​  ORCHARD PARK – Little did Buffalo Bills defensive lineman TJ Sanders know how beneficial playing an unfamiliar position for part of his rookie season would be heading into the new world that is the 2026 defense.Sanders was primarily a defensive tackle during his three seasons at South Carolina, and that’s what the Bills intended for him to be in Sean McDermott’s even-man front when they picked him in the second round of the 2025 draft.Sanders was still trying to find his way in the NFL and having rather minimal impact through the first four games when he suffered a knee injury that required surgery and knocked him out for the next five games.Further complicating his rookie season, when he was ready to return the Bills were in the midst of an injury crisis on the edge with Michael Hoecht and Landon Jackson on injured reserve and Javon Solomon not being a player they trusted, so McDermott asked Sanders to slide outside to play the bulk of his snaps in the next four games.“We needed to find a player who could do both, in terms of getting us out of a jam,” McDermott said following the Week 11 victory over Tampa Bay when Sanders made his debut on the edge. “TJ ended up taking some normal reps there. I thought our D-line coaches did a good job getting him ready. Credit to him, too, he came in and was like, ‘Hey, whatever you want me to do, I’ll do.’ That doesn’t happen a lot, especially for a player who is so young.”Not surprisingly, though, while he was a dutiful soldier, Sanders didn’t give the Bills much production while learning a new position on the fly in his inaugural NFL season. He spent much of the season with his head spinning and in 12 games he finished with just 16 tackles, one sack, 14 QB pressures and a deflected pass.“Lot of growing pains coming in, felt like I was building on something I had found early on before the injury, and that kind of just took me out of my head,” Sanders said. “Then being able to come back and get told you’re going to play defensive end. It’s kind of like, ‘Oh man,’ trying to pick that up, learn all the things that D-ends have to do.”But now that the defense is being switched to an odd-man front under new coordinator Jim Leonhard, Sanders’ experience playing on the edge came in handy during the spring as he learned the new scheme.TJ Sanders’ rookie season was upended by an injury and playing a new position, but he’s ready to find his niche in the Bills’ new defense.“It definitely helps,” Leonhard said of the reps Sanders accrued last season. “You cannot get a substitute for playing time on Sundays, so every rep is huge for young players to get out there and learn and grow from. And obviously, as coaches, it gives you something to evaluate and try to have a better picture of where they’re going to fit. He’s a guy that’s really excited about the changes in the defense, and what he thinks his ro      ​Read More