While other teams spent all of Monday splurging on external free agents, the Buffalo Bills have focused on retaining their own. After finishing his first four years in Buffalo, defensive end A.J. Epenesa is back on a brand new deal.
Epenesa signed a two-year deal to remain with the Bills through the 2025 season, the team announced Monday. He was the second of two Bills re-signings on Monday, following the team reaching a two-year deal with reserve defensive back Cam Lewis.
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Epenesa, 25, is ranked No. 80 on The Athletic’s Top 150 free agents available in 2024 following the best season of his young career.
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How he fits: The Bills have had a lot of turnover on defense this offseason, specifically along the defensive line. With only four defensive linemen from the 2023 active roster still signed in 2024, Epenesa’s return gives them a fifth and a trusted commodity within their scheme. The continuity piece is enormous, as the Bills are trying to withstand many significant changes to their team while still competing for a Super Bowl this season. Epenesa joins Greg Rousseau, Von Miller and Kingsley Jonathan in the defensive end room as the team hopes for another season of what head coach Sean McDermott covets most from his defense. McDermott saw his front four consistently get to the quarterback without sending blitzers last season, and now the Bills return three of their top four edge rushers from 2023. Independently, Epenesa look to build off a campaign in which he tied for his most sacks in one season (6.5) and had the highest pressure rate of his career (14.2 percent).
2024 impact: The return of Epenesa is a sneakily significant signing for the Bills in their defensive rotation structure. The team doesn’t know what they’ll get from Miller, after he just had zero sacks in 2023, heading into his age-35 season. When all were healthy, Epenesa began the year as the fourth-best defensive end on the depth chart, though the top three of Rousseau, Miller and Floyd all are at their best on the defensive left side. Epenesa became a key role player every week as a natural right defensive end, and his production continued to rise all year. The Bills did use one of the Rousseau, Miller and Floyd trio on the right side as the year went on, but they would prefer to keep players in their position likeliest for production. Epenesa’s return means he could even be the starter at right defensive end opposite Rousseau on the left side, with Miller as the primary backup to both spots.
Agreed to terms with DE AJ Epenesa on a two-year contract. pic.twitter.com/14RxM4ti1V
— Buffalo Bills PR (@BuffaloBillsPR) March 11, 2024
History: The Bills have seen several different forms of Epenesa since selecting him in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft. He originally projected as a first-round pick but fell to the second round. However, the high external expectations remained through a tough first two seasons. First, the team wanted Epenesa to drop down from his college weight in the mid-280s, but as it was the offseason most impacted by COVID-19, Epenesa had no in-person contact with the team and lost too much weight, crashing down into the 240s. He slowly began working his way back up in his second year to 250 and started to see some on-field progress. But it was when he arrived at his current playing weight of 265 pounds — right in the team’s target zone for defensive ends — that he made big strides as a player in his third season. The team believes in his potential for even more improvement with a bigger role as he enters the prime of his career.
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Cap update: Epenesa’s two-year deal is worth a total of $12 million, according to a league source. His first year’s base salary, $2.56 million, is fully guaranteed and he’ll also receive a $4 million signing bonus. The contract has two void years to spread out the signing bonus further, which means Epenesa’s cap hit in 2024 will be $3.96 million. He’ll have a $6 million cap hit in 2025. The pass rusher can also earn up to an additional $4.05 million per year if he hits specific sack and playtime incentives.
Outlook: The Epenesa re-signing isn’t a game-changer for the Bills, but it’s a very good one. It also likely doesn’t preclude them from trying to add another defensive end in the 2024 NFL Draft. They often strive to draft, develop and retain, and they were able to do so with their still-ascending 2020 second-round pick. Epenesa’s ability to bat away passes at the line of scrimmage, and an improving pass-rush arsenal could push him into the starting lineup this season, which would be the first time in his Bills career. His best football appears ahead of him as the team’s patience in a slow-starting Day 2 pick has been rewarded in the long run.
(Photo of A.J. Epenesa: Bryan Bennett / Getty Images)