Bills' C Connor McGovern: Buffalo's No. 13 Player Looks to Pay Off Big Contract
Bills' C Connor McGovern: Buffalo's No. 12 Player Looks to Pay Off Big Contract
Buffalo Bills' veteran center Connor McGovern is next in our Top 25 Player Rankings.Owen Klein|
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Buffalo Bills | News, Scores, Schedules & StandingsAs the team enjoys its summer break, Bills On SI will unveil its Top 25 Player Rankings (based upon expected impact) for the 2026 season. The ranking methodology is based on positional value, past performance and expectations for any player. C Connor McGovern carries a new contract with his No. 12 ranking.
The anchor of any offensive line in football is the center, the player who snaps the ball to the quarterback and gives the signals up front, and those qualities make the Buffalo Bills' Connor McGovern one of their more important players.
After a three-season stretch in Buffalo that saw McGovern start 56 total games, including in the playoffs, and earn a Pro Bowl nod in 2024, he was awarded a four-year, $52 million contract in March.
McGovern is one of the best all-around centers in the game, and his being the fourth-highest-paid center in the NFL backs up that belief. Also, his annual average value is less than half of that of the Las Vegas Raiders' Tyler Linderbaum, who became the highest-paid center in league history, so the Bills retained him at a relatively low price.
Why is McGovern so important?
Connor McGovern last season:
— BillsOnReal (@BillsOnReal) June 29, 2026
- 1037 Offensive Snaps
- 0 Sacks Allowed
Got paid that BAGGGG 🤑🤑🤑 pic.twitter.com/ooiCN3xfkX
Despite Josh Allen being sacked a career-high 40 times in 2025, McGovern was not responsible for a single one on 1,037 snaps, the second-highest snap count of his career. His 73.4 Pro Football Focus pass protection grade ranked him as the sixth-best in the NFL in that regard.
McGovern played 98.1% of Buffalo's offensive snaps in 2025, and of the 16 games he played (he sat out the regular-season finale against the New York Jets), McGovern played every snap in 13 of them, being constantly available when others missed games with injuries.
Although McGovern had only a 65.3 run-blocking grade, Buffalo had the league's best rushing offense and James Cook won the league's rushing title, a testament to McGovern's role along the unit up front.
McGovern's background
McGovern was born on November 3, 1997 in Larksville, Pennsylvania, and attended Lake-Lehman High School, where he earned Wyoming Valley Conference Most Valuable Player and first-team All-State honors as a senior.
As a four-star recruit, McGovern chose Penn State over schools like Boston College and Duke. He split time between right guard and center during his three seasons as a Nittany Lion, starting 34 games overall and earning third-team All-Big Ten honors in 2018.
The Dallas Cowboys selected McGovern in the third round at No. 90 overall, but he missed his entire rookie season due to a torn pectoral muscle. He made 29 starts in 45 appearances with the Cowboys across three seasons before inking a three-year, $23 million contract with the Bills in March 2023. Since then, he has developed into a key cog on Buffalo's offensive line.
The rest of the top 25 so far:
25. RB Ty Johnson, June 16
24. CB Maxwell Hairston, June 17
23. K Tyler Bass, June 18
22. CB Dee Alford, June 19
21. LB Dorian Williams, June 20
20. RB Ray Davis, June 22
19. S C.J. Gardner-Johnson, June 23
18. G Alec Anderson, June 24
17. TE Dawson Knox, June 25
16. DT Deone Walker, June 27
15. TE Dalton Kincaid, June 28
14. G O'Cyrus Torrence, June 29
Published 2 hours ago
OWEN KLEINOwen Klein has covered football, basketball and baseball for Penn State athletics as a broadcaster on local radio, including producing Penn State’s 2024 men’s basketball Big Ten Tournament games and calling Penn State football’s Whiteout vs. Washington in November 2024. He has internships with the Buffalo Bisons and CBS affiliate WIVB in Buffalo, NY, in the summer of 2025. He is a Penn State University broadcast journalism student at the Bellisario College of Communications majoring in broadcast journalism and is passionate about college and professional sports, the Pokémon Video Game Championships and the Buffalo Bills.
Follow Kleiner2003GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr. explains his 'mysterious' 4-month absence from Congress
OAN Staff Lillian Mann
6:30 PM – Tuesday, June 30, 2026
In an emotional speech on the House floor, New Jersey GOP Representative Tom Kean Jr. revealed the reason behind his four-month long medical leave from Congress, telling his fellow lawmakers that he was in the hospital for depression.
Kean (R-N.J.) disclosed on Tuesday that he was recently diagnosed with depression following a hospitalization for undisclosed health concerns. He added that recovering from the mental illness has taken longer than expected.
