A first-round draft pick was the face of the Buffalo Bills’ defense last season, and the team hopes that this will be the case yet again in 2018.

In the 2017 season, cornerback Tre’Davious White burst onto the scene. The 27th overall pick in the 2017 draft was one of the best cornerbacks in the league in his rookie campaign, totaling 69 tackles, 18 pass deflections, and four interceptions. White quickly became the face of a Buffalo secondary that was arguably the league’s best.

The Bills hope that linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, a 6-foot-5 athletic anomaly, will be able to follow in White’s footsteps next season. Edmunds, who the team selected with the 16th overall pick in the 2018 draft, is the team’s presumptive starter at middle linebacker. Buffalo allowed former starting middle linebacker Preston Brown to walk in free agency, and it hopes that Edmunds will be able to provide a bigger impact from the “mike” position.

While speaking to the media before the team’s OTAs on Thursday, Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier praised Edmunds, saying that he has handled the responsibilities that come with being a middle linebacker “extremely well.”

“Tremaine has done a really good job up to this point,” Frazier said. “It’s a challenge coming in as a rookie, for sure, and then being a middle linebacker, to lead, you’re in a leadership role if you’re the middle linebacker. You’re calling the defense, you’re setting the front, you’re doing a lot of things that are required to lead an entire group, and that’s asking a lot of a rookie.

“But, up to this point, he’s handled it extremely well, don’t really see any indication that he won’t continue. He’ll just continue to progress as he goes along, we’ll just keep putting a little bit more on his plate as he goes.”

Frazier went on to compare Edmunds’ maturity and intelligence to that of White. During last year’s offseason programs, Frazier praised White’s maturity and ability. On Thursday, the experienced coordinator stated that Edmunds’ ability to “gather information” has been “similar to what we saw with Tre’Davious.”

“There are going to be some rookie mistakes along the way, but his ability to gather information and then transfer it to the field has been very similar to what we saw with Tre’Davious,” Frazier said. “You don’t have some of the concerns that you ordinarily would have with most rookies because of it, their ability to be able to process information and then be able to handle it in game situations, or practice situations at this point, is pretty impressive.

“He’s been very impressive in that way, the way he’s handled the classroom, the things he’s done on the field up to this point, and the way he has kind of meshed with his teammates, as well, that’s the other intangible.”

The Bills obviously have a great deal of confidence in Edmunds, hence why he’s already the team’s presumptive starter at middle linebacker. Expect Edmunds to have a Tre’Davious White-level impact on the team in his rookie season.