If there was a sliver of a thought that Micah Hyde was possibly returning to the Buffalo Bills in 2024, forget about it now that the team announced the signing on Wednesday of safety Mike Edwards to a one-year contract.

Having already re-signed Taylor Rapp, the Bills now appear to be set at both starting safety spots, and they have familiar depth with Cam Lewis and Damar Hamlin, though it would be incumbent on Brandon Beane to select one at some point in the upcoming draft.

One of the things that attracted Edwards to Buffalo was how coach Sean McDermott used his star tandem of safeties, Hyde and Jordan Poyer, for the seven years they were together.

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“The system is safety friendly, they do a lot of things with safeties, kind of what I did in Kansas City,” Edwards said of Buffalo’s defense. “They want you to be yourself, so I can’t wait for them to coach me and show me a lot of things those guys did, so I’m excited about that.”

Hyde’s free safety position is probably where Edwards will fit, and he said he definitely watched how both Hyde and Poyer went about playing their positions.

“The two guys they had were phenomenal, I think they were here seven years, so I feel like I can come in and take on that role,” the 27-year-old said. “Those guys were the standard, two of the best in the league so just trying to build from that and come in and be ready to work and aim for that.”

Edwards will certainly bring a championship pedigree to Buffalo. He was originally a third-round pick of the Buccaneers in 2019 who played four years in Tampa Bay, starting 23 of 58 games. In 2020, he helped the Tom Brady-led Buccaneers win the Super Bowl. He had four tackles and broke up a pass as Tampa Bay blew out Kansas City 31-9.

He then signed a one-year deal with the Chiefs in 2023 and won another Super Bowl, starting five games and making one interception. In his career, he has 11 interceptions, three of those in the postseason.

Edwards became Kansas City’s starter when they lost Bryan Cook for the season, and he started the final nine games including four in the postseason. Interestingly, in the Chiefs victory over the Bills in the divisional game, Edwards got hurt on the second play from scrimmage and missed the rest of the game. However, he returned to start the AFC Championship victory over the Ravens and the Super Bowl victory over the 49ers when he made seven tackles and broke up a pass.

The 5-foot-10, 178-pounder played 468 snaps for the Chiefs as the free safety counting the postseason, but he also came down into the box for another 195, and he took 118 as a slot cornerback so the versatility was clearly a selling point for the Bills. He even played more than 100 special teams, but almost all of that came before he took over as a starter.

One thing Edwards saw with Buffalo’s defense was its ability to prevent big plays, and Hyde and Poyer obviously had a lot to do with that.

“That’s the name of the game, limit those explosive plays,” he said. “You give up one and it’s a momentum changer and a big part of a game. So make them work for every yard. Micah Hyde took on that role, a rangy guy, center fielder. I’ve studied his film a lot and I think I have some of the traits that he has. I can also come up and blitz, play to man, so I think I can do it all. I feel like my instincts are high. I’ve been taught at an early age to have all 11 guys on the same page, I saw that from afar (with the Bills) and I feel like I can be part of that and be something special in this defense.”

And while preventing big plays is the first priority, Edwards has also been adept at making them. He has four defensive touchdowns in his career, three on interceptions and a fumble return last season that he took back 97 yards in the regular season finale against the Chargers.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana. To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which comes out each Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Mike Edwards signs with Buffalo Bills: What to know about the safety