{"id":781769,"date":"2026-02-28T08:35:51","date_gmt":"2026-02-28T08:35:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/781769\/"},"modified":"2026-02-28T08:35:51","modified_gmt":"2026-02-28T08:35:51","slug":"should-the-buffalo-bills-bring-back-free-agent-de-a-j-epenesa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/781769\/","title":{"rendered":"Should the Buffalo Bills bring back free-agent DE A.J. Epenesa?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Next up on our free-agency tour is Buffalo Bills defensive end A.J. Epenesa. In my spirit of not BSing the readers, I\u2019ll cut to the chase up top here. It\u2019s not like you haven\u2019t already clicked into the article anyway. I like Epenesa but we need to approach this from a business stance.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">There\u2019s no compelling reason to not let Epenesa test the market. He struggled to break 50% of snaps on Buffalo Bills teams that were known for creating pressure through scheme, not individual effort. Speaking of which, had Sean McDermott remained with the team, that would have increased his value. At least then you could argue \u201che knows the scheme.\u201d That won\u2019t be the case now.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Since you\u2019re here, let\u2019s watch some film anyway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">I went with highlights for A.J. Epenesa because the man has always flashed high upside. All of these plays have some fantastic elements. That said, the difference between good and great in a professional league is often just a matter of frequency. I wouldn\u2019t be shocked to see a comment about Epenesa\u2019s rate stats, and that\u2019s a good argument.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Epenesa had two seasons with 6.5 sacks where he also hovered around 40% of snaps on the defense. Assuming Epenesa could handle a doubled workload, putting him in rarefied air for a defensive end, you could argue the extrapolation to a 13-sack season profiles a drastically different player. That would indeed be considered an elite season for a single player. That bring up the question maybe you want to debate in the comments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Do you believe that Epenesa\u2019s rate would hold up with a drastically higher workload?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Next up on our free-agency tour is Buffalo Bills defensive end A.J. Epenesa. In my spirit of not&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":781770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,85590,1622,2086,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-781769","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-buffalo-bills-analysis","12":"tag-buffalo-bills-opinion","13":"tag-buffalobills","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116147348051924369","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781769","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=781769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/781770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}