{"id":168702,"date":"2025-06-29T21:01:13","date_gmt":"2025-06-29T21:01:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/168702\/"},"modified":"2025-06-29T21:01:13","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T21:01:13","slug":"the-bills-need-some-young-wrs-to-step-up-in-2025-and-beyond","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/168702\/","title":{"rendered":"The Bills need some young WRs to step up in 2025 and beyond"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Buffalo Bills need production from their receiver group. On a team where \u201ceverybody eats,\u201d they don\u2019t have a true game-changer who can take over a game and wreck whatever coverage a defense throws at them.<\/p>\n<p>That isn\u2019t necessarily a problem, and it\u2019s not to say that some of Buffalo\u2019s better receivers can\u2019t develop into that kind of player. It\u2019s merely an observation based on how the group performed last season.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>With that in mind, the team has continued to add players with diverse skill sets to the 90-man roster. They don\u2019t have a Stefon Diggs-type who can be the \u201calpha,\u201d but they have a lot of players who can fill roles within offensive coordinator Joe Brady\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n<p>In today\u2019s installment of our \u201c90 players in 90 days\u201d series, we discuss an undrafted rookie looking to make a name for himself this summer.<\/p>\n<p>Name: Kelly Akharaiyi<br \/>Number: 87<br \/>Position: WR<br \/>Height\/Weight: 6\u20191\u201d, 200 pounds<br \/>Age: 25 (26 on 2\/2\/2026)<br \/>Experience\/Draft: R; signed with Bills following the 2025 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/nfl-draft\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:NFL Draft;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">NFL Draft<\/a><br \/>College: Mississippi State<br \/>Acquired: UDFA signing<\/p>\n<p>Financial situation (per Spotrac): Akhariyai signed a three-year deal worth $2.985 million overall. For the 2025 season, he carries a cap hit of $846,666 for the season if he makes the 53-man roster. Buffalo can release him and carry just a $20,000 dead-cap charge, a number which represents the entire amount of his signing bonus.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>2024 Recap: Akhariyai transferred to Mississippi State for his senior year after a big season at UTEP. In 2023, he caught 48 passes for 1,033 yards and seven touchdowns, leading Conference USA in yards per reception at 21,5 yards per catch.<\/p>\n<p>With the Bulldogs in 2024, he didn\u2019t match that production, as he caught 25 passes for 291 yards and two scores in his 11 games. He made the Academic Honor Roll, was on the 2025 Reese\u2019s <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbnation.com\/senior-bowl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Senior Bowl;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Senior Bowl<\/a> Watchlist, and accepted an invite to the Hula Bowl.<\/p>\n<p>While he wasn\u2019t invited to the NFL Scouting Combine, Akharaiyi did participate in Mississippi State\u2019s Pro Day. He ran the 40-yard dash in 4.63 seconds, bench-pressed 225 pounds a total of 13 times, and leapt 40\u201d in the vertical jump and 10\u20193\u201d in the broad jump. His 20-yard shuttle time was 4.31 seconds, and his three-cone drill time was 7.15 seconds.<\/p>\n<p>Positional outlook: Akharaiyi is one of 13 wideouts on the current roster. Curtis Samuel, Laviska Shenault Jr., Khalil Shakir, Keon Coleman, Kristian Wilkerson, Jalen Virgil, K.J. Hamler, Joshua Palmer, Elijah Moore, Stephen Gosnell, and Tyrell Shavers are the others.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>2025 Offseason: Akharaiyi is healthy and participating in offseason work to date.<\/p>\n<p>2025 Season outlook: Akhariyi is a classic \u201ctweener\u201d as a wideout. He wins contested catches based on his strength, but he lacks agility and quickness that will likely be necessary at his size to win consistently at the professional level.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps he plays faster than his testing times, but he\u2019ll need to show that he can win on precise route running in order too have a chance at even the practice squad. Akharaiyi is as long a shot as there is on the current roster, but a good preseason could help him make the practice squad.<\/p>\n<p>More from buffalorumblings.com:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Buffalo Bills need production from their receiver group. On a team where \u201ceverybody eats,\u201d they don\u2019t have&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":168703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,306,6084,7,23703,599,17652,8100,7468,8697,8663,17653,6,37369],"class_list":{"0":"post-168702","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-curtis-samuel","13":"tag-elijah-moore","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-jalen-virgil","16":"tag-joshua-palmer","17":"tag-kelly-akharaiyi","18":"tag-keon-coleman","19":"tag-khalil-shakir","20":"tag-kristian-wilkerson","21":"tag-laviska-shenault-jr","22":"tag-mississippi-state","23":"tag-nfl","24":"tag-tyrell-shavers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114768673810848681","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/168703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}