Day One of the NFL Draft Was a Disaster for the Buffalo Bills, Here’s Why

The Buffalo Bills need to add a wide receiver to their roster this offseason.

Badly.

The team let Gabriel Davis, who they drafted in 2020, walk in free agency, and he proceeded to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Then, they traded their long-time No. 1 wide receiver, Stefon Diggs, to the Houston Texans.

They added Curtis Samuel in free agency, but lost both Trent Sherfield and Deonte Harty. In total, of the five wide receivers that were on Buffalo's roster on September 1st of last year, only one remains.

Luckily for Buffalo, there were numerous high-end wide receivers available when the 2024 NFL Draft began on Thursday night.

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The Bills held the 28th overall pick heading into the night, and they had three options from which they could choose. They could keep the pick, trade up the draft board, or trade down.

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As the first round progressed, there was no news coming from Buffalo. That was somewhat odd, as since 2018, no NFL general manager has "traded up" more often than Brandon Beane, who had done it four times before this year.

Suddenly, it was time for the Bills to make their selection, yet instead of doing that, they agreed to a draft-day trade.

Of all teams in football, they chose to trade their pick to the Kansas City Chiefs. You know, the same team that's won three Super Bowls in five years, and that's eliminated the Bills in three of the past four years.

With that selection, the Chiefs chose WR Xavier Worthy out of Texas, who broke the NFL record in the 40-yard dash by running it in 4.21 seconds. Now, Patrick Mahomes has another wide receiver with ridiculous speed, and the team has FIVE YEARS before they need to worry about re-signing him.

That trade gave the Bills the No. 32 pick, but Brandon Beane was not done, swapping picks with the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers took --- you guessed it --- another wide receiver!

Allow me to add some context here. The contracts given to first-round draft picks (Picks 1-32) all have fifth-year options built into them, meaning that teams have one more year of control over the player before they can become a free agent.

By acquiring Pick No. 33, the Bills moved out of the first round. The player they select will not have a fifth-year option in their contract, meaning that they can leave the Bills for free agency one year earlier than a player picked 32nd overall.

Personally, I think this was a disastrous string of decisions made by the Buffalo Bills. Sure, they acquired a few more mid-round draft picks to use this weekend. That's never a bad idea, but in order to acquire those picks, you:

• Passed on TWO wide receivers
• Gifted your biggest rival one of those WRs
• Lost the ability to exercise a fifth-year option

That's a hefty list of negatives, and Bills' fans should be upset with the job done by Brandon Beane and the front office.