{"id":859639,"date":"2026-04-07T20:28:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:28:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859639\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T20:28:26","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T20:28:26","slug":"buffalo-bills-will-be-a-team-to-watch-during-round-1-of-2026-nfl-draft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/859639\/","title":{"rendered":"Buffalo Bills will be a team to watch during Round 1 of 2026 NFL Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last week, I wrote a piece<\/a> outlining why I believed the highest likelihood of happening is for the Buffalo Bills to select a defensive front-seven player with their first pick in the 2026 NFL Draft. I outlined why this seems so and pointed to history with the assumption that the exhibited behaviors are a Brandon Beane (a carryover from the previous regime, now with a fancy new \u201cPresident of Football Operations\u201d title) phenomenon rather than one assigned to Sean McDermott.<\/p>\n

But even if I believe there\u2019s a 70% chance the Bills go with an edge rusher, an interior defensive lineman, or a linebacker with their first pick (at 26 overall, higher, or lower), that still leaves a robust 30% chance of them doing something else entirely. And what else exactly would they do?<\/p>\n

Safety, wide receiver, and interior offensive line are team needs where Buffalo entered the offseason at a deficit. However, the additions of C.J. Gardner-Johnson, Geno Stone, DJ Moore, Austin Corbett, and Lloyd Cushenberry alongside the re-signings of Damar Hamlin and Connor McGovern have turned the urgency down on those positions in many fans\u2019 minds.<\/p>\n

The difference between this year and the free agencies of years past is that outside of the contract given to Connor McGovern, none of the deals made by the Bills (including the Moore trade) feel like they\u2019re crossed out the need in ink. When you think of Buffalo\u2019s safety position right now, do you think \u201cno more worries, we\u2019re good there for the foreseeable future\u201d? I don\u2019t.<\/p>\n

In fact, I don\u2019t feel that way out left guard or wide receiver either. Obviously Moore and Corbett have been good starters in the NFL, but Corbett brings injury concerns to a one-year contract. Moore simultaneously gives Buffalo the best receiver they\u2019ve had since former WR1 Stefon Diggs was shipped out of town \u2014 and also a feeling of not being enough to address a position that has been woefully lacking in both consistent separation and verticality.<\/p>\n

I still stand by my statement that if I were a betting man (five cents at a time in my betting app doesn\u2019t count), I\u2019d wager the first pick of the Bills\u2019 2026 draft class will be spent on a front-seven defensive player. That said, we should still be prepared for a situation where a safety, wide receiver, or interior offensive lineman is the pick because the player is simply too good to pass up.<\/p>\n

What if Jordan Tyson out of Arizona State is there at 26 overall, having fallen due to concerns about the wide receiver\u2019s injuries? A player with Tyson\u2019s profile isn\u2019t typically available at the end of the first round, and the Bills may find the upside too significant not to swing for a home run.<\/p>\n

KC Concepcion, like Tyson, is a wide receiver who probably won\u2019t be there at 26. Still, would Buffalo regard shirking a \u201cgreater need\u201d for a \u201clesser need\u201d by taking the speedy and routecraftian (yes that\u2019s a word; I deemed it so) wideout from Texas A&M as a problem?<\/p>\n

Safety Emmanuel McNeil-Warren out of Toledo may be the last remaining first-round grade of the Bills\u2019 board in a draft class that many believe doesn\u2019t have that a wealth of players worthy of first-round selections. Does Buffalo feel similarly about offensive guard Chase Bisontis, a former teammate of KC Conception?<\/p>\n

I know what the Bills\u2019 history said they would probably do; I wrote about it last week. But there are players out there who will likely be a full tier above the best defensive lineman, edge rusher, or linebacker on the board when pick 26 overall comes around late in the evening of April 23. The Bills aren\u2019t in a position to be turning down great players just because they don\u2019t play the positions of greatest need, so we should keep an eye out for anything to happen.<\/p>\n

…and that\u2019s the way the cookie crumbles. I\u2019m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive<\/a> and look for new episodes of \u201cThe Bruce Exclusive\u201d every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network \u2014 see more in my LinkTree!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last week, I wrote a piece outlining why I believed the highest likelihood of happening is for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":859640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,114647,1623,1622,2086,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-859639","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-buffalo-bills-podcasts","12":"tag-buffalo-bills-draft","13":"tag-buffalo-bills-opinion","14":"tag-buffalobills","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116365316837461815","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859639","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=859639"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859639\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/859640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859639"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859639"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859639"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}