Next man up to next big thing: Terrel Bernard climbs to centerpiece of Bills defense
There was skepticism that Terrel Bernard could fill the shoes left by Tremaine Edmunds but he's risen to the occasion.
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The loss wasn’t his fault, and he knows that, but dull pangs of guilt persist.
Six months have passed since the Kansas City Chiefs extinguished the Buffalo Bills’ championship dreams yet again. There was nothing Terrel Bernard could do about it. His right ankle had popped from its socket six nights earlier. No way could the breakout, breakneck linebacker perform or relay defensive signals or be the stopper.
On a sweltering Sunday afternoon in Bernard’s suburban Houston hometown, far removed from Highmark Stadium and the icy end to Buffalo’s season, Bernard leaked an uneasy laugh at the cruel memory. He looked away to gather his thoughts.
“I feel a lot of responsibility for not being out there,” Bernard said. “That s— sucks.”
The reason it still aches so much is that Bernard knows — as does the Bills’ organization and their starving fan base — that if he were healthy enough to play, then they probably beat the Chiefs. No one can say for certain, but Bernard emerged last year as a franchise defensive player. In just his second NFL season, Bernard established himself as a pillar and undeniable leader.
The quintessential “next man up” performer at every level proved irreplaceable. At this time last year, he was an unknown quantity and considered a falloff from his predecessor. Then Bernard’s postseason absence was insurmountable.
Bernard is healthy now. He’s rested. And with his belly full at King’s BBQ while enjoying his summer break back home in La Porte, he was happy to talk about his origin story, the worst day of his professional life and how he refuses to let another in a long list of injuries define him.
“I turned the page,” said Bernard, “but it’s still in the book.”
Bernard, if he can be sturdy, is the future of Buffalo’s defense. Other important players exist, to be sure. Fellow linebacker Matt Milano, edge rushers Greg Rousseau and A.J. Epenesa, defensive tackle Ed Oliver, nickelback Taron Johnson and cornerback Rasul Douglas are integral.
But the defense flows through Bernard, and, more games than not, he made a splash.
Asked at the end of minicamp about Bernard bringing an “alpha presence,” Bills coach Sean McDermott gave a steely squint, a snarly smile and nodded his head.
“He’s got it,” McDermott growled with football-dude adoration. “What is it? We can sit around and debate that, but he has it.”
Inside linebacker was Buffalo’s biggest question last offseason, and Bernard didn’t appear to be an answer. Tremaine Edmunds signed a mammoth free-agent deal with the Chicago Bears. Then a hamstring injury kept Bernard out of all three preseason games. When the Houston Texans included veteran Christian Kirksey among their final cuts, the Bills signed him to their practice squad, a presumed onboarding of their next man in the middle.
That never happened. Bernard got the job despite missing the auditions, and Kirksey retired three weeks later. The ninth-year pro had witnessed Bernard in games, in practice, in meetings. Bernard was the one. There was no doubt.
“Some people would say the perceived talent and measurables are not the fanciest, not the flashiest and maybe not what would be on their menu or what works for them,” McDermott said. “Kick all that crap to the curb. He knows how to play the game.”
Terrel Bernard might not have the typical measurables of an elite linebacker, but Bills coach Sean McDermott says that doesn’t matter. (Billie Weiss / Getty Images)
Bernard led the Bills in tackles while recording 6.5 sacks, nine quarterback hits, three interceptions and three fumble recoveries. In the dominant playoff victory over the Pittsburgh Steelers, he made four tackles, broke up two passes and recovered a fumble despite lasting just 32 plays, his dislocated right ankle requiring the medical cart to drive him away.
He would have made a difference in the three-point loss to Kansas City. He’s a rising star, while replacement A.J. Klein had been cut from the practice squad a month earlier and reckoned himself retired before an emergency recall to Buffalo’s injury-tattered roster as the postseason began.
Bernard would have made more effective stops, would have been harder for Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce to handle, would have been a calmer presence in relaying the signals and recognizing plays, would have given McDermott enough confidence in his defense to avoid risking a direct snap to safety Damar Hamlin for an unsuccessful fake punt because giving the ball back to Mahomes felt like surrender.
“It was — for lack of a better term — ass, just sitting there,” Bernard said. “It was one of the worst feelings I’ve had in my life.
“Everybody’d love to say the outcome could have been different. You never really know. But a part of me feels I let a lot of guys down because I wasn’t out there, making the calls and making the plays like we’d all done all season long.”
Buffalo’s linebacker corps was dilapidated against Kansas City’s powerhouse offense. Milano missed most of the season after a radial leg fracture in Week 5. Baylon Spector started versus Pittsburgh, but a back injury sidelined him. So Klein started alongside Tyrel Dodson, who suffered a shoulder injury the week before. Deep backup Dorian Williams and special-teamer Tyler Matakevich took snaps across the line from Mahomes. Also missing that fateful evening were Benford, safety Taylor Rapp and defensive tackle Poona Ford.
