Does the Buffalo Bills’ time commitment in this year’s prospects suggest anything about their draft desires?
I’ve been doing this long enough where I think I can cut to the chase with the premise. Despite vast amounts of wealth, all humans are equal when it comes to the resource of time. Not even Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark are rich enough to get more of that. Wait. Scratch that last one. Though his time travel did come with complications.
Anyway, teams like the Buffalo Bills only have so much time to allocate meeting with possible draft picks. With little time to waste, perhaps the time spent can give us a clue about where they’re leaning.
By School
The reason for looking at trends by school is that there could be some merit to talking to a player’s teammates or competitors. Generally speaking, it’s been tough to glean much from the data on this so let’s give some quick notes on it for 2024.
Of the 45 players known to have met with the Bills at least once, there were 35 different schools represented. Only seven schools had more than one player who met with Buffalo. Most of those were limited to two players. Only Florida State and Texas had more than two players represented. Four from Florida State and three from Texas. Do I have any thoughts on this?
It’s still tough to take much from this. The repeat visits with both schools could simply be due to their being successful programs with plenty of talent to look at. The four visits with Florida State players, for instance, covered three different positions (two for Texas).
Some quick facts:
- Buffalo met with two receivers from each school. Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson from Florida; and Xavier Worthy and Adonai Mitchell from Texas.
- Buffalo met with Worthy and Coleman twice each with NFL Scouting Combine and top-30 visits.
- All other visits aside from those and Trey Benson (RB from Florida State) were combine visits. Benson was also a top-30 visit.
By Position
This is quite straightforward — and remember my personal draft philosophy is BPFU. That stands for “Best Player For Us.” Draft picks have to fit the team. An incredible player who won’t work on your team isn’t actually incredible for you. Meeting players can help determine who will and won’t be a fit. Repeat visits should indicate that Buffalo saw something they liked. Why waste time on a player who was unimpressive the first time around?
Anyway, here’s a chart.
This chart shows the number of players Buffalo has met with per position. I don’t think anyone is shocked that wide receiver tops the list, but it’s pretty glaring with the visual. Want it to be more glaring? Let’s look at the same chart, but count the total number of visits by position, not just unique players.
Of course the main point is that wide receivers accounted for 17 of the total 58 meetings. Broken down as such, the gap between this position and all others widens significantly. Also of intrigue though is that defensive tackles by player was the second-most frequent position. When factoring in multiple meetings per player though, cornerbacks are the second-most frequent position. More on that in a minute.
Predictions
Quite obviously the analytics-based prediction has to be a wide receiver. Anything else would be disingenuous this year and destroy any semblance of credibility as an exercise. The question then becomes: “Which one?”
I was a bit dismissive above about targeted schools, which was a bit of a swerve. We may actually have some good data this year. The most-targeted school was Florida State with four players meeting with Buffalo, including two receivers. To refresh our memories, those receivers are Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson.
Buffalo met with Coleman twice, including a top-30 visit. Wilson was a combine visit only. Buffalo did have a top-30 visit as noted with their teammate, running back Trey Benson. Benson could be a legitimate target for Buffalo as well, but perhaps there was a bit of “What can you tell me about your teammate?” going on. For that matter, it’s possible Buffalo met with Wilson for similar reasons.
I think it’s obvious by now who I think the analytics model is picking. To solidify the Keon Coleman hypothesis, consider the cornerback information I told you to wait a minute for and I’m about to reveal. Of the five corners known to have met with Buffalo, three played for either Georgia or Pittsburgh. Both schools competed against Florida State in 2023. The corners Buffalo met with did not play against Texas in 2023, in case you were wondering.
These picks can’t occur completely in isolation and projections on Coleman vary. A trade-up scenario is never out of the question for general manager Brandon Beane. Neither is “hold tight and hope he’s there.” All data signs point toward Keon Coleman as the primary target.
Bonus predictions:
- I think Buffalo sees something they really like with Marlon “M.J.” Devonshire Jr., meeting with the corner four times. There’s more here than just “What do you know about Keon Coleman?” going on. Devonshire’s projection seems to have quite a bit of volatility, but Buffalo seems to be a likely landing spot.
- There’s some emphasis on defensive backs in general, with corners and safeties looming pretty large on the charts. That said, it’s interesting to see safeties as a lower priority than corners on paper. Admittedly both seem to be good directions given the offseason losses.
- Aside from skill positions, the offensive side of the ball isn’t remotely emphasized. I wouldn’t be surprised if the 2024 rookie class looks something like: WR (x2), RB, CB, and a few defensive linemen.
- This isn’t a hedge but a recognition of reality. Just because there’s a player you think you need to have, it doesn’t mean they’ll be available. Buffalo has plenty of homework completed on wide receivers with first round-grades. The official prediction from the analytics model has to be Coleman, but you can bet there’s a Plan B, C, etc.