Bills sit below several questionable teams in NFL power rankings heading into training camp

The Buffalo Bills are one of the most intriguing teams in the NFL heading into the 2024 season, given their offseason maneuvering. They have some of the league’s best players in quarterback Josh Allen and former All-Pro linebacker Matt Milano, but the club objectively had a significant amount of turnover this spring.

Longtime starters Stefon Diggs, Micah Hyde, Jordan Poyer, Tre’Davious White, Mitch Morse, and Gabriel Davis are gone, their production and roles expected to be replaced by returning contributors in new/augmented roles or unproven offseason additions. There’s still reason to be optimistic about Buffalo’s fortunes heading into the 2024 campaign, but the team, on paper, isn’t as solid as it has been in recent years.

This feeling was reflected in TathleticismAccording to the NFL’s recent pre-training camp rankings, writer Josh Kendall has the Bills at No. 9. While Buffalo is the highest-ranked AFC East club on the list, there are perhaps a few controversial teams included higher than the Bills in the rankings.

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“Only the Chiefs have a longer active streak of double-digit winning seasons than the Bills’ five seasons,” Kendall wrote. “Whether Buffalo can keep that streak going is one of the league’s most interesting questions. It lost Diggs, Jordan Poyer, Tre’Davious White, Mitch Morse, Tyrel Dodson and Leonard Floyd this offseason.”

“That means more of the workload falls on quarterback Josh Allen, who already has plenty of work on the Bills. Over the past five seasons, no player has averaged more fantasy points per game, according to TruMedia. That’s not an exact match for on-field value, but it’s a pretty good indicator.”

Kendall’s analysis is spot on. While the departures of Diggs, Poyer, Morse and Floyd may be more felt than those of White and Dodson, all of those players left One Bills Drive this spring, and with that, several voices of confidence in the team’s locker room left in one fell swoop. Allen will be asked to supplement the offensive turnover by elevating a talented but unproven corps of weapons that, while promising, don’t offer much in the way of proven career success.

There’s reason to believe he can help his teammates improve, much as Allen has helped wide receivers improve throughout his career (think back to his rookie season, when many prognosticators were convinced Robert Foster was a bona fide NFL wide receiver). Also, consider the fact that he’s already developed a rapport with wide receivers Khalil Shakir and Dalton Kincaid, and that free agent Curtis Samuel has had success under offensive coordinator Joe Brady in the past, and one could imagine Buffalo’s passing attack finding consistent success this fall.

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Ranking in the top 10 of any power ranking is favorable for any team, but one could reasonably argue that the Bills should have been placed just slightly higher given the three teams included immediately above them: the Cleveland Browns, Dallas Cowboys and Green Bay Packers come in at No. 6, No. 7 and No. 8, respectively.

It’s hard to have too many qualms about Cleveland, as the team has one of the most deep rosters in American football. If quarterback Deshaun Watson can play even a fraction of his potential, the Browns could be problematic in the AFC—that said, Watson is a huge question mark. Dallas is a bit less defendable, as if the team had more marquee names (and is currently mired in a lot of contract controversy), the overall roster is a bit lacking and could be in for a rude awakening this season. Green Bay has a ton of young talent (led by quarterback Jordan Love), and while the Packers made a few intriguing additions this offseason (including running back Josh Jacobs and safety Xavier McKinney), is the team’s roster, top to bottom, really stronger than Buffalo’s?

Power rankings obviously come down to a matter of preference, and thankfully they’re just words on a computer or phone screen. Buffalo will be looking to surpass its (perhaps questionable) ranking this regular season.

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