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A week ago, the Buffalo Bills were very active.
They made three trades during the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft and ended up not actually making a pick.
They dealt their way all the way out of the first round, accumulating extra draft capital in the process.
In a new article on Thursday, ESPN's Jeremy Fowler broke down how this worked.
"The Bills' three trade-backs from No. 26 to outside of Round 1 were emblematic of a weaker draft as well as modernized thinking," Fowler writes. "More teams are leaning into the concept of taking more swings and prioritizing the number of picks they make. Many teams we spoke to about the draft considered the late first round similar to the early second round as far as talent. The drop-off was minimal, if nonexistent."
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The Bills felt good about the added haul they got.
"And as one team source acknowledged, Buffalo felt 'a few bullets short' this year because of the D.J. Moore trade, which cost the team a second-round pick," Fowler writes. "In the end, Buffalo turned picks 26, 91 and 165 into 35, 66, 101, 125 and 167."
The reality of any draft is that it can't really be judged until years down the road, when it becomes clear whether a team actually picked the correct players.
But for the Bills, their approach was sound. They added more picks without dropping too far down at any point. That gave them chances at a bigger draft class, and sometimes those extra picks will be the ones that hit.
Fowler's new report isn't inherently unexpected. It's just affirmation that the Bills did things in a solid way. Now, they simply have to hope those picks work out.
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