LEBills

Ever since you predicted Zaven Collins a few years ago, I always check your Cardinals picks. If Membou goes early I think the Dolphins go corner but it may be awhile for another one to go off the board like you have here. You gotta speak Nic Scourton to Buffalo into existence, I know that’s who you want in your heart haha. I’m still incredulous the Bills will go for Amos over someone younger in round 1.

This seems to be more of an idea by a bleacher report writer than a rumor

Mine that I made from scratch: 1. Ten: Cam Ward, QB 2. CLE: Travis Hunter, OP 3.NYG: Abdul Carter, EDGE 4. NE: Will Campbell, OL 5. JAX: Ashton Jeanty, RB 6. OAK: Kelvin Banks, OT 7. NYJ: Armond Membou, OT 8. CAR: Jalon Walker, EDGE 9. NO: Tet McMillan, WR 10. CHI: Tyler Warren, TE 11. SF: Walter Nolan, DT 12. DAL: Mason Graham, DT 13. MIA: Maxwell Hairston, CB 14. IND: Colston Loveland, TE 15. ATL: Mikel Williams, DE 16. ARI: Luther Burden, WR 17. CIN: James Pierce, EDGE 18. SEA: Jihaad Campbell, LB 19. TB: Jahdae Barron, CB 20. DEN: Sherman Stewart, DE 21. PIT: Jalen Milroe, QB 22. LAC: Matthew Golden, WR 23. GB: Derrick Harmon, DL 24. MIN: Grey Zabel, OL 25. HOU: Josh Conerly, OT 26. LAR: Omarion Hampton, RB 27. BAL: Kenneth Grant, DL 28. DET: Landon Jackson, DE 29. WAS: Donovan Ezeiruaku, EDGE 30. BUF: Nic Scourton, DE The Bills acquire the player they have been quietly covering. Bosa and AJ are on expiring contracts. Scourton gives them a young pass rusher in the pipeline 31. KC: Josh Simmons, OT 32. PHI: Emeka Egbuka, WR Remaining Bills picks 56. Azareye’h Thomas, CB 62. Josh Farmer, DT 109 and 132 traded for 96. Tory Horton, WR 169. Jaylen Reed, S 170. Cam Horsely, DT 173. Teddy Buchanan, LB 177. “Ice” Waxter, CB 206. Arian Smith, WR

These are always a lot of work so good job. I agree with most of the picks in the top 10 aside from Warren. I think a new coach that watched Sewell and Hutchinson being drafted early in Detroit will try and mirror that with either Banks, Graham or a DE du jour. I don’t know which Edge guys will go 15&16 but I can’t see those being other positions. Im of the mindset that Hairston’s floor is going to be GB if all his medicals are clear. And him being the first CB off the board isn’t ludicrous. WJ not testing sounds like it has soured some teams and Barron will be more the eye of the beholder on if he can play outside. I think Amos does make the most logical sense for the Bills in these mocks. A first round CB is basically guaranteed to be a starter and Amos is very good and has a clean medical history. His age isn’t normally what Beane looks for in an early pick is the only thing giving me pause from making this a lock if he is there at 30. I can’t get AZ Thomas out of my brain for the Bills, hopefully with a small trade down. We shall see.

Our safeties were baddd but I agree the resource allocation would sadden me, and I think Starks is good. Brugler got the Elam pick right in 2022 but besides that no one has gotten the Bills pick right since 2022. And at least 3 of them all had us selecting Breece Hall in 23. Until it leaks the day of the draft that the Bills hosted Starks (like it happened with Elam) I’m going to assume what they are hearing is what the Bills want them to hear

I like Joe. Most of the more polished Bills reporters are not Bills fans, the people that are and podcast about the Bills are usually either boring or not too inciteful. Joe toes the line of being professional while being a Bills fan pretty well. However, I don’t think he is a great talent evaluator, despite his background as an online scout for the draft network. Prefer LockedOn during the season.

Per Tony Pauline: “There’s been a lot of talk over how weak the first round of this year’s draft is, and I’m told the Buffalo Bills have just 12 players graded as true first-round prospects. In the end, this means players taken in the bottom half of the initial frame are second-round talents.” https://www.sportskeeda.com/nfl/news-insider-notes-red-flags-will-johnson-jihaad-campbell-possible-kirk-cousins-saints-trade I don’t think we will be trading up if that’s the case. Maybe a trade down?

Hoping gunners cockney accent is like how I do it when I read his posts 🤞

That’s good to hear. Smith did not make my list to watch this year and the GA Reddit did not seem very sad about him declaring for the draft. But of all my predictions here, Arian Smith to the Bills is the one that I’m most confident in. All those Gators and only Cybo is still on the team…Buffalo loves an underbull story!

