Triumph, heartbreak, laughter and sadness were on David Edwards’ mind as the Buffalo Bills’ 6-foot-6 left guard looked around the locker room after practice Wednesday afternoon.
His teammates, no matter which position they play, mean everything to Edwards. They’ve been through a lot during his time here. They’re why he’s meticulous in meetings and a perfectionist on the field. Edwards learned through his circuitous journey in football to cherish those impenetrable bonds built during practices in the sweltering summer heat and games on the snow-covered field at Highmark Stadium.
Edwards doesn’t want to imagine life without a team like this. But nearly three years ago, he feared that he’d never be part of one again. Edwards missed all but four games during the 2022 season because he suffered a concussion in consecutive weeks. The father of three wondered when or if the symptoms would subside.
“All those times where I struggled, I learned to appreciate being here, being healthy, playing, being with the guys,” said Edwards, who’s 28 and in the last season of his contract. “There’s a spiritual aspect to that and there’s an appreciation for your family, your health, being around great people. Just really grateful for being on the other side of those tough times.”
His path to resuming an NFL career seemed dim until Aaron Kromer, the offensive line coach who drafted him in Los Angeles, called in the spring of 2023 with an offer to come to Buffalo. The Bills weren’t planning to start Edwards, but it was an opportunity for him to reunite with a coach who had an immeasurable impact on his life and earn a role on a Super Bowl contender.
Shortly after arriving in Western New York, Edwards learned he would play tight end in the Bills’ Jumbo package. The challenge was immense, but he embraced the move with the same selflessness that he showed at Downers Grove North High School in suburban Chicago when, as a 6-6 option quarterback, he was asked to help at defensive end and at the University of Wisconsin, where he was asked to switch from tight end to right tackle. Edwards’ impact as Buffalo’s sixth offensive lineman earned him a two-year contract and, since the start of the 2024 season, the starting job at left guard.
Now, as the undefeated Bills prepare to host the winless New Orleans Saints on Sunday, Edwards is rated by Pro Football Focus as one of the best guards in the NFL this season. The website named Edwards the league’s best offensive player in Week 3 because he allowed just one pressure on 34 pass-blocking snaps and earned a 93.8 run-blocking grade. He hasn’t allowed a sack in his 36 regular-season games as a Bill. And, to no one’s surprise, he hasn’t lost the humility and work ethic that guided him along the way.
“He’s been fantastic from the moment I first got him in Los Angeles,” said Kromer, who coached Edwards with the Rams from 2018-20. “He’s a coach on the field, a field general, whatever you want to say. … He’s really everything you want in a lineman because he can get the other guys to do the right things with him.”
Learning
Meetings with the Bills’ offensive linemen are more of a conversation than a lecture.
Everyone is encouraged by Kromer to engage as they watch video of their last game or next opponent, but it typically turns into a volley of ideas between Kromer, Edwards and center Connor McGovern. These debates are when Edwards and McGovern usually “shine,” said Kromer, their encyclopedic knowledge of blocking technique and schemes helps one of the best lines in football improve.
“Dave’s my pillar out there,” said McGovern. “He’s my left-hand man, literally and figuratively. If something ever happened to me, I know he would run the ship very well. He understands offense very well. We see the game the same way. We’re always bouncing things off each other. We always joke it’s like a triangle between me, him and Krom in meetings, like us questioning this or answering that. It’s just the three of us bouncing things off each other.”
The knowledge Edwards uses to diagnose a blitz or coverage first took root nearly two decades ago when he huddled over a portable DVD player in his childhood bedroom.
Whenever Edwards had free time as a kid, he’d watch videos of his older cousins’ games from Downers Grove North. Garrett and Tommy Edwards both played quarterback. They were Edwards’ “heroes,” and he wanted to understand everything they saw on the field. Eventually, he wanted to follow in their footsteps.
They didn’t know at the time, but their family gatherings at Thanksgiving are among Edwards’ fondest memories. The only noise he’d make was the occasional cackle while his dad, David, and great uncle, Ron, told stories from their time playing football at Indiana and Illinois, respectively. Garrett and Tommy shared their experiences at Illinois and Iowa. Each of the four occasionally would interrupt to point out a play that happened during the NFL game that was on TV at the time.
Edwards was a sponge. Eventually, he began to ask questions. His curiosity to understand the why behind every play and position had no bounds. And, once Edwards enrolled at Downers Grove North, he told the football coach, John Wander, about his desire to play quarterback. Wander took one glance at the kid and wondered how this experiment would go. Edwards didn’t look like an option quarterback, but Wander saw a smart, athletic kid from a football family. Edwards went on to lead his team to the state quarterfinals in consecutive seasons, and he totaled more than 2,000 yards while running the veer-option offense.
“You usually don’t have a 6-foot-6 option quarterback, but that’s what he became for us,” Wander recalled in a phone interview. “He was tougher than nails. My center was really funny because we figured out if we got David a push on the line and he fell forward three times that we’d have a first down because of his size.”
Transition
On his first snap as a right tackle at Wisconsin, Edwards faced future NFL defensive player of the year and four-time All-Pro edge rusher T.J. Watt.
“He hit me with a stutter swipe, and I don’t even think I touched him,” Edwards recalled, laughing at his locker stall in One Bills Drive.
The mistakes didn’t discourage Edwards. He knew there would be growing pains in the fall of 2016 when he accepted the coaches’ proposal to move from tight end to right tackle. They envisioned the switch for Edwards before he arrived on campus.
