ORCHARD PARK - One of the most interesting aspects of Buffalo Bills training camp this summer at St. John Fisher University will undoubtedly be a heated competition for roster spots at the wide receiver position.
But while you’re watching that transpire, spend a little time focusing on the guys across the line of scrimmage trying to prevent those wide receivers from catching Josh Allen’s passes because that’s going to be a pretty intriguing battle, too.
With Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer gone, neither safety spot is set in stone, and at cornerback, Kaiir Elam, the Bills’ 2022 first-round draft pick who has obviously underwhelmed during his first two seasons with the team, will be under intense scrutiny.
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It’s too early to call the cornerback a bust, but that won’t be the case if, by the end of the 2024 season, he is still riding the path to nowhere in the Buffalo defense.
“I’ve never been through nothing like this couple years,” Elam said Tuesday following an OTA workout at One Bills Drive. “I’m not gonna lie, I’m not gonna sit here and say I’ve been going through it my whole life. Mentally, I feel like it kind of ate at me. Well, not kind of, it did eat at me.”
Before Elam arrived in Buffalo, he had always been on the fast track to success. The son and nephew of former NFL players, it was almost his destiny that he would follow in their footsteps. He has done that, but while father Abram and uncle Matt combined for 97 starts in their careers, Kaiir’s first two seasons with the Bills have been marked by injury and inconsistent play which led to him either being a reserve, or inactive on game days.
“Every year I’ve played football, I’ve always grown and always became the guy and seen the accolades and seen the success,” he said. “Coming into Florida, people know that story. Coming into high school, same thing. Middle school, every time … I feel like, every year of it, I feel like I’ve grown and gotten a lot better.”
But with the Bills, that hasn’t been the case. The player who was excellent in man coverage for Florida in the talent-rich SEC has not been able to fit into Buffalo’s zone-heavy coverage scheme. As such, he has lost starts and playing time to Christian Benford, the Bills’ sixth-round pick in 2022, and when Benford has been injured, to former seventh-round pick Dane Jackson who just bolted to Carolina in free agency.
This year, Elam has another chance to alter his story. Jackson is gone, and so, too, is defensive backs coach John Butler who, the word was, didn’t connect with Elam. Butler has been replaced by Jahmile Addae who has 17 years of coaching experience at the collegiate level and at 39 years old, might be able to relate better to Elam. At least that’s the hope.
“We’re just on the same page, I would say,” he said of the relationship he is starting to forge with Addae. “Just pouring (knowledge) into me. I mean, treats me great but holding me to a standard, even in walk through. He’s always critiquing me and Christian, but it’s like, we’re human. It’s been a great bonding experience because he really understands me as a human. And he wants to pour into me, but he’s also challenging me to be better.”
Butler was a fine coach who had 10 years of NFL experience, six with Buffalo as he was a member of Sean McDermott’s original staff in 2017. The Bills have been one of the best teams in the NFL in pass defense, and Butler certainly deserves some credit for that. By all accounts, he had good relationships with his troops.
Whatever the problem was with Elam, Butler’s departure cleans the slate for the still very young 23-year-old and it’s on him to be better and win a job the way the first-round pick was supposed to have already done.
“I trust and believe in myself a lot more than I ever did,” Elam said. “I’ve learned to appreciate the struggles. And I also feel like this helped me come to who I am now. So I just go out there and try to play free and make plays. Just go back to what my coaches said.”
Elam lost out to both Benford and Jackson for a starting job at the beginning of 2022 when Tre’Davious White was still sidelined. In Week 3 he began a string of six straight starts due mainly to Benford and/or Jackson being injured. Elam then suffered an ankle injury against the Jets, missed two games and didn’t start again until the playoff loss to the Bengals, one awarded to him after he’d made an interception in the wild-card victory over Miami.
In 2023, pretty much his whole season was ruined by injuries, first by a foot injury in training camp and later by an ankle injury. He played in only three games (one against Pittsburgh in the playoffs) and his two starts were a direct result of injuries to Benford in the first and Jackson in the second.
“I do think the foot deal bothered him more than he let anyone know at the end of training camp, and yes, he was playing with it, but I don’t think he looked like himself there,” general manager Brandon Beane said. “You can’t mimic games for as long as he was out. I think the best thing we did was let our medical team work on him and get him healthy. And I think you saw flashes of what he can do.”
He’s right, there were flashes, but Elam needs much more than flashes if he hopes to earn a starting job this season.
“Now what we’ve got to get a better feel for is, can he do that on a more consistent basis?” McDermott said. “Just overall he needs to continue to up his game quite honestly. And we’ll see how he factors into what we’re doing defensively.”
Elam said he completely understands the expectation, and he believes the struggles and the frustrations he has already endured will buoy him for the challenge ahead.
“I’m hungry and I want to do a lot better,” he said. “Just believe in myself, and you know, it’s a part of life, man. It’s not gonna go your way. But I pride myself on staying resilient, continuing to challenge myself to learn from previous mistakes, and stay confident in myself to go out there and do a good job.”
Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out every other Friday during the offseason, please follow this link:https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast
