DeWayne Carter looked like a roster casualty waiting to happen when Buffalo wrapped the preseason, but two injuries and a little timing have flipped the script.
The former third-round pick is suddenly carving out real snaps as a rotational defensive tackle in Jim Leonhard’s scheme, and through two games he’s done enough to matter. Carter was on the field for 18 snaps in Week 1 against the Texans, where he recorded one tackle for a run stop, one pressure on seven pass-rush snaps, and no missed tackles.
That opportunity may have opened after the preseason finale against the Steelers, when rookie defensive tackle Zane Durant suffered a neck injury on one of the final defensive snaps. Durant eventually landed on IR-designated to return, and that likely helped Carter survive cut-down day after three exhibition games in which he was on the field well into the fourth quarter.
Buffalo usually leans toward the rookie draft pick in a situation like Carter versus Durant, but the injury changed the math. Whether the Bills valued Carter’s experience more than Durant’s upside, the result was the same: Carter made the 53-man roster.
Then came another break. Before Week 2 against the Lions, Ed Oliver was a late scratch after hurting his hip during warmups.
With the inactive list adjusted, Carter’s workload climbed again, and he played 31 snaps in Buffalo’s 10-point win. He finished with two tackles, including one stop, and added two pressures on 20 pass-rush snaps.
The numbers are still coming from a tiny sample, but they’ve been good enough to notice. Carter’s pressure rate sits at 11.1%, and he’s already nearly halfway to the eight pressures he had all of last season on 162 pass-rush snaps. For an interior defender, anything around 10% starts to separate the merely functional from the genuinely disruptive.
He’s also making noise against the run. Carter has two stops on just 21 run-game snaps, and the charting suggests he’s winning on more than half of those reps.
That’s a sharp turn for a player whose path in Buffalo looked shaky after an Achilles tear wiped out his entire second season in the league, following a muted rookie year. Carter also spent the offseason changing his body, trying to fit a new role.
He was drafted as a one-gap penetrating three-technique in the Sean McDermott era, but this version of the Bills wants a bulkier nose tackle. Carter said this summer he had gained 20-30 pounds before reporting to training camp at St.
John Fisher University.
He came into the league at just under 6-foot-3 and 305 pounds at the 2024 NFL Combine, and now he’s trying to survive and contribute in a different kind of job.
Maybe he never becomes a steady disruptive force. Maybe that ceiling is out of reach.
But right now, Buffalo is getting something useful from him, and that matters. Carter has played 34% of the defensive snaps through two games, and for a player who seemed on the brink a month ago, that’s a meaningful foothold.
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