Paul Chryst, their head coach, even joked with Edwards during his first season on campus that he’d have two knee braces placed in his locker if he dropped a pass as a tight end in practice. Mickey Turner, their tight ends coach, realized the move was inevitable when he saw Edwards blocking upperclassmen safeties and linebackers in one-on-one drills as redshirt freshman.
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“I was like, ‘Yep, it’s over,’” said Turner. “He’s going to be an O-lineman before too long.”
But he wasn’t approached about a change until a few weeks before his second year at Wisconsin. Joe Rudolph, the Badgers’ offensive coordinator and offensive line coach, spotted the 275-pound tight end running on the practice field with teammates and decided it was time to make Edwards an offer.
If Edwards was interested, Rudolph wanted to put him through an offensive-line workout. The Badgers were thin at tackle. Edwards could develop into a reliable blocking tight end, or he could use his athleticism to become an NFL offensive lineman. Edwards did so well in the workout that Rudolph told him that he could earn a spot on the field that season.
“I’ve loved football so much and being part of a team that I was willing to do whatever,” said Edwards.
The change required more than learning a new position, though. The strength staff devised a 5,100-calorie-per-day diet and, in addition to learning the technique, he needed to get stronger.
“As we started, I was like, ‘Damn, this guy can apply it and he’ll put himself out there to learn the techniques,’” Rudolph, now Notre Dame’s offensive line coach, said. “It’s probably why he’s having the success he’s having now.”
To describe his approach at the time, Edwards joked: “Fake it ’til you make it.” Coaches could see how much he’d grown as a player and person in such a short time. One year earlier, the Badgers had so many injuries at tight end that Edwards had to travel for a road game. They were busing to the stadium when Turner told Edwards that he may even get into the game if there’s another injury.
Wide-eyed and visibly nervous, Edwards asked, “Really?!” His first appearance as a right tackle in a game didn’t go well, either. The Badgers needed Edwards at right tackle against Ohio State in Week 7 of his redshirt freshman season because their starter, Jacob Maxwell, couldn’t play through a shoulder injury. Early in the second quarter, current Cincinnati Bengals defensive end Sam Hubbard ran by Edwards to sack the quarterback.
Rudolph scolded Edwards when he returned to the sideline, and he didn’t play for the rest of the game. The following week at Iowa went differently, and he earned the starting job.
“He had to play a huge role, and I’m like, ‘OK, this dude will go out and play,’” said Rudolph. “He’s not going to sit around and say, ‘Well, I just moved,’ or find an excuse to why maybe something wasn’t done well or was done well. He understood what needed to be done and when he got his chance to get in there, he took advantage of it.
“There’s a mental toughness in certain guys that no matter their situation, they’re going to find a way to be the best them and, in the end, they’re going to learn from the situation that they’re in and that’s him.”
Ultimate goal
Turner laughed over the phone when he was asked to answer a question that Edwards wanted to be included in the interview.
“Of the Badgers’ tight ends in 2015, who ran the best hector route?”
There’s no game film available from Edwards’ short time playing tight end. But perhaps somewhere in the archives of their football facility, you can find the 40-yard pass Edwards caught on an over-the-seam bender route in practice.
“For a freshman, a big, long, lanky guy, you didn’t know he had it in him,” Turner joked. “It was like, ‘Oh, (expletive), is that Dave out there?!”
Edwards is beloved by teammates and coaches. Rudolph, for example, took time to speak to The News while preparing for Notre Dame’s game Saturday against Arkansas because it’s Edwards. They admire his work ethic, perseverance and humility. Edwards wasn’t a can’t-miss first-round pick or top recruit. He had to take an nontraditional path and faced adversity along the way.
The Badgers’ starting five on the offensive line was so talented entering Edwards’ final season that they were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Three of the five are still in the NFL. Edwards started 31 of the 37 games in which he appeared. In 2017, the American Football Coaches Association named him a first-team All-American. Not bad for a kid who moved from tight end and got recruited based on high school tape in which he looked nearly twice the size of the center snapping him the ball.
The first low point of Edwards’ football career came in 2018, when the redshirt junior played through a torn labrum and pinched nerve. He couldn’t block the way he did during his All-American season.
It was evident to NFL teams as they scouted Edwards that he wasn’t healthy, but Rams general manager Les Snead encouraged Kromer to watch Edwards’ games from the previous season. It didn’t take long for Kromer to tell Snead that the Rams needed to draft Edwards, who they eventually selected in the fifth round in 2019. On Edwards’ first snap as a left guard in Los Angeles, he faced future Hall of Famer Aaron Donald. Less than three years later, Edwards started in their win over the Bengals in Super Bowl LVI.
And at the second low point in his career, the season-ending concussions, it was Kromer who called to pitch the idea of coming to Buffalo. If it weren’t for Kromer, Edwards said, he isn’t sure “where I’d be or what I’d be doing.”
Through tireless work, Edwards has developed into one of the best technically sound left guards in football. He has the power to displace defensive linemen and the athleticism to pull, a combination that’s made him a perfect fit for the Bills’ offense. Edwards also is another set of trustworthy eyes and ears for the reigning MVP Josh Allen.
The motivation he has now is the same as it was when he was running over high schoolers as an option quarterback and learning how to block defensive ends at Wisconsin.
“The feeling of winning a Super Bowl, doing it with a group like this, would be truly impossible to put into words,” he said. “The closeness of this locker room, offense and defense, unit to unit, player to player, is just so special.”
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Lance Lysowski
News Sports Reporter
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