“I am a private person by nature … talking about myself has never come naturally. But I believe that I owe an explanation to the people of New Jersey’s 7th District, to my colleagues in this chamber and to the American people for my absence,” he began from the podium Tuesday morning.
“I was given the diagnosis of depression. It is physical, it is emotional and, until you’ve experienced it yourself, it is difficult to fully understand how powerful this illness can be.”
The 57-year-old has missed more than 140 votes during his recovery, amounting to a 100% absence rate, according to the website GovTrack.
“I began to understand not only my diagnosis, but how long depression had been affecting my life,” he continued. “When people hear the word depression, many people think it simply means feeling sad. But depression is so much more than that.”
“When I first informed the public that I was dealing with a medical issue, I was still trying to understand what was happening myself,” he said of the secrecy of his absence.
Despite feeling hesitant when his doctors recommended he stayed at the hospital, he shared that he was ultimately grateful for the decision.
“When I said I hope to return in a matter of weeks, I believed it. Those were the best estimates that the doctor could provide. But as the over 48 million of my fellow Americans being treated for this illness have come to discover, there is no timeline for healing. There is no timeline for recovery. Only the work of getting better one day at a time,” he said.
“Today I am grateful that I listened to my doctors … I am grateful that I accepted help. Because today I stand before you healthier, stronger and excited to return to the work that I love.”
Although Kean’s condition was not made public until Tuesday, the details were apparently known by Capitol Hill colleagues –including House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — who said earlier this month, “I do know what his health issue is, but he’s asked me not to disclose that, and I’m going to honor that.”
Johnson also emphasized at the time that Kean’s absence is “not a scandalous thing at all,” telling reporters that “people deal with health issues. Maybe that’s a news flash for you, but even members of Congress get sick as well.”
During his absence, Kean secured the Republican nomination for a third term representing New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District after running unopposed in the primary. He will face Rebecca Bennett (D-N.J.) in November.
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These Whiskies From One of Scotland’s Underrated Distilleries Are the Perfect Summer Sippers
By Jonah FlickerJonah Flicker
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Fettercairn
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Whiskey brands and distilleries make a lot of claims about how they taste, but sometimes it’s all about the power of suggestion. Did you really taste Christmas cake and treacle as you sipped that single malt? Do you even know what those things taste like? In the case of this new pair of whiskies from Fettercairn, however, the claims hold true—these two single malt scotches are bursting with tropical fruit notes, making them perfect summer sippers.
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Fettercairn, a Highland distillery that is owned by Whyte & Mackay along with the Dalmore and Jura, is relatively new in the U.S. The distillery has been around for about two centuries, but the whisky only became available here last year with the launch of 24 and 28-year-old whiskies, the latter of which we found to be exceptional. It’s less common for a whisky to launch with higher age-statement expressions like these, although certainly not unheard of, but at the time a rep for the brand said younger expressions would follow. Well, they have arrived in the form of 12 and 16-year-old single malts, both of which are full of bright, fruity notes that will appeal to both newbies and seasoned whisky vets.
The distillery attributes its whisky’s tropical fruit character to the way in which it is distilled and cooled. There is a copper cooling ring near the top of the still that Fettercairn says means only the lightest vapors rise to the top, and those are said to contain the particular flavors that define the new make spirit and carry over through many years of maturation. “That process gives us a beautifully light, tropical spirit to work with, and from there, it’s about shaping that character with care—preserving its freshness while building texture and complexity through maturation,” said distillery manager Stewart Walker in a statement.
WATCHIf these technical details are a bit beyond your pay grade, try the whisky for yourself to see what you taste. The 12-year-old is aged entirely in ex-bourbon barrels and bottled at 46 percent ABV with natural color and no chill filtration. Look for notes of pineapple, banana, mango, vanilla, citrus, and ginger on the palate. The 16-year-old, also naturally colored and without chill filtration, was also aged in ex-bourbon barrels and bottled at a slightly higher 46.4 percent ABV. There’s a bit more oak on the palate here, as you might expect, along with notes of papaya, ripe pear, green apple, custard, cinnamon, and milk chocolate.
Both the 12 (SRP $55) and the 16 (SRP $90) were released in late spring and are available to purchase now from retailers around the country and at websites like Total Wine. And you can still find the excellent (and expensive) 24 and 28-year-old whiskies at websites like ReserveBar.
Authors
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Jonah Flicker
Flicker is currently Robb Report's whiskey critic, writing a weekly review of the most newsworthy releases around. He is a freelance writer covering the spirits industry whose work has appeared in…
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