Perhaps the sum of all that defensive erosion would’ve been too much to overcome, but Bernard was the catastrophic Jenga block. Buffalo had not only managed to navigate the other losses throughout the season, but the defense also continued to thrive.
“Oh, my gosh. He was so upset,” said Tayler Timmons, Bernard’s fiancée. “There is a feeling of guilt because he worked so hard in that week leading up to the game. It’s being too hard on himself and really, really, really wanting to play in that game.”
The damaged ankle was too unstable and kept popping in and out whenever he tried to test it. Bernard wanted to play. The Bills’ medical staff shut him down.
“I tried, man,” Bernard said. “I f—— tried.”
Terrel Bernard had four tackles, broke up two passes and recovered a fumble in limited time against the Steelers in the 2023 playoffs. (Mark Konezny / USA TODAY Sports)
‘He was just always golden’
There’s nothing dainty about La Porte. The decisive Battle of San Jacinto ended the Texas Revolution here in 1836, and although the Sylvan Beach Amusement Park enticed flocks of tourists to the Galveston Bay shoreline until World War II, the city was overtaken by shipyards, container terminals and chemical plants.Aside from the methane flames billowing from flare stacks, La Porte’s industrial district could be mistaken for a metropolis at night. The plants, bathed in orangy-white light, resemble skyscrapers with every office window aglow. Blinking, red lights warn aircraft. Before dawn, traffic pulses along the roads throughout as truck drivers and plant workers populate one of America’s busiest ports.
In the daytime, this pseudo-city is revealed to be a sprawling complex of pipelines, snakes of railroad tracks, shipping containers stacked to the clouds and storage tanks filled with biofuels, chemicals, synthetic lubricants and base oils.
Rugged folks line up for these dangerous jobs. Bernard’s grandfather worked in the chemical plants; his big brother and an uncle still do. Timmons’ stepfather does, too.
“They’re going to make over $100,000, but they’re going to bust their ass — if they can get in,” said La Porte High running backs coach and recruiting director Keith Whitely. “They work 12-hour shifts. They come to the games and support their kids, and you see them in the stands, still in their work uniforms.”
“It takes a lot out of people,” Timmons said. “It’s exhausting.”
Bernard admitted he would have been headed for the chemical plants himself, but he avoided those pre-dawn lights by dominating under the Friday night lights.
Even in a city like La Porte, Bernard was renowned for putting in the hardest work.
At first, sports were something he learned from his grandfather, Ronnie Spain. “He taught me from the ground up,” Bernard said. Their time together was magnificent and necessary, with Laura Bernard working as a labor and delivery nurse and Bernard’s dad nowhere to be found. Terrel then insisted on improving enough to keep up with his big brother of three years, Xavier Hayes, and the older kids.
Terrel’s athletic development was propelled by an innate love of watching himself on video.
“I was so involved and so interested in getting better when I was young,” said Bernard, “that my grandmother would sit in the stands and video my games just for fun. Even back in Little League, we would go home and watch these DVDs of the games as a family.
“I didn’t even understand at that point, but I was watching tape at 10 years old just to see what I looked like. I always knew I could keep getting better.”
Bernard wasn’t focused solely on football. He said he was better at baseball, pitching and playing right field, but he “got burnt out.” He also ran the 400-meter and 800-meter relays, chucked the shot put and powerlifted.
But by ninth grade, he knew he loved football most.
Despite capturing the coaching staff’s imagination right away, La Porte High didn’t expect Bernard to play varsity from the jump. In the program was 6-foot-3, 225-pound linebacker Hoza Scott, who declined scholarship offers from Texas, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Notre Dame, USC and Oregon by the time he was a sophomore.
“He is an urban legend where we’re from because of the things he could do,” Bernard said. “He was the guy I wanted to be like, specifically, an All-American linebacker that was committed to Texas A&M as a high school sophomore. That was crazy, coming from my hometown.”
Scott didn’t play a down at Texas A&M or anywhere else. La Porte head coach Jeff LaReau kicked him off the team for academic reasons and suddenly needed another linebacker. LaReau, not liking what he had on junior varsity, elevated a 5-foot-11, 180-pound freshman.
“Hoza Scott was a phenomenon,” Whitely said, “but our defense didn’t miss a beat because of Terrel.
“Down here in Texas, when you’re playing varsity, you want to know if a kid can not only take up a spot, but make plays. He was in on almost every tackle. He was always finishing the play. As a freshman, that’s unheard of.”
