Getty Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde celebrate an interception in a Buffalo Bills game.
After years of flying under the radar, an All-Pro duo for the Buffalo Bills is finally getting some respect — in the world of video games, at least.
The Madden franchise has been rolling out positional rankings, stealing some attention from football-hungry fans in the otherwise quiet period before training camps open. Scores for safeties came out this week, with Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde both making the league’s top eight, to the surprise of some Bills fans who have grown used to seeing them underrated by national media.
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Bills Fans Happy With Rankings
The Madden 23 scores for safeties were released on July 20, with Micah Hyde finishing No. 5 with an overall score of 91 and Jordan Poyer landing in a four-way tie for the No. 7 spot with a score of 90. After several seasons where the two flew under the radar, many Bills fans seemed pleased to see both ranking among the top.
“I’m not mad at this at all,” one fan tweeted. “Finally they put some respect on Hyde and Poyer name”
The Madden scores came after Poyer and Hyde were slighted on some other lists. Earlier in July, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler surveyed more than 50 league executives, coaches and scouts to rank the top 10 players at each position. After tallying their votes and adding film-study help from ESPN analyst Matt Bowen, neither Poyer nor Hyde made the top 10. Both earned honorable mention, but Bills fans were upset over the perceived slight to the pair that both made All-Pro team last season.
Justin Simmons comes in atop the 2022 rankings for NFL safeties. Well deserved? 🤔
“Forget the two all pro Buffalo Bills safeties. What a joke of a list,” one fan tweeted in response.
This Season Could Be the End of the Line for Poyer, Hyde
Poyer and Hyde joined the Bills on the same day in March 2017, becoming a key part of the franchise turnaround under head coach Sean McDermott that saw the team break its 17-year playoff drought and then become a Super Bowl contender with Josh Allen. But The Athletic’s Joe Buscaglia believes that 2022 could be their last year together as the team looks for cap relief.
MICAH HYDE PICKS OFF MAC JONES 😮
(via @NFL)
“Allen’s contract will increase from a $16.4 million cap hit in 2022 to a $39.8 million cap hit in 2023. And that’s just a precursor to many $40 million or higher cap hits through the 2028 season,” Buscaglia wrote. “So the Bills will need to make room somewhere, and with Hyde and Poyer in their 30s, they might wind up as an unfortunate casualty of having a great quarterback on a big contract.”
Poyer signed on with agent Drew Rosenhaus this offseason, who made it known that he wants a contract extension. But Bills general manager Brandon Beane hinted that there will not be enough money to keep everyone.
“I want to pay them all … the ones that deserve it and have earned it,” Beane said. “and there’s other guys here that I feel have earned it as well and … there’s guys that have left here since I’ve been here that I wanted to pay or our organization wanted to pay. But you can’t pay them all.
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