Dear Bills Mafia,

Remove your veil of vitriol.

Exit your armor of anger. 

Leave your fortress of frustration. 

Join me as I punch your one-way, ten-day ticket to examining the Bills’ excellent players of 2022.

As you can glean from the above open letter to all Bills fans, this is the start of the top 10 most important players from the 2022 season. A year where the Bills may not have reached the preseason promise of a Super Bowl parade, but still saw them tie a franchise record with 13 wins and earn a third straight AFC East crown. I will attack these rankings from ten to one and weave Cover 1 staff commentary, count stats, and analytics throughout each player’s profile.

Rankings:

Five members of the Cover1 crew provided a top 10 list. This is where I derived my player rankings. A first-place vote was worth 10 points, and a tenth-place vote was worth one point, with the scale continuing in-between. I compiled those numbers for each Bills’ total, for our final 1-10 rankings.

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Commentary:

With each ranking, the staffers gave a sentence or two shining some light on why they scored each Bill where they did, providing you, the fan, with some explanation of the rankings aside from guiding you strictly to numbers and analytics.

Counting Stats:

Here is the area where we look at the boxscore numbers most fans are familiar with; yards, touchdowns, interceptions, tackles, etc. I will break those down from a historical perspective, versus their position, and seasonal ranks.

Analytics:

While counting stats gives us a quick look at who is excelling at surface stats, analytics peel back the layers a bit further to take us beyond the boxscore. Here we will check out Pro Football Focus (PFF), dive into Football Outsiders with their DVOA, utilize NFL’s Sports Info Solutions (SIS), and more.

Others Receiving Votes:

Tyler Bass: The Bills’ kicker made 30 of 34 field goal attempts and 53 of 55 extra points. His 71.6 grade from PFF ranks him 16th among 45 kickers in 2022. According to @UberHansen, what Bass does in money time matters most. “Having one of the best Kickers in the NFL is more important than most fans are willing to accept. The Bills just so happen to have one of those, and, more importantly, a kicker who nailed three game-winning kicks with under 0:05 on the clock this season.” – @UberHansen

Gabe Davis: The Bills No. 2 wide receiver was a series of boom or bust plays in 2022, but the highs were half-baked high. Just look at his performance against the Steelers where he hauled in three receptions for 171 yards and three touchdowns. On the other side, he had an 11.1 drop%, and it felt like most were in key moments. “Gabe Davis is a guy that needed to be more consistent, but I put him at five because when he was at his best, the offense was at its best, and they are explosive. When Gabe had a good game, the Bills had a great chance at winning.” @AjayCyulski

Devin Singletary: The Bills’ feature back for most of the season was #11 on the list, needing just one more vote to have tied for 10th. Motor finished in second for his career in most counting stats with 177 carries for 819 yards and five touchdowns on the ground. He added 280 more yards and another touchdown through the air in 2022. Singletary not making the top 10 might be another sign that he is underappreciated, but our money man @LowBuffa capitalized on those thoughts all year “this last slot could have easily gone to guys like Groot or Tyler Bass, but Motor won me a lot of money because Vegas underappreciated his role in the offense throughout the season.”

#10 Tight End Dawson Knox

Bills’ Top 10 Important Players from the 2022 Season: #10 Dawson Knox