Last year’s big deadline acquisition is back for a full year with Buffalo
The Buffalo Bills needed help at cornerback last season. After Tre’Davious White tore his Achilles tendon in Week 4, the Bills used a combination of Dane Jackson, Kaiir Elam, and Christian Benford on the outside. When Elam stumbled thanks in part to a foot ligament injury, it was clear that the team needed to make a move.
Enter veteran Rasul Douglas. The former third-round pick of the Philadelphia Eagles had made a name for himself with the Green Bay Packers, but the Bills were able to acquire him at a reasonable asking. Douglas immediately made an impact, and by the end of the season, he had established himself as a dominant force in the defensive secondary.
In today’s installment of our “91 players in 91 days” series, we discuss Douglas’ prospects for 2024, as well.
Rasul Douglas
- Number: 31
- Position: CB
- Height/Weight: 6’2”, 209 pounds
- Age: 29 (30 on 8/29/2024)
- Experience/Draft: 8; selected in the third round (No. 99 overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles
- College: West Virginia
Acquired: Traded with a 2024 fifth-round choice (used by Buffalo to select EDGE Javon Solomon) to the Bills for a 2024 third-round choice (used by Green Bay to select linebacker Ty’Ron Hopper) on 10/31/2024
Financial situation (per Spotrac): The Bills and Douglas agreed to a reworked contract that only added void years to the final year of his deal. That lowered his 2024 cap hit from $9 million to $3,348,529. Douglas now has void years in 2026 and 2027 to spread that money out for short-term cap relief. If Douglas were to be released this year, the Bills would carry a dead-cap charge of $5.5 million in 2024 and $4.125 million in 2025.
2023 Recap: Douglas began his season with the Packers, and he struggled. In seven games with Green Bay, he allowed 65.9% of the passes thrown his way to be completed for a total of 292 yards and four touchdowns. He had six pass breakups and one interception, and allowed a quarterback rating of 109 when he was the closest man in coverage.
After going to the Bills, however, he immediately looked like a different player in Buffalo’s system. He allowed just 51.3% of the passes thrown his way to be completed for a total of 232 yards and one touchdown. He had eight pass breakups, two fumble recoveries, and four interceptions (including one returned for a score) in nine games with the Bills. Opposing quarterbacks had just a 38.6 quarterback rating when targeting him. For reference, that means that they’d have been better off just throwing incomplete passes around him, as the rating of an incompletion is just 39.6.
Douglas was injured in the Bills’ win over the Miami Dolphins in the regular season finale, which caused him to miss Buffalo’s Wild Card win over the Pittsburgh Steelers. He came back to play against the Kansas City Chiefs, but he was clearly hampered by the knee injury he suffered just two weeks prior. He had two tackles and forced a fumble in that game.
Positional outlook: Douglas is one of 11 corners on the roster. Cam Lewis, Dee Delaney, and Te’Cory Couch are listed as DBs, so they’ll be doing some cross-training at safety. Christian Benford, Kaiir Elam, Ja’Marcus Ingram, Keni-H Lovely, Kyron Brown, Daequan Hardy, and Taron Johnson are the other corners.
2024 Offseason: Douglas is healthy and he’s been working with the first unit primarily on defense. There’s been a healthy amount of rotation between him, Benford, and Elam as the starting outside corners.
2024 Season outlook: Douglas is likely to begin the season as a starter, but I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if he is replaced at some point — whether permanently or on a scheme-dependent basis — by Elam. Of the team’s top three corners, Douglas is the most limited by scheme, as he struggles in press-man coverage and tends to excel in either zone or off-man. This hides some of his athletic limitations and allows him to watch the quarterback in order to make breaks on the ball. That’s not really a negative until the Bills meet a team that shreds that style of play, one where it’s essential to knock the wideouts off their route early on thanks to the incredible timing of the opposing quarterback.
However, Douglas has the physicality to man-up against teams where their top target might be a tight end, so if all of Buffalo’s top corners are healthy and they run into such a team, it’s possible that they use him in the same way that they used to use Siran Neal to mug bigger, stronger tight ends at the line. Yes, in both scenarios I’m talking about the Kansas City Chiefs, so if Elam can continue his strong play and Benford can stay healthy, the Bills might be able to mix-and-match their corners to dictate favorable matchups rather than playing Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid’s game.
Douglas was a great addition in 2023, and if he can play nearly as well as he did for the Bills last season, he’ll be a valuable part of their defense in 2024. If he can equal his production from last season, that would be amazing. He’ll be a vital part of what the team does this year.