So the 257 is what he weighed at the combine and is his natural weight. He played at that weight in 2023 and led the Big 10 in sacks. He transferred to A&M in 2024 and they had him, Stewart and Turner play heavy and basically hold the line of scrimmage so his production suffered. I would expect him to play at his combine weight in the pros. He’d be an excellent pick at 30 if this is what we do, imo

Imo if any of them are clear and away the best player available at 30, they will take them despite the age. But if they are in a cluster of other similar graded players, they will basically always take the younger guy you can hopefully have for a longer time. Personally I think Revel is the least likely due to his injury, the Bills have passed on other injured players that were a value when they drafted like JOK and Voorhees You know if this was my real mock draft it would be 10 WRs lol It looks just like a DE but for a fraction of the price! I agree. I think we wanted Jordan Addison (pre draft visitor). We were just coming off the 22 Bengals playoff loss where Joe Burrow had an assortment of riches and Josh had an angry Diggs and nothing else. Kincaid was expected to go even earlier than the WRs - until maybe the rumblings close to the draft were he would potentially fall so they zoomed him. So when the WRs were gone he quickly pivoted to Kincaid.

Beane has now run 7 drafts for the Bills and has shown some very clear trends. By following history, we can try and predict the Bills draft class. For all pre-draft info, I used this running article: https://www.syracuse.com/buffalo-bills/2025/04/nfl-draft-2025-buffalo-bills-pre-draft-visitors-zoom-meetings-and-private-workout-tracker.html?outputType=amp (thank you @RyanTalbotBills) Pick 30: Nick Scourton, DE, TAMU Dalton Kincaid was the only first pick in the draft that was not a top 30 visit and was older than 21 years old on draft day. Scourton, 20, fills a premium position. Other players that fit mold: DE Shemar Stewart, CB Maxwell Hairston, DT TJ Sanders Pick 56: Tyleik Williams, DT, Ohio State The Bills second pick in the draft has been a top 30 visit 3 out of 5 eligible years. None have been recovering from a major injury. And all of them had multiple years of production. Other players that fit: DT TJ Sanders, CB Jacob Parrish, WR Jaylin Royals Pick 62: Jacob Parrish, CB, Kansas State Zoom meetings have also become important to the Bills scouting as both Dalton Kincaid and Cole Bishop only had zoom meetings with the Bills. Parrish is the one zoom meeting player we know of that matches this range. Other players that fit this mold: DT Joshua Farmer Pick 109 and 132 *Traded* Kevin Winston, S, PSU Over the past 7 drafts the Bills have only selected in the 4th round 3 times. They have always had at least one third round pick in each draft. The third round is generally where they draft players in positions that will have openings the following year. Additionally, all the PSU defenders were coached in 2023 by McDermotts close friend Manny Diaz of which we have drafted three former players. Other players that fit the mold: S Jaylen Reed, S Billy Bowman, LB Chris Paul Jr., G Charles Grant Pick 169 - Arian Smith, WR, Georgia The fifth round is where the Bills top 30 visits become more relevant again. Twice has a top 30 visit been selected in the fifth round. In addition, Georgia is tied for the second most selections in the Beane regime - 3 times - each time being an offensive player. In addition to being a deep threat (with terrible hands), Smith is excellent on special teams which will be needed to make the roster. Pick 170 and 173 - DT Cam Jackson/CB Jason Marshall Jr/ LB Shemar James/WR Elijhah Badger Florida is the team that the Bills have drafted the most players from with 4 selections since 2019. They have an intriguing DT, CB, LB and deep threat/kick returning WR in this draft Pick 177 and 206 - CB “Ice” Waxter/ WR Keandre Lambert-Smith/WR Monaray Baldwin 8 of 12 sixth round picks since 2018 have been used on either DBs or WRs. With another Villanova DB available late and a need for speedy receivers, it may go this type of way. Commentary: This is certainly not my ideal mock draft (I’ll add that to the mock draft thread the morning of the draft) and from pick 62 on I could have included many other alternate players. This is just trying to look at the past to predict the future as best as possible in the wacky world of the draft. If you have noticed any other tendencies I did not mention, please let me know.

