{"id":133721,"date":"2025-06-16T06:19:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-16T06:19:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/133721\/"},"modified":"2025-06-16T06:19:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-16T06:19:09","slug":"shaq-thompson-unlikely-to-start-for-bills","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/133721\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaq Thompson Unlikely To Start For Bills"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Bills linebacker Shaq Thompson<\/a> has been a full-time starter for most of his career. A veteran of 10 years, Thompson started double-digit games in each of his first eight seasons and entered each of his last two seasons as the starter, as well. For the first time in his career, though, it\u2019s considered likely that Thompson will consistently be coming off the bench<\/a> throughout the 2025 NFL season, per Joe Buscaglia of The Athletic. \"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This week saw Thompson reunited<\/a> with his former defensive coordinator in Carolina \u2014 now Bills head coach \u2014 Sean McDermott and a man who helped in drafting him to Carolina, Bills general manager Brandon Beane. That familiarity with McDermott\u2019s system will almost certainly help the 31-year-old defender earn a role on the defense, but Buscaglia posits that Thompson\u2019s ceiling could be as LB4 on the depth chart.<\/p>\n

In 2025, Buffalo hopes it will see the return of three healthy starters in Matt Milano<\/a> and Dorian Williams<\/a> on the outside and Terrel Bernard<\/a> in the middle, and per Buscaglia, the three \u201call seem relatively entrenched in their spots.\u201d To be fair to Thompson\u2019s chances, though, none of them had very good individual performances in 2024, according to Pro Football Focus (subscription required<\/a>). PFF graded Williams as the best of the three, ranking him at 61st out of 84 players graded at the position. Milano came in at 73rd, while Bernard slotted in at 80th.<\/p>\n

To be fair to Williams, Milano, and Bernard, though, the three only got four games together in the regular season. Once they got to the playoffs, the three worked extremely well together in slowing down a potent Ravens offense to advance to an AFC Championship matchup with the Chiefs.<\/p>\n

If Thompson can get back to his pre-injury level of play, though, there\u2019s certainly a chance he can earn some starting time, should any of the current first-team stumble. That\u2019s a big if, though. With his 2023 season ending due to a fibula fracture<\/a> and his 2024 campaign cut short due to a torn Achilles tendon<\/a>, it\u2019s been nearly two years since we\u2019ve seen Thompson at his best. Primarily an outside linebacker during his time in Carolina, Thompson could push the weak link in the rankings, Bernard, by shifting inside for some potential playing time, as well.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, Thompson will need to show he\u2019s healthy, and he\u2019ll need to show that he still is capable of running in McDermott\u2019s defense, but Thompson has every chance at making the roster and earning a strong role. Turning that strong role into a starting one may be a tougher task for Thompson to tackle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Bills linebacker Shaq Thompson has been a full-time starter for most of his career. A veteran of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133722,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,7,6,4859],"class_list":{"0":"post-133721","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl","14":"tag-shaq-thompson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114691595654363938","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133721","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133721\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}