The Buffalo Bills are busy filling out their practice squad on Monday, and they seem to be having a reunion with a familiar face.
Jay Skurski from The Buffalo News wrote on X that the Bills have a deal in place to bring back linebacker Shaq Thompson to their practice squad.
“The Bills have a deal in place to bring a familiar face back to the organization. According to a league source, the team is signing linebacker Shaq Thompson to the practice squad,” Skurski wrote.
The Bills Signed Thompson Last Offseason
Thompson has spent 11 seasons in the NFL, including 10 with the Carolina Panthers before heading to Buffalo last season.
The Bills signed Thompson last June, and it now looks like he is about to have another stint in Buffalo.
Thompson appeared in 12 games last season, recording 56 combined tackles, six tackles for loss and one sack.
One reason the Bills brought in Thompson last season was his connection to former head coach Sean McDermott.
McDermott coached Thompson in Carolina for two seasons, when he served as the Panthers’ defensive coordinator from 2011 to 2016.
“He’s been through some injuries over the course of the last few years, so that’s been hard to watch from a distance. The latest one we’re working through, as I mentioned earlier, with him now,” McDermott said of Thompson last offseason, via Buffalo Bills on SI’s Ralph Ventre. “But when you talk about a player that can play more than one position, you talk about a player that can help create a certain toughness or bring a certain toughness with him, nastiness to a defense, to a team. He’s all about the right stuff as a player and a person.”
With McDermott no longer in Buffalo, it didn’t feel like Thompson would return, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
Buffalo Will Have a New Defensive Scheme This Season
Thompson will be stepping into a new defensive scheme this season, which will be very different from last season.
McDermott prefers to run a 4-3 defense, and Thompson was comfortable playing in this scheme.
“This is the defense I grew up in,” Thompson said last June. “This is the defense in 2015, when I got drafted, this is the defense that I had to learn, so the biggest thing is just terminology for me.”
But this season, new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard is in charge and is expected to run a 3-4 defense. However, he might not get the defense to where he wants it in year one.
“I had a vision for what I want it to be, and it might not totally get there in year one,” Leonhard said in May, via ESPN’s Alaina Getzenberg. “We have to be real as far as who we have, what their skill sets are, and I have to be flexible as well as them.”
Thompson brings his veteran experience to the Bills’ new defensive scheme. Although he’ll be on the practice squad for now, he can significantly help many of the young players.
Bills Close to Bringing Back 11-Year Veteran Defender as ‘Deal Is in Place’: Report