ORCHARD PARK — Alec Anderson was bare-chested and sweaty standing outside the Buffalo Bills locker room. Adrenaline still pumped through his body 30 minutes after the Bills throttled the Jacksonville Jaguars 47-10.
Anderson cracked jokes with a security guard while waiting for the elevator, a personality not drastically different than the one he displays on the field. Known as one of the better trash-talkers on the team, Anderson plays with an edge that saw him at the center of most of the training camp dust-ups.
“I like to have fun out there,” Anderson reasoned. “I get caught up in the moment every now and then.”
Over the last three seasons, Anderson has gone from the practice squad to making the 53-man roster last year — but didn’t play in a regular-season game — to now being the team’s most versatile backup. An offensive tackle at UCLA, Anderson is listed as Buffalo’s primary backup at left guard, right guard and center and even played five snaps at left tackle when reserve Tylan Grable injured his groin late in the game Monday.
With last year’s jumbo tight end David Edwards now starting at left guard, the Bills needed a replacement to be their sixth offensive line for 5-10 plays per game. Anderson knows all the other positions, so why not tight end?
Anderson has reported as an eligible receiver 26 times this season. His job is to provide extra power and take some of the blocking burden off tight ends Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox, but Anderson jokingly says, “I’m ready,” when it comes to actually catching a pass, testing offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s “everybody eats” mantra.
“(Offensive line coach Aaron) Kromer does a good job of just simplifying and making every position kind of the same,” Anderson told the Gazette. “So when we’re doing something at guard, it’s the same at tackle. So he kind of made it easy for me (at tight end) and decided to do the same footwork you do at guard that you do at center.”
The Bills started using a sixth offensive lineman a few plays per game against the Washington Commanders, when Ken Dorsey was still calling plays in Week 3. It was a regular package throughout the season, with Edwards reporting as eligible 116 times during the regular season.
Adding a sixth offensive lineman usually tips off the defense about what’s coming next and the Bills have run the ball 109 out of 142 plays they have used an extra lineman over the last two seasons, averaging just 3 yards per carry.
When the Bills mix in a pass, though, it often creates a big play, not just because it fools the defense, but because there is extra protection. Quarterback Josh Allen went 14 of 28 for 264 yards and three touchdowns out of the jumbo package last season and went 2 of 3 for 41 yards against the Jaguars, including a 24-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keon Coleman.
“We might see a certain look that we’re not getting necessarily if we’re in 12 personnel or we might get, when we’re in big people and it’s going to be different than if it was just the 11,” Brady said. “… It’s not up every week. But the defenses have to prepare for it every week, right? And so sometimes that’s our advantage by at least being able to showcase it, and them having to have a game plan for it.”
An eventual pass to the sixth lineman seems logical, although Edwards — who started his college career at Wisconsin as a tight end — never went out for a pass last season. A Bills offensive lineman hasn’t caught a regular-season pass was Dion Dawkins, who scored a touchdown against the New England Patriots in 2019.
Of the 855 players who have caught a pass in franchise history, 11 are offensive linemen. Only three of them — Dawkins (twice), Jason Peters (2005) and John Fina (1992) — have caught a touchdown pass.
The last Buffalo lineman to catch a pass, regular season or playoffs? Tommy Doyle, who caught a 1-yard touchdown pass against the New England Patriots in a 47-17 win in the 2021 AFC wild-card round.
Late in the 2021 season, the Bills began using the 6-foot-8, 320-pound Doyle as an extra tight end. They just the jumbo package once in Week 10, but 43 times over the final four weeks of the regular season and 11 times in the wild-card game.
As the playoffs approached, Doyle remembered putting in a play mid-season that called for him to catch a pass. And then the Bills started to practice it once per week and Doyle knew then-offensive coordinator Brian Daboll wouldn’t be afraid to call it during a game.
With temperatures in the single digits, Doyle went to Knox for advice on catching a frozen football. And when the play was called and the ball was coming towards him, Doyle joked that his only thought was, “Don’t drop it.”
“That’s probably the worst mindset you can take is, ‘Don’t drop it,’” said Doyle, who is currently on the physically unable to perform list as he recovers from major reconstructive knee surgery after an injury in the 2023 preseason. “I was really just focused on looking it in and catching the damn ball.”
Anderson has already thought about what it might be like catching a pass, saying that if it does come, the Bills will go through the play during the week and will prepare him for that moment. As for Brady, well, he’s already scheming up ways to make Anderson a weapon in the passing game.
“I’m going to dial all of them up this week,” Brady said jokingly. “We’ll probably try to get him up there on the same level as whoever our leading receiver was last (week). We’ll try to get him as many targets. I’m sure that’ll go well.”