Cole Bishop, who made a habit of producing momentum-changing plays during his three seasons at Utah, will be in position to do just that for the Buffalo Bills on Sunday.
The rookie safety will start for the Bills in the AFC championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs, with veteran teammate Taylor Rapp out with back and hip injuries he suffered in the divisional round.
It will be Bishop’s first start of the postseason and his fifth of the year. The prize for a win will be a spot in Super Bowl LIX in New Orleans on Feb. 9.
“It’s easy to say it’s just like any other game, but everybody knows it’s really not,” Bishop said this week, according to ESPN. “So being able to just prepare throughout the week, and then once Sunday comes, like you’ve done everything you can, so at that point there is really nothing you can be nervous for. You prepared, and now you’ve just got to go make plays.”
Bishop’s rookie season has seen him deal with a shoulder injury during training camp that caused him to miss some time, then he earned four starts throughout the regular season when other Bills safeties were also hurt.
Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott ruled Rapp out for the AFC championship game on Friday, handing the reins over to the rookie Bishop to start against a Chiefs offense headlined by quarterback Patrick Mahomes and tight end Travis Kelce.
Rapp’s absence is a significant one for a Bills defense that has several players dinged up, among them former Weber State cornerback Taron Johnson.
The 27-year-old Rapp won a Super Bowl with the Los Angeles Rams and started 14 games for Buffalo during the regular season, when he had 82 tackles, six pass deflections, two interceptions, two tackles for loss and a forced fumble.
Bishop didn’t play any defensive snaps during the Bills’ wild-card weekend win over the Denver Broncos. In the team’s divisional-round win over the Baltimore Ravens, though, Bishop replaced an injured Rapp in the second quarter and played 39 defensive snaps last week (66% of Buffalo’s snaps on defense). He finished with three tackles.
McDermott said his confidence in Bishop is high.
“He’s a young player, but at the same time, he’s grown. He went through an injury in training camp, missed a lot of time that set him back, set his growth back, delayed it at least, and then came in, and he’s grown through each experience,” McDermott told reporters Friday. “And, you know, confident he continues to do that moving forward.”
With Rapp missing practice, Bishop has earned valuable first-team reps this week.
“That definitely helps. It’s different for every player, but a young player in particular, to get those reps,” McDermott said. “Knowing that he’s going to be in the lineup is big.”
Bishop has also been receiving helpful advice from a veteran Bills defender as he prepares for Sunday’s matchup.
The Bills signed safety Micah Hyde, a two-time second-team All-Pro, to their practice squad on Dec. 7. Over the previous seven seasons, he started 95 games for the Bills.
On Monday, McDermott said the 34-year-old Hyde won’t be elevated to the active roster for the AFC championship game. Instead, he’s been brought back to the team to help guys like Bishop.
“That’s big. Micah has been in a few of these games, three or four of them himself, and that experience alone, plus the just experience of when the coaches aren’t around, Micah is spending some time with Cole,” McDermott said.
“It’s not being afraid to ask a question. Maybe you don’t want to ask, or you’ve asked, you feel like you’ve asked enough. We’ve all experienced that growing up, and just to have someone you can confide in a little bit, it certainly helps.”
For Bishop, having Hyde there as a sounding board has helped speed up his learning curve.
“He played in this defense for a long time,” Bishop told Syracuse.com. “So things the coaches might coach, a player, you see it a little bit different on the field. He’s been able to help with that. Been trying to pick his brain about everything.”
Even if it’s been a different sort of challenge, Hyde has embraced the opportunity to impart his years of wisdom with a younger generation of players during a postseason run.
“It’s definitely been, I wouldn’t say a challenge, but it’s just new. It’s just different,” he told Syracuse.com. “But I’m happy to be here and grateful to be here because of where I was at all season, just watching from the TV and (now) being able to be a part of this is special. So it’s been different.”
One of the toughest assignments for Bishop will be helping to cover Kelce, the three-time Super Bowl champion and 10-time Pro Bowler.
This will be Kelce’s 24th career playoff game, compared to Bishop’s third.
“He’s really good at finding space,” Bishop told Syracuse.com. “If you’re in zone coverages and things like that, instead of just finishing the route into coverage, he’s always sitting down in zones. In man coverage, being able to just be elusive, he’s obviously a great player.”