With the 8th pick, the Carolina Panthers select Jalon Walker, EDGE, Georgia The Panthers are in the market for a defensive leader and get one with Walker. A bit of a tweener Carolina will use him primarily as a pass rusher where he generated pressure on 17% of his rushes (10th in FBS). As a bonus they get to bring the high upside local kid home. The Saints and @Mike in Horseheads are now on the clock

Tony Pauline had the same comment in two different articles a week or two ago. I’d be pretty shocked but it is definitely out there that we like him

Panthers, Saints, Bears, thanks virgil

Yea but if Tre White was just a few months younger too then Kincaid would have been the only one not 21 or younger when drafted. Amos was at Louisiana under Billy Napier who the Bills seem to have a good relationship with so that is a plus in his favor. I would be happy with one of those 3 but the more I look at it the less likely I think it will be Hairston. In addition to him being on the smaller side and having that shoulder injury, He just got invited to the draft to I kinda think he goes earlier in round 1.

Big Ayomanor fan. Upside is Mike Evans but he needs a lot of time being taught proper catching form. Tony Pauline is one of my favorite draft guys and he has said twice watch the Ravens and Bills for Scwesinger at the end of round 1. Rd 1. I personally also like Amos but the Bills have only drafted one player in the first round that was older than 22 - Dalton Kincaid. He hasn’t been reported as a top 30 visit but I think Azareye’h Thomas would be in play. Only 20 years old, and healthy. All the other top CBs are either older, have an injury history or both. Either that or a DE they like may drop - Landon Jackson, Nic Scorton, etc Rd 2. This is when they go after a DT with their first second rounder imo. Tyleik Williams, TJ sanders and Josh Farmer would be my top guesses. The second second round pick will probably be BPA - DE, WR or Safety. Kevin Winston, Kyle Kennard, Swinson or Royals.

The players on this list are just those that the NFL has deemed the most valuable which does happen to be overwhelmingly the best pass rushers. Quite simply, run stuffing without pass rush is a part time player and so is not normally drafted in the top 3 rounds or considered extremely valuable. 4 of the 13 that did not qualify and would be considered top tier 1 tech players. 2 of them Harrison and Williams were small school undrafted players. Then there are Linval Joseph and Ngata who may be a bit undervalued by this. One of the things that isn’t quite fleshed out there is all the 1 techs on either list is bench press. All of them had at least 34 bench press reps and weighed over 328 pounds - basically strong MFers. I can’t find anyone like that in this class that tested like that. Their certainly will be serviceable run stuffing 1 Techs found in this draft but I would focus on that position on day 3.

Trade up to 18 probably lands Nolen or Harmon. So that’s what I would do since they are a tier above the other DTs. I don’t think there will be anybody available at 26 that would be a tier above a player at 30.

I like the kids that skipped the NIL money to stay with their school - which Revel did.

I have twin babies that don’t sleep and I need crap to do that is quiet while trying to get them to go back to sleep lol

thank you, their are certainly some but the list is actually pretty short: Shareif Floyd - injuries cut career short Rashard Hageman: he had legal troubles early in his career Malik McDowell - drafted in 2017 but couldn’t play until 2021 due to an ATV injury Our own Larry Ogunjobi qualifies and depends how you view him but he had a 9.5 mil/year contract Montravius Adams - not good PJ Hall - bust Harrison Phillips - depends how you view him. Pretty good NT who has multiple mid size contracts Neville Galimore - bust McTelvin again - bust So that is 9 of 32 players drafted in rounds 1-3 between 2013 and 2023 who hit one of the metrics. There were 90 players drafted total. I’d say 4 were straight busts, 3 injury/legal issues and 2 that are a bit mid. Many of the other busts were weeded out by the qualifiers. I call being over 295 pounds the Jerry Tillery rule. And having a RAS over 7 weeded out a lot of players that somehow fell into 5+ sacks. Anyway to your point not all of these will hit, but I think the best players will come out of this group.

Just below Porter

Nolen did not run. I’m kind of projecting that his RAS would have been high enough by watching him play. I don’t mean to say he will be this player, but his early career production was very close to Dexter Lawrence. Lawrence was an A+ athlete too and we don’t have that for Williams though his 10 and 20 yard splits before he fell down were VERY good and he was on track to a good RAS as well. For this class, I would have him just below Nolen and Harmon and think he could be a better pro than college player.

Sorry if the title is a bit misleading. This is more of a focus on which players have the most favorable pre-draft backgrounds to becoming great players than us drafting a ton of DTs. As it relates to the Bills roster construction, in 2024 and 2023 they had 6 DTs play at least 7 games each year. In 2022, that was only 4. Imo, the only DTs guaranteed a spot are Ed and Carter. Ogunjobi and especially Jones have money tied up in them but are cutable if needed. So Id say they can draft and retain 2 DTs pretty easily especially if they keep 5 on the roster.