Douglas was also forced to pay double tuition. Grants and loans only supplied temporary relief. By his count, Douglas later paid off $30,000.
He didn’t have a car, so Douglas took the bus to class and practice.
He had two primary objectives off the field: Where will I sleep? and What should I eat?
He’s not exaggerating. His credit card was once denied when he tried making a purchase at McDonald’s.
Those one-hour shifts helped, but Big Macs and Quarter Pounders don’t exactly foment college football success. Neither did getting banned from “The Caf,” the school’s main cafeteria. One of Douglas’ friends on the team got caught stealing food, so their whole crew was banned. Up to that point, yes, they were all stealing food to survive. Even though he physically wasn’t present when his teammate was busted, Douglas didn’t think about pleading the fifth. They were all tight, all in poverty.
“End of the day,” Douglas says, “we were like, ‘Bro, we need something.’”
No dinner meant teaching himself a new skill: How to fall asleep on an empty stomach.
“You’ve got to eat sleep,” Douglas says. “You go to sleep so that you won’t be hungry. It’s the only way that you’re not hungry — if you go to sleep.”
He’d wake up the next day, go to class and his stomach rumbled. He started gameplanning for his next meal.
All of it, he believed, was a test from above.
“When you tell God you want something, he’s going to see how much you want it and if you want it for the right reasons,” says Douglas. “He’ll throw some stuff at you. Like I say, ‘I wanted to be a football player.’ He says, ‘Okay, well do you want to be a football player when you’re homeless? Yeah, you pray every night to me but are you showing me the steps while being homeless? Do you still want to be a football player?’ And I’m like, ‘Hell yeah, I’m still going to go to school. I’m still going to go to practice every day.’ I might be homeless. I’ll find a way.
“Once he realized I still want it, it was ‘OK, let’s put him in position.’”
He grew to appreciate this state of survival.
On second thought, maybe JUCO wasn’t the worst place on the planet.
“When you’re poor, you have so much fun,” Douglas says. “You have no responsibilities. It’s like we’re all broke together. Nobody is better than nobody. We all f--ked up together.”
One more nightmare scenario tested his resolve. After drawing offers from powerhouses across the country, Douglas lost every… single… one. His credits wouldn’t transfer — to no fault of his own. Upon arriving at Nassau CC, he took whatever classes the school gave him. The bad news first dropped in May 2015 from Florida State and Georgia. One by one, schools coldly stated it was too late to wait around for him to take the necessary summer school classes.
For 18 years, the NFL wasn’t a dream. The second it became a real possibility? It was over.
Says Douglas: “I was losing my mind.”
That’s when one school threw him a life raft: West Virginia. More specifically, the team’s cornerbacks coach saved him. Brian Mitchell told Douglas that he promised him a spot on the roster so he was determined to make it happen. He didn’t want Douglas disappearing as a Never-Was due to a technicality.
All Douglas needed to do was gain straight A’s in four summer-school classes — two in June, two in July. There was no margin for error. No friendly tutors. One “B,” he insists, and West Virginia would not have accepted him. He aced all four and turned himself into an NFL prospect with one monster season.
Mitchell had departed by 2016. His greatest ally on campus told him through tears that he accepted a job at Virginia Tech. But that season, Douglas led the entire nation with eight interceptions.
The Philadelphia Eagles drafted him in the third round (99th overall) the following spring and he won a Super Bowl as a rookie. The thrill didn’t last. Philly cut Douglas after three years. And from September 2020 to October 2021, he toggled from the Eagles to the Carolina Panthers to the Las Vegas Raiders to the Houston Texans to the Arizona Cardinals. The rebuilding Texans told him straight up they weren’t trying to win games any time soon, which he respected.
One of the greatest lessons he learned in junior college was to “appreciate everybody and everything.”
Still, that’s hard to do when one team’s security guard treats you like an intruder.
‘They violated me’
The playbook was in his hand and the security guard did not believe him.
All Douglas wanted was to go to work with his latest team.
The Cardinals had just signed him to the practice squad, but the security guard didn’t believe him. Didn’t matter that this visitor was holding the team’s X’s and O’s. He called in for a second security guard, who was equally skeptical. “Show me where the DB room is,” the power-tripping second guard said. From there, the two men in uniform escorted Douglas to the defensive backs room where his position coach was waiting. Only then — only when the coach confirmed that this was Rasul Douglas, a cornerback on the football team — did the security guards back off.
The entire incident still visibly enrages Douglas.
“I got a f--king playbook,” he says. “You should know I’m a player. I have a f--king playbook.’”
He shakes his head. Pauses.
“That’s why, when I played them again,” says Douglas, referring to the Cardinals, “I made sure I got after their ass. I was hot. They violated me.”
