Tonight, long about 11 o’clock, we should find out the Buffalo Bills perceived top area of need.
Or will we?
That’s about the time they will make their first-round pick in the National Football League’s 88th annual “Player Selection Meeting” being hosted by Kansas City.
But this year’s draft is a bit different.
There are more selections, 31 (Miami forfeited its own due to tampering by owner Stephen Ross with quarterback Tom Brady and coach Sean Payton), than there are players with first-round grades.
Buffalo’s needs are obvious.
The biggest is middle linebacker with the Bills having lost incumbent Tremaine Edmunds to Chicago in free agency for a 4-year, $72 million contract the salary cap-strapped team couldn’t have come close to matching.
However, the best two collegians who fill that need — Iowa’s Jack Campbell and Arkansas’ Drew Sanders — are projected more as high second-rounders.
Hole No. 2 is at wide receiver, but not the position you think. Gabe Davis, who had solid numbers his second year, was inconsistent last season. But the Bills aren’t ready to quit on him as the starter opposite Stefon Diggs. The real position of need is slot receiver where management became so disenchanted with the uneven contribution of Isiah McKenzie last year that it brought back anti-vaxxer Cole Beasley, who had been released during the off-season.
Beasley, 34, is still a free agent, while McKenzie was signed by the Giants.
Four wideouts are projected to go in this year’s first round: Jaxon Smith-Njigba, Ohio State; Zay Flowers, Boston College; Quentin Johnson, TCU and Jordan Addison, USC.
None is a “big” receiver. Johnson, at 6-foot-2, 208 pounds, has the most size. The other three have a “slot” build, the smallest being Addison, 5-11, 173.
The latter, seemingly the most likely to fall to the Bills at 27, would have a chance to become quarterback Josh Allen’s much-needed safety valve.
MANY EXPERTS say this is the most difficult draft to evaluate in recent memory.
Indeed, in my checking of 24 mock drafts, 16 different names were offered for the Bills’ first-round pick with Addison and Sanders each being chosen four times, everybody else once. Of those 16, there were four offensive linemen, three each linebackers and defensive backs, two each wide receivers and running backs, a tight end and an edge rusher.
Bills general manager Brandon Beane has already indicated that Buffalo will take “the best football player” if there isn’t (presumably) a wideout or middle linebacker who has a first-round grade when its pick comes around.
Beane’s history has been to trade up for a player he covets, but that’s not a great option this year. He has only six draft choices — one every round but the seventh — the fewest in the five lotteries he’s conducted.
Such deals have netted him the likes of Allen, Edmunds, tight end Dawson Knox and last year’s top pick, cornerback Kaiir Elam. But he also had one notable miss, the 2019 second-round selection of guard/tackle Cody Ford, a bust subsequently traded to Arizona and now trying to revive his career with Cincinnati.
With limited draft capital, it’s much more likely that Beane tonight will trade down for an extra choice or two, especially if Buffalo’s targeted potential first-rounders don’t fall down to them.
ONLY THE first round will be conducted this evening, starting at 8 o’clock, with a maximum of 10 minutes between picks.
Tomorrow’s second and third rounds commence at 7 p.m. with seven minutes between picks in Round 2 and five for third-round choices.
The draft winds up Saturday at noon with rounds four through seven, five minutes between selections until the seventh which gets only four.
