Ascending DE named Bills’ ‘most promising building block’ heading into 2024 NFL season

Game tape is paramount in talent evaluation. While stats and highlights are eye-catching and not useless, NFL general managers and executives must watch tape in order to properly assess a player’s true abilities. There is context in the tape that is not available through other means, and it is this context that, more often than not, is critical to a player’s ultimate success.

There is a few There are, however, occasions when the eye test is just as useful as the film.

Gregory Rousseau is one of the rare examples of this phenomenon. The perspective had not poor Coming out of Miami, he simply wasn’t at his best — he was sidelined for the COVID-impacted 2020 college season, giving oddsmakers a year to comb through his 2019 film. He recorded 15.5 sacks in his freshman season, but several pundits came away from his film with questions about his ability to generate rushes, noting that a significant portion of his sacks were clean-up types.

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Rousseau, however, certainly has look at The role of an elite NFL pass rusher. Coming out of college as a 6-foot-7, 266-pound prospect with an elite set of traits and an otherworldly wingspan, the qualities of a difference-maker were there, regardless of the issues uncovered in his video. It was too great a possibility for the Buffalo Bills to pass up late on the first night of the 2021 NFL Draft, as they selected him with the 30th overall pick.

He’s made that gamble pay off so far. Rousseau immediately established himself as one of the team’s top run defenders, a pedestal he hasn’t left since. He’s tallied 94 run stops in his three-year career, according to PFF, including a team-high 41 stops in his rookie season. He’s also shown occasional flashes as a pass rusher, recording 17 sacks as a pro. He’s coming off what may have been his most productive season as a pass rusher, recording a career-high 62 quarterback pressures in 2023, according to PFF.

Already a solid player who is only improving, Rousseau could reasonably be identified as one of Buffalo’s current pillars. Bleacher Report’s David Kenyon seems to agree with that sentiment, calling the 24-year-old the Bills’ “most promising pillar” in a recent article for the newspaper.

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“Tight end Dalton Kincaid is worth mentioning, but Greg Rousseau is a promising player at a premium position,” Kenyon wrote. “The edge rusher had 17 sacks and 67 pressures in three seasons with the Bills. Buffalo recently picked up Rousseau’s fifth-year option, tying him to the organization through the 2025 season. Based on his current trajectory, Rousseau will be worthy of an extension in the near future.”

The Bills, as Kenyon wrote, recently picked up Rousseau’s fifth-year option, but that wouldn’t necessarily preclude the team from giving him a contract extension in the coming months if it so desired. That could ultimately work out for the team; while he’s still a bit inconsistent overall, his play has only gotten better throughout his professional career, and it may only be a matter of time before he takes a step toward the upper echelon of pass rushers.

Buffalo faithful shouldn’t necessarily worry about the feasibility of an extension, as the Bills have freed up some long-term financial wiggle room through their offseason maneuvering. Additionally, it appears the Rousseau family has taken a liking to Western New York; Greg’s brother Jonathan Rousseau recently committed to the University at Buffalo to play college football.

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