Besieged by injuries at corner, the Packers signed Douglas off Arizona’s practice squad on Oct. 6 of that 2021 season. Finally, the football gods threw him a bone in the form of a Thursday Night Football matchup with those 7-0 Cardinals. What came next was the defining moment of his football life. With 15 seconds left, the Packers’ defense was clinging for dear life. Arizona had traveled from its own 1-yard line all the way to Green Bay’s 5 in a matter of three minutes. Out of timeouts, the Cardinals got the 1-on-1 matchup they craved: Rasul Douglas, NFL Nobody vs. A.J. Green, a 7-time Pro Bowler who’d finish his career with 10K yards and 70 touchdowns.
Douglas was the petrified corner who should’ve shrunk in the moment. Twenty million people were watching.
Green was the 6-foot-4 pro who’s plucked touchdowns atop the helmets of DBs his entire career.
Instead? Roles reversed. Douglas knew exactly what was coming and Green had no clue.
Quarterback Kyler Murray threw to Green’s back-shoulder in the end zone and the wide receiver never even turned for the ball. Douglas tipped and cradled the ball with his left hand. Interception. Ballgame. One vindicating wave to the Cardinals crowd.
Douglas knew Murray would throw back-shoulder to Green simply because “everybody is prideful” in this league. With the game on the line, in his mind, the Cardinals wanted to expose him as nothing but a pitiful practice player. He believes they wanted to show the world: “That’s why we let him go.”
Adds Douglas: “They had the whole story written out already. Once I make the play, now what? Now, it’s my chance to make the story. So, I knew it. As soon I saw them looking at me in Cover 0, I’m to the boundary. There’s all of this space with me and one of the best receivers. He’s one of the best. I knew it was coming. He didn’t know.”
“My whole thing was, if they have a chance to win it on me, they would do it.”
“Once they lost to us, they lost to everybody.”
Arizona self-destructed and fired both its GM and head coach.
Meanwhile, the fit in Green Bay was perfect. In longtime assistant Jerry Gray, he hit the jackpot with a coach who didn’t want to change a thing about his aggressiveness.
Instead of screaming and whining and begging Douglas to play within the confines of scheme, he took Douglas’ film preparation to a new level, to feed more risks on the field. More turnovers. The result: Five interceptions and two touchdowns in 2021, four more picks in 2022 and 26 passes defensed total. He gave up plays. He took chances that’d likely land him on the bench for other coaches. Here, his play style was valued. To Douglas, it’s no different than a mauling right guard being asked to dominate when a counter play is called in his gap. His reason for existence was to take the ball away.
He played mind games as well as any Packers DB since the Hall of Famer Woodson and nearly won a ring in Green Bay, too. Those ‘21 Packers earned the No. 1 seed and lost in the divisional round to San Francisco. Nobody can blame a defense that held Kyle Shanahan’s offense to two field goals, 12 first downs and 212 total yards. Four-time MVP Aaron Rodgers failed to deliver and the Packers had a punt blocked for a touchdown.
This loss still haunts him. Whenever people bring it up, he tells them he doesn’t want to go there.
The next season ended in similar dismay: a play-in loss to Detroit at Lambeau Field.
Then, things got weird.
The Packers started 2-5 with new quarterback Jordan Love and deemed themselves sellers at the trade deadline. GM Brian Gutekunst dealt Douglas and a fifth-round pick to the Buffalo Bills for a third-rounder. The move freed up $6.5 million in cap space and allowed younger corners to see the field on what was — by far — the youngest roster in the NFL.
But Douglas never saw it coming. He admits he was “shocked” by the trade. He figured the team would make a move but didn’t think it’d be him.
The key was Brandon Beane taking Douglas’ advice. He refused to take “no” for an answer.
When the Bills GM first broached the idea to Gutekunst, he was encouraged that the Packers GM said “no” and not “hell no.” So, he called, and called, and called again over a four- or five-day span. With Tre’Davious White tearing his Achilles, the Bills were in serious need of a cornerback. Finally, the deal was sweetened to Gutekunst’s liking.
Timing’s everything. Ironically enough, both teams got hot down the stretch.
Says Beane: “If they knew they were going to make that run, I don’t know if they would've done it.”
Above all, the instincts stood out. Beane saw everything click for Douglas in Green Bay and identified him as the medicine Buffalo needed.
“The game slowed down for him,” Beane says. “He always had instincts and ball skills, but he was able to do that and play within the scheme. Even the short time we had him, I think he quickly showed he could turn the ball over and he’s just got really an instinctual feel. You can’t teach things he’s got. And I thought the coaches did a good job of not worrying. Just give him the fundamentals of a defense. Don’t put him in too much complex stuff.
“Play it smart and not give up too much. But he’s definitely going to take some chances.”
It helped that Buffalo doesn’t merely stick its cornerbacks on receivers 1 on 1 all game long. Douglas picked off Zach Wilson, Tim Boyle in a blowout win over the New York Jets, sacked Los Angeles Chargers QB Easton Stick on a key third down, fooled Zappe for those two picks and inched closer toward another playoff moment — closer toward Mahomes — before joining the walking wounded himself in Orchard Park. In the first half of Buffalo’s Week 18 division-clinching win in Miami, he injured that knee, missed the wild-card win vs. Pittsburgh and, yes, the 30-year-old is still fuming over that loss to the Chiefs.
He remembers how much that knee held him back.
Still, this is Mahomes. The Chiefs. A dynasty in-progress.
Asked if he’s sure the Bills win with a functioning knee, he doesn’t recoil. He triples down.
“For sure. For sure. For sure.”
2024
He did not have freedom on Day 1 with the Buffalo Bills.
Rasul Douglas’ eyebrows nearly jump off his face.
Are you kidding?
“Nah. Nah. Nah. Hell no!” he says. “JB was f--king yelling at me the whole first game I got out there.”
That’d be John Butler, the Bills’ defensive backs coach who stepped down after the 2023 season. That first game, in Cincinnati, Douglas was so fed up with his coach barking in his ear that he told Christian Benford and Dane Jackson that he needed to switch sides. Play to play, Butler was trying to give him continuous instruction.
“He was yelling every play: ‘This dude, this dude, this dude!’ I’m like, f--k that,” Douglas says. “You f--king me up. I do not want to hear him yell at me every play telling me what to do. I just want to play. I can’t even play!’ But that’s just how he was.”
Butting of heads that hints at how so many teams failed to understand Douglas. There are many “JBs” who do not want cornerbacks playing turnover roulette. The coaches married to a very fundamental way of running a defense surely pull their hair out seeing Douglas stalking around with such calm. But where one coach sees lollygagging, sees a flat-footed cornerback bound to give up too many big plays, another sees a true weapon. In today’s NFL, everyone’s going to give up yards. There’s too much stacked against the defense.
But clamp down inside the 20s, force timely turnovers and you can string together playoff wins.
Each time he heard Butler yelling, it messed up that “whole picture” he was trying to piece together in his mind.
“I’ll be seeing some shit,” he continues, “and then you’re yelling at me and you’re f--king up what I’m seeing.”
He’s reminded that Butler isn’t around anymore.
“JB was a good guy, a good guy.”
So, it’s noteworthy that a head coach we’ve cited as too tight in the past seems OK letting one of his best players be himself.
Since the team’s late push in 2023, McDermott has been striking all of the right notes publicly. He’s stressing the sort of stuff that held Buffalo back in big moments past: playing to win and being bold and believing in his players. Translating offseason words into game action now means liberating Josh Allen on offense and Douglas on defense. That’s what it’ll take to slay the Chiefs, or whoever emerges in the AFC. The conference is full of smart quarterbacks and coordinators, which demands an intelligent variable on your side of the equation.
All robotic, by-the-book defenses have a ceiling in the playoffs.
Playoff L to playoff L, the sight of Bills defensive backs lining up far off the ball has grown old. It’s time for someone to take over.
This also happens to be a contract year for Douglas. He acts as if he has no clue. Deep down, however, you cannot help but wonder if a pinch of extra motivation helps. The kid hustling for McDonald’s now has a chance at even more generational wealth. His circuitous career arc is life advice for all. When you possess a specific skill, don’t get pigeonholed, don’t accept the rigid confines of what’s always been. Be bold. Take a risk. In his case, it’s the union of intense film work and guts.
A lot changed in Buffalo this offseason.
Longtime vets were released, traded or lost in free agency.
But the Bills are returning one of the best defensive playmakers in the league who’s now healthy, who’s now had a full offseason to master the X’s and O’s of this defense. He can take even more chances now. The goal is go All Pro. Asked how many turnovers he’s shooting for this 2024 season, Douglas takes a minute to do the math. Interceptions + Forced Fumbles + Fumble Recoveries? Fifteen. Yes, that seems realistic. Douglas says he’ll create 15 turnovers this regular season.
Then, it’s onto the games that really count around here.
When one turnover is all it takes.
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2024 NFL Season Preview features, to date, icymi:
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Bills-related features over the offseason, icymi:
Great article! He's becoming one of my favorite Bill. I suspect he's going to show the Cardinals up again on Sunday. A chip on the shoulder can be a powerful motivator. I commend you, Ty, for giving Douglas the floor and sharing his story.
This is awesome Ty. His story is one of my favorites over the years, I get why they moved on... but there's nobody like Sul!