Returning Bills Veteran Turns Heads With Struggles Through Early Practices

The Buffalo Bills brought back longtime veteran Tre’Davious White to help their secondary this offseason, but the returning veteran hasn’t had the smoothest transition back to Buffalo.

The Bills had originally cut White in March 2024, part of a string of cost-cutting moves in order to create cap space. He originally signed with the Los Angeles Rams but was moved to the Baltimore Ravens at the trade deadline, where he finished the season and headed to free agency.

The Bills brought White back in April, but the team added some immediate competition by drafting cornerback Maxwell Hairston with their first-round pick. White could now face even more difficulty after some missteps at the team’s minicamp.

Questions Remain Over Tre’Davious White’s Athleticism

As The Athletic’s Joe Buscaglia noted, White has lost a step from his former All-Pro seasons in Buffalo. The veteran suffered through a series of major injuries, tearing his ACL in 2021 and then tearing his Achilles in 2023.

“However, the main concern over White’s game was similar to what they had late last year with Rasul Douglas,” Buscaglia wrote. “White’s ability to turn and run with receivers isn’t what it used to be, leading to some real opportunities for Bills pass catchers throughout the spring practices.”

Buscaglia added that White is “still quite proficient in the zone coverages the Bills generally employ,” but his struggles in one-on-one coverages could grow more pronounced as the team moves into game situations and plays break down.

Buscaglia added that it’s still too early to make a long-term prediction of where White could land, but deemed it an issue worth monitoring.

“It’s not to say that White can’t get himself back to a place, as it would be unwise to write him off after only five viewed practices in the spring,” Buscaglia wrote. “It is just something worth monitoring once the Bills return to the field in late July, and it could be the catalyst toward the job opening right up for Hairston if he shows well enough during camp.”

White had been a mainstay of the secondary since he came to the Bills as a first-round draft pick in 2017, helping the team end its 17-year playoff drought in his first season and eventually turning the team into a Super Bowl contender after Josh Allen was drafted the following season.

Competition for Final Starting Cornerback Spot

White is expected to compete for the starting cornerback spot that Douglas occupied last season, but is expected to face some stiff competition from the rookie Hairston. NFL Films producer Greg Cosell said Hairston is a great example of a cornerback who can play either man coverage or zone.

“I thought he understood the mandates of zone coverage, pattern recognition, had a good feel for spatial awareness,” Cosell said. “In every zone, there’s conflict areas, there’s stress areas, and coaches talk about that all the time, that they’re trying to minimize those conflict and stress areas,” said Cosell. “I thought he had a really good feel for that in zone coverage, and we know how important that is in Sean McDermott’s defense because they do play a lot of zone concepts.”