Buffalo Bills

Bills' LB Zach Brown Named AFC Defensive Player of the Week

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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Oct 2, 2016; Foxborough, MA, USA; New England Patriots quarterback Jacoby Brissett (7) is sacked by Buffalo Bills inside linebacker Preston Brown (52) and inside linebacker Zach Brown (53) during the second half of the Buffalo Bills 16-0 win over the New England Patriots at Gillette Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Winslow Townson-USA TODAY Sports

The NFL announced that Bills’ LB Zach Brown has been named the AFC Defensive Player of the Week for his performance vs. the Patriots on Sunday.

The dude is a straight beast out there and if you’re a Buffalo Bills‘ fan, then you agree with me.

For those who missed the game vs. the Patriots last Sunday, you missed an extremely productive day from one of our linebackers: Zach Brown. In fact, it was such a good performance that it got recognized by the NFL when they named him the AFC Defensive Player of the Week.

The last time a Buffalo Bills‘ player won this award was after Week 10 of the 2015 season, when Bacarri Rambo won it with a 3-tackle, INT and fumble recovery performance.

His performance helped lead the Buffalo Bills to a 16-0 victory on the road vs. the Patriots is shutout fashion. The win was a historic one for many reasons, some of those reasons including:

Now, if you listen to the Patriots’ fans, you might be a little confused to their reasoning on why they lost. This is a team that went 3-0 without Tom Brady — beating the Arizona Cardinals, Houston Texans and Miami Dolphins to start the season.

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During those three games, they were saying that it didn’t matter who they had at QB, they would win because Belichick is a mastermind.

Where was that mastermind on Sunday? MIA, if you ask me. What really worries me about Patriots’ fans is that now that they lost without Tom Brady, all of a sudden it’s because they didn’t have Tom Brady starting. No one likes a sore loser and that’s exactly what we saw from Patriots’ fans on Sunday.

My point is, Patriots’ fans need to just take the L on this one and realize they straight up got outplayed and a lot of that is due to Zach Brown’s performance. Your 3-0 record to start the season wasn’t a fluke, but it just simply didn’t matter to the Buffalo Bills. We were going to win this game no matter what.

And a lot of that has to do with the performance of Zach Brown. Here’s a look at what he accomplished on Sunday alone:

Those are some beastly numbers from the 5th year man out of North Carolina.

It’s also important to note that he is also the NFL’s leader in tackles early on in the season. Through four games, he has a total of 51 tackles. The next highest total comes from the Carolina Panthers’ Luke Kuechly with 46 tackles and Jerrell Freeman of the Chicago Bears next with 41 tackles.

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Brown is also tied for 2nd in the league in forced fumbles with 2 — a stat he shares with Lorenzo Alexander.

The Bills are seeing their defense perform much better than expected. They also have two top-five sack leaders so far: Jerry Hughes and Lorenzo Alexander are tied for third in the league with 4.0 sacks. Meanwhile, Stephon Gilmore is tied for fifth in the league in interceptions with 2.

There’s no doubt we are seeing a much better Bills’ defense than expected and with Marcell Dareus making his return this week, it will only get better. Not to mention Shaq Lawson‘s return coming soon, as well.

I’d be scared if I were opposing offenses in the next coming weeks. Zach Brown is on a mission and winning the AFC East Defensive Player of the Week award is just the beginning.

The Buffalo Bills travel to LA to take on the Los Angeles Rams on Sunday at 4:25 PM. The team will look to win their third game in a row after starting the season off with two straight losses.

Let’s go Buffalo!