The heat isn’t on Leslie Frazier nearly as much as it is Brian Daboll.
Frazier, the Bills defensive coordinator, saw his unit have decent numbers last season even as Buffalo went only 6-10.
His unit was in the middle of the NFL in touchdowns surrendered — 39 in 16 games — but led the 32-team league in fewest passing yards given up and second in least opponents yardage relinquished.
Meanwhile, Daboll’s offense was 31st in points scored, yards gained and passing yards and 30th in third-down success.
That’s why of Buffalo’s 18 unrestricted free agent signings, 14 were on offense.
But the Bills ’D’ wasn’t ignored and four of the eight draft picks played that side of the ball, including No. 1 pick, Ed Oliver, the Houston defensive tackle, taken ninth overall.
Still, the only defensive starter gone is DT Kyle Williams, who retired, though end Trent Murphy and outside linebacker Matt Milano missed time with injuries.
Tuesday morning, in his first interview of training camp, Frazier answered plenty of questions about his unit, and Oliver in particular.
“Up to this point, you really see him begin to come alive with the pads on,” he admitted. “It’s hard for the defensive linemen to practice without pads. It really limits what they can do. Ed’s game is about his explosion, his power and his quickness and we saw some of that the first day we put pads on.
“It’s a little bit of an adjustment for him coming from a scheme where he was pretty much lined up directly over the center. Now we have more to guard so there are some intricacies and things he’ll have to learn. But it’s good to see him be able to do what he’s capable of doing and that’s being able to explode off the football and use his quickness and his power which he hadn’t been able to do (out of pads).”
Frazier added, “I think it’s a really good situation that Ed has come into where the pressure isn’t all on him to, on Day 1 after you’re drafted, and have to be a starter. It’s tough in this league, especially for defensive linemen. So for him to go through and learn some of the schemes he’s going to get and to understand our defense, is a plus for him.
“One of the reasons we were so excited about drafting Ed, and even when we were scouting him, was we saw the potential for him to be able to win against guards one-on-one. When people try to slide the line maybe to Ed on the inside, (end) Jerry Hughes, one of the premier pass rushers in our league … we can take some of those double teams away from him and that gives us the opportunity to put one of the best edge rushers in a one-on-one situation against offensive tackles.”
Still, Oliver is only working about half the time with the first unit.
“Up to this point he’s been pretty good about (patience),” Frazier said. “We’ll see how things go as the preseason goes but I’m sure he’s chomping at the bit and we’ve begun to give him some first-team reps. We’ll gradually bring him along, but his attitude has been great. He understands the situation but like all players, eventually he will want to start.”
Of course, beyond Oliver, Frazier, once last season ended, has been maintaining he wants his defense to play “meaner.”
“You always want to have a tough-minded defense and there are different ways to do that,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s easier because (we) have so many guys returning. Every team in the league wants to be a tough, hard-nose defense. We aren’t different, we want to be a tough, hard-nosed group and we will work towards it but you also want to be smart.
“You don’t want to be out there being a tough guy and all of a sudden we get a personal foul. That doesn’t help our defense, so we want to be smart about what we’re doing.”
Especially for a team that was 28th worst in the league drawing infractions last season.
(Chuck Pollock, a Bradford Publishing senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald)
