The Buffalo Bills made a seemingly innocuous transaction Thursday afternoon, releasing rookie defensive tackle Zion Logue from his active roster. This decision, while not necessarily expected, was not surprising; Logue had only played 36 defensive snaps since joining the Bills before Week 5, and the rookie had just been pushed further down the depth chart with Buffalo. Wednesday signings of defensive tackles Jordan Phillips and Quinton Jefferson. Logue was one of six interior defenders on the 53-man roster, and it even seemed like he fell below practice squad lineman Eli Ankou in the proverbial pecking order; keeping the first-year player on the active unit no longer made sense.

The much more interesting nugget of information emerging from the post concerns roster construction, as the trade left the Bills with just 52 players on their 53-man roster. Fans immediately began speculating about how the team would use their spot on the newly created roster, with re-signing veteran safety Micah Hyde being an oft-talked-about possibility.

And while these are natural dots to connect given the team’s perceived need for safety and Hyde’s availability, is this a path Buffalo should go down? Would Hyde, 33, who hasn’t played a football game since late January, be a clear upgrade over either of the Bills’ starting options? And if he’s not brought back to take over a starting job, would this be an opportunity for which the veteran would all but retire?

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Fans have long viewed Hyde’s ultimate re-signing as a foregone conclusion, and not without reason; The defensive back, who earned two All-Pro nods while starting 95 games for the team from 2017 to 2023, left One Bills Drive when his contract expired last spring, but did not sign with another club, since he declared it several times. that he doesn’t know yet if he will play football again, but if he does, it will be for Buffalo. Bills executives are keeping that door open as well, with general manager Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott saying multiple times over the summer that they were open to the idea of ​​re-signing Hyde; the secondary team boss said as recently as October that the return of the team’s long-serving captain was “still on the (team) radar.»

The reunion makes sense, in theory, for a variety of reasons. Hyde, in his prime, was one of the league’s best safeties and (alongside Jordan Poyer) ably provided a safety net on top of Buffalo’s defense. Having been at Orchard Park for seven years, he knows the draft like the back of his hand and would hypothetically be able to re-enter the roster. Combine that with the perceived lack of high-level play from Taylor Rapp and Damar Hamlin this season and the the recent release of Mike Edwards’ teamand using the recently vacated spot on Hyde seems like a no-brainer.

Even though everything looks rosy on paper, the elephant in the room is Hyde’s health. He missed the vast majority of the 2022 season after suffering a neck injury in week two that required surgery, and upon his return in 2023 he would suffer several strings during the year, missing three games. The defender appeared on the Buffalo-centric podcast with former Bills center Eric Wood in June to discuss his playing future, telling his former teammate that he is still dealing with complications from the injury and subsequent surgery and may need to undergo another operation in the coming years.

Also consider that Hyde, while not poor, was showing signs of aging in 2023 and that, again, he has not played football or participated in practice since January, and it may be misleading to suggesting that he would clearly be an improvement over Hyde. Rapp or, more likely, Hamlin at this point. It’s entirely possible that Hyde, given his experience, will quickly get back into the swing of things and become some semblance of his former self again in the postseason, but that’s not a guarantee; getting off the couch and into an NFL starting lineup isn’t such a simple task. While returning to the NFL is ultimately his choice, his immediate and long-term health are also a major concern.

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Hamlin is the player most fans are pointing to as the starter Hyde would replace, and while the fourth-year defenseman hasn’t been stellar this year, his play may have been overcritical. He has made 57 tackles so far, showing significant progress in this area of ​​the game as he has become a reliable player in run support. He also leads the team in pass deflections with five; again, he’s not a world champion by any means, but he’s not necessarily a glaring weak point either. A top-notch Hyde would be a marked improvement over him; a Hyde who hasn’t played football in almost 11 months and is still suffering the effects of a serious neck injury might not be.

The Buffalo faithful might counter this and say that Hyde could simply be a depth signing after the recent release of Edwards, a reliable veteran who knows the system and can be used in a “break glass in case of emergency” scenario “. Again, this is great in theory, but is this an opportunity that Hyde would jump on? Would he leave his proverbial couch to serve as an insurance policy? And how is this arrangement so different from the current “wait and see” approach, short of a formal contract?

Creating a roster spot and the quickly approaching playoffs have made the re-emergence of Hyde talks quite natural, but it may not be as splashy a signing as some fans think. Is it possible that he comes back and becomes the player Bills fans fell in love with throughout his lauded tenure? Sure, but it’s perhaps just as likely that his impact won’t be as big as it once was, or even more noticeable than Hamlin’s, at this point. Ultimately, re-signing Hyde wouldn’t be a bad use of roster spot, but it may not be the pendulum-changing transaction some think it is.

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