In Texas’ sovereign 6A class, Bernard was voted all-district as a sophomore and junior and district MVP as a senior, when he recorded 201 tackles, 12 for losses, five sacks and four forced fumbles in just 12 games. He didn’t start at running back, but Whitely deployed him in red-zone and short-yardage situations for La Porte’s scatback-oriented spread offense. Bernard rushed for 10 touchdowns over his prep career.
Driven to be the total package, Bernard emphasized maturing as a leader, which involved mentoring underclassmen.
“It wasn’t about what he did on the football field that impressed me most,” Whitely said. “It was what he was like as a young man. I saw how he cared about people. He has integrity. When you got a guy like that leading your football team, his teammates tend to want to meet that standard — fiercely loyal, a hard worker, would do whatever you asked him to do.
“He was just always golden. I always thought of Terrel as the exact kind of guy I’d want my daughter to marry.”
That wasn’t in the cards. Bernard has been off the dating market practically his whole life. He and Timmons grew up as next-door neighbors on Cullen Court, a road that runs parallel between North D Street and Josh Way (part of La Porte’s northern border is Buffalo Bayou, for the record). Their yards shared a fence. Their mothers are best friends. Terrel and Tayler started dating in junior high; now they’re engaged.
They also attended Baylor University together, him getting a degree in health, kinesiology and leisure studies, her in physical therapy. But that wasn’t the original plan.
Bernard committed to the University of Houston, but when coach Tom Herman departed for the prestigious Texas Longhorns gig, he didn’t summon his recruit to Austin.
“We waited around and waited around,” Whitely said. “Then we got an email, saying they weren’t going to recruit him to Texas. That ticked him off, ticked us off and helped send him to Baylor.”
The consequences proved a blessing. One visit with new Baylor coach Matt Rhule and Bernard was smitten. The switch soon sent Bernard on an NFL trajectory – albeit not obviously from the beginning.
A broken foot ended his true freshman season at two games. He played every game as a redshirt freshman, starting twice but learning a harsh lesson about the joylessness of being ordinary.
“He was treading water, really wasn’t getting better,” said former Baylor assistant Joey McGuire, now the head coach at Texas Tech. “He realized that while he thought he was working hard, he really was just doing what everybody else was doing. He had to do more.”
The realization struck Bernard after an ugly loss at Iowa State. In his second straight start, he finished with two solo tackles. He didn’t start another.
“There were plays in that game where, as our linebackers coach, Mike Siravo, would say, ‘He looked like he was wearing wooden skates,’” McGuire said. “He looked so awkward. But that was a point where, compared to how he looked going into 2019 spring football, it was full-tilt.
“He flipped a switch. I watched a guy that was really struggling totally flip his mindset, getting serious about his career, serious about his body, what he ate. I’ve never seen a guy study more in the film room. That passion he has for being great, I’m drawn to that.”
When at La Porte High, the task was to somehow replace Hoza Scott as a freshman. With the Bills, it was filling Tremaine Edmunds’ void and coping with Matt Milano’s absence in Bernard’s second pro season.
At Baylor, he had to take over for injured battering ram Clay Johnston as a sophomore.
Terrel Bernard helped return Baylor to prominence, including the 2021 Big Ten Championship, (pictured above) and 2022 Sugar Bowl victory. (Photo by Ron Jenkins/Getty Images)
So Bernard shifted from outside to middle linebacker and finished the 2019 season with 112 tackles, 4.5 sacks, an interception and three fumble recoveries. As a junior in 2020, he led the Big 12 with 55 tackles through five games when a torn labrum and broken shoulder ended his campaign. He missed one game with a knee injury in 2021, but collected 103 tackles, 12.5 for losses and 7.5 sacks. He was named the Sugar Bowl’s third defensive MVP in 75 years after amassing 20 tackles and a couple sacks on Ole Miss.
Bernard was among the most influential players to resurrect Baylor’s program after the school in 2016 fired coach Art Briles and removed president Ken Starr for failure to properly address sexual assault and domestic violence allegations against players.
The program cratered, but Baylor ranked seventh nationally at the end of both 2019 (Rhule, hired away to coach the Carolina Panthers, was replaced by Dave Aranda) and 2021, reaching as high as fifth Bernard’s senior year.
“If you don’t have that leadership group, you don’t win the Big XII in 2021,” McGuire said. “There were so many things coaches probably didn’t have to get involved with because Terrel Bernard fixed them.
“It’s amazing the control and power, it was almost, like, ‘I don’t care what anybody says. We’re going to follow exactly what the coaches say, and if you don’t, then you’re going to have to deal with me.’ When he graduated, you lost an NFL talent, but you also lost the guy who ran that locker room. He was the alpha dog.”
