ESPN names Bills' potential breakout player in 2026

The Buffalo Bills transition to a new defense might pay dividends for at least one player, according to ESPN.

The outlet named one potential breakout player for all 32 teams in the NFL ahead of the 2026 NFL season. For the Bills, it was defensive lineman TJ Sanders.

Sanders was a second-round pick by the Bills at the 2025 NFL Draft. As a rookie, Sanders did not find his footing in Buffalo, recording just 16 tackles, including one for loss, with one sack last year in 12 games played.

However, ESPN's Ben Solak sees better opportunity coming for Sanders in 2026. Namely, Sanders is described as a better fit for the scheme new Bills defensive coordinator Jim Leonard will run next season.

ESPN's breakdown on Sanders can be found below:

I did not particularly like the Sanders pick for Sean McDermott's defense in the 2025 draft. Sanders is an undersized defensive tackle at 297 pounds with a long and upright build. He's at his best slanting, stunting and occasionally lining up as a big defensive end in subpackages. In fact, he did just that when he returned from a knee injury to discover a Bills team with a ton of injury issues on the edge.

Luckily, that makes Sanders a much more natural fit in new coordinator Jim Leonhard's defense, which uses three-down fronts and needs big defensive ends to draw multiple players in pass protection while blitzes land from the other side of the line. Sanders is unlikely to become a high-impact player like, say, John Franklin-Myers overnight, but he's a good candidate to evolve into a dirty work champion in Buffalo's reimagined defense.

This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: ESPN names Bills' potential breakout player in 2026