This Isn’t Depth. This Is a Five-Alarm Fire.
Let’s get one thing straight. This is not some feel-good story about a veteran coming home. This isn’t a shrewd front office move to add a little ‘insurance’ before training camp. No. Stop believing the spin. The Buffalo Bills hosting a tryout for Shaq Lawson, an unemployed former first-round pick they’ve already cut ties with twice, is a screaming red siren signaling a catastrophic failure in roster construction. It’s a moment of sheer, unadulterated panic. And you should be panicking too.
Because this move tells you everything you need to know about the state of the Bills’ pass rush. It’s on life support. The entire foundation of their Super Bowl aspirations, the idea that their defense could actually stop Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow in January, is crumbling before our very eyes. And their solution is to call up a guy who couldn’t find a job anywhere else in the league? A guy who represents their own draft failure from nearly a decade ago? It’s madness. It is utter madness.
They want you to see this as business as usual. Just kicking the tires. But you don’t kick the tires on a car you already owned twice and sold because it kept breaking down unless every other car at the dealership has already exploded. That’s where we are. The dealership is on fire. General Manager Brandon Beane is running around with a tiny fire extinguisher, trying to put out an inferno of his own making, and Shaq Lawson is that extinguisher. It’s not going to work. It’s a desperate, futile gesture.
The Illusion of a Plan
The entire offseason has been a masterclass in denial. The team let Leonard Floyd, their most productive pass rusher from last season, walk away for a modest contract with the 49ers. The justification was that they needed to get younger, that it was time for guys like Gregory Rousseau and AJ Epenesa to step up. But what if they don’t? What if this is who they are? Good rotational players, but not game-wreckers. Not the alpha dogs you need to win a championship. And the front office clearly doesn’t believe they are, otherwise they wouldn’t be rummaging through the league’s discard pile for someone, anyone, to help.
And then there’s the Von Miller situation. The massive contract, the hope he would be the final piece. He’s coming off a devastating injury, looked like a shadow of his former self last year, and is another year older. Counting on him to be a 10-sack guy again is not a strategy; it’s a prayer. It’s crossing your fingers and hoping for a miracle while the championship window, propped open by the Herculean efforts of Josh Allen, slams shut on your fingers. This isn’t just about one roster spot. This is about the fundamental philosophy of the team. They have failed, repeatedly, to build a dominant defensive line through the draft. Their big free agent splash looks like a potential bust. And now they are crawling back to their own past mistakes for answers. It’s a terrifying cycle of mediocrity and a sign that they have no new ideas.
The Ghosts of Drafts Past
Remember 2016? The hype? Shaq Lawson was supposed to be the guy. The next great Bills pass rusher, a cornerstone piece selected in the first round to terrorize quarterbacks for a decade. It never happened. He flashed, sure. But he was never the dominant force they needed him to be. He was inconsistent. He bounced from Buffalo to Miami, to the Jets, and back to Buffalo, only to be let go again. He is the living embodiment of a plan that didn’t work. So why, in the name of all that is holy, would you go back to him for a third time?
Because it’s an admission of guilt. It’s the front office tacitly admitting that every plan they’ve concocted since 2016 to build an elite pass rush has failed. Think about it. They drafted Epenesa in the second round. He’s a decent player, nothing more. They drafted Rousseau in the first round. He’s long and athletic, but the sack numbers just aren’t there. He isn’t the closer they need him to be. They drafted Boogie Basham in the second round and he was a complete bust who they traded for peanuts. It’s a graveyard of high draft picks and broken dreams. So they are forced to go back in time, to the ghost of a previous regime’s first-round pick, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle for a third time. It’s pathetic. It’s like getting back with an ex you know is bad for you, simply because you’re too scared to be alone. The Bills are scared. They are terrified that their defense is not good enough, and they should be.
The Weight on Josh Allen’s Shoulders
And while the defense scrambles for has-beens and retreads, the pressure on Josh Allen intensifies to an impossible degree. The man already has to be Superman on every single snap. He has to account for a receiving corps that lost its two most reliable targets. He has to elevate a new offensive coordinator. And now, he has to do it all knowing his defense might need to hold opponents to under 20 points for them to even have a chance. That’s not sustainable. It’s how you burn out a generational talent. You ask him to do everything, all the time, with no margin for error. This tryout isn’t just about the defensive line; it’s an indictment of the entire team-building strategy. It exposes the fact that the Bills are not a complete team. They are a superstar quarterback and a collection of question marks. And in the AFC, against the likes of the Chiefs and the Ravens, question marks get you sent home in January. Every single time.
This is the harsh reality. The Bills are no longer the young up-and-comers. They are a veteran team with a massive quarterback contract and a closing window. Every move matters. Every decision is critical. And the decision to even consider bringing Shaq Lawson back is not the move of a confident, forward-thinking contender. It’s the move of a desperate organization trying to plug a gaping hole in a sinking ship with used parts. It’s rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The iceberg is right ahead, and the front office is busy looking at old photographs of the ship’s construction, wondering if they can reuse some of the original rivets.
The Inevitable Collapse is Coming
So what happens now? Maybe they sign Lawson. Maybe they don’t. It doesn’t matter. The damage is done. The weakness has been exposed for the entire league to see. The Bills do not believe in their own guys. They are looking for outside help, not as a luxury, but as a necessity. Opposing offensive coordinators are going to look at their depth chart and drool. They will chip Von Miller into oblivion. They will double-team Ed Oliver. And they will dare—they will beg—Gregory Rousseau or a 31-year-old Shaq Lawson to beat their tackles one-on-one. It’s not going to happen consistently. It just won’t.
Prepare for it now. Prepare for the games this season where Josh Allen plays his heart out, puts up 30 points, and the Bills lose 34-30 because the defense couldn’t get a single stop when it mattered. Prepare for the fourth-quarter drives where an opposing quarterback has all day to sit in the pocket and pick the secondary apart. Prepare for the frustration. The blame. The finger-pointing. It’s all coming. This tryout is the harbinger of that doom. It’s the first crack in the dam. The water is starting to trickle through, and soon enough, the entire structure is going to break.
A Championship Dream Turning into a Nightmare
This was supposed to be the year. Or last year. Or the year before that. But the clock is ticking, and it’s ticking faster than ever. The core of this team isn’t getting any younger. The contracts are only getting bigger. The AFC is only getting tougher. There is no more room for error, no more time for developmental projects or nostalgic reunions. You either have the horses to win the Super Bowl, or you don’t. And a team that is so desperate for pass-rushing help that it’s calling Shaq Lawson for a third tour of duty is telling you, in no uncertain terms, that they don’t have the horses. They are hoping and praying, and in the modern NFL, hope is not a strategy. It’s a precursor to failure. This isn’t just a personnel problem. It’s an existential crisis. And it’s happening right now.
