I have never before heard an NFL injury — or ailment of any kind in any walk of life — be referred to as an “oops, oops” before that description was used by Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver during OTAs.
Per Thigh Doctor on Twitter, “Oliver said a recent “oops, oops” was the reason he wasn’t able to be on the field during Organized Team Activities (OTAs). He was recently seen on a horse on his Instagram page with a long sleeve on his left leg.”
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Thigh Doctor then ventured a guess as to what producer Oliver may have had done this offseason:
Oliver has not participated in OTAs to date — there is one more session this week — yet is at the team facilities, per Syracuse.com’s Matt Parrino.
Another outstanding Bills-injury analyst on Twitter, Kyle Trimble — aka Banged Up Bills — astutely pinpointed the amount of surgeries he’s had since last year
Yikes.
Oliver is still only 28 years old and won’t turn 29 until December. For a defensive tackle, he’s still very much in the prime of his career.
I’m sure Bills would like Oliver to get onto the field to start repping the intricacies of Jim Leonhard’s new defense. Initial scheme adoption is taking place now, yet it’s not necessarily time to worry about Oliver’s potential lack of involvement.
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If he’s sidelined at the start of training camp, that would make for an entirely different story and indisputably raise the level of concern.
Last week, I compared Zane Durant to John Franklin-Myers, a low-key vital piece to the Broncos defense Leonhard coached the past two seasons.
Oliver, too, is on the Franklin-Myers comparison spectrum too at 6’1” and 287 pounds with elite-level explosiveness and, as an NFL vet, plenty of point-of-attack power.
He appeared in just four games — counting the return-to-the-field cameo in the divisional round in Denver — and registered a seismic 17.8% pressure rate (13 pressures on 73 pass-rush snaps). Anything over 10% is awesome for an interior rusher. Collectively, in his last two full seasons — 2023 and 2024 — Oliver generated 121 pressures (counting the playoffs) on 1,009 pass-rush snaps, which equates to a pressure rate of 11.9%.
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Hopefully by now everyone realizes Leonhard’s scheme — with a three-man base front — is not going to simply ask its defensive linemen to eat blockers and never attack upfield. And you can bet your bottom dollar Oliver will be afforded many opportunities to penetrate and disrupt the opposition’s backfield, clearly what he does best on a football field.
The new (potential) knee scope is agitating, especially considering Oliver was cleared mid-season last year from the semi-mysterious ankle injury suffered late in his monster performance in Week 1’s comeback win over the Baltimore Ravens. There doesn’t seem to be much concern from Oliver or anyone on the Bills coaching staff/front office about his availability even for the start of camp in late July. That’s telling.
Because even though Oliver doesn’t fit the traditional three-man front archetype, pressure is still king in the NFL, and he is the best, most dynamic pressure-creating down lineman the Bills have on their roster.
