TBP 230: Jay Skurski’s State of the Bills (The Defense)

On this episode of the future award-winning Talking Buffalo Podcast presented by 26 Shirts, Patrick Moran hosts the second half of this week’s “State of the Buffalo Bills” featuring Bills beat reporter at The Buffalo News, Jay Skurski.  Today the guys focus on the defensive side of the ball along with a brief look at special teams.

Whether the defensive line is better or not in 2020 remains to be seen but the unit is unquestionably deeper.  Jay offers has takes on departed defensive lineman Jordan Phillips, who went to Arizona and Shaq Lawson, who cashed in with Miami before the attention turns to free agent additions Mario Addison, Quinton Jefferson and Vernon Butler.  Jay breaks them down along with second-round rookie A.J. Epenesa falling into Buffalo’s lap at the draft while also advising that writing off Trent Murphy may be premature.

While the line is stout with depth, the same can’t be said at linebacker.  Matt Milano and Tremaine Edmunds are both stars and talked about in detail, but there’s good reason to worry about what’s behind them.

Jay talks about Jordan Poyer becoming a leader and Tre White headed towards a monster pay day in the secondary before the guys debate if signing cornerback Josh Norman was a mistake.

They also touch on special teams, including the brewing kicker battle between incumbent Stephen Haushka and rookie Tyler Bass.

Before hitting up Bills talk the guys page homage to WGRZ-TV sportscaster Stu Boyar, who retired this week after 35-years at Channel 2.  They also discuss Jay’s six-year old son Elliot, who is dominating kids his age in golf tournaments.

Patrick also has thoughts on WGR 550 letting Paul Hamilton going and him being picked up by WGRZ-TV later in the week.

You can follow Jay on Twitter @JaySkurski and be sure to support local journalism by subscribing to The Buffalo News.

Follow Patrick Moran on Twitter @PatMoranTweets.

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