Let’s look ahead
The Buffalo Bills selected eight players in the 2022 NFL Draft, and that’s the number of drafts picks they had heading into the weekend. Looking ahead to 2023, they only have six picks on the board as of right now.
In August of 2020 (yes, that long ago), the Bills traded a conditional seventh-round selection in 2023 for LB Andre Smith. Smith was a third-year player for the Carolina Panthers after being drafted with the 2018 seventh-rounder the Bills sent to Carolina as part of the deal for WR Kelvin Benjamin.
Smith signed a two-year extension with the Bills in 2021 for near the veteran minimum. He’s appeared in 27 games over the last two seasons playing mostly special teams, and didn’t see the field on defense at all in 2021.
In all their wheeling and dealings this weekend, trading up and trading back, they didn’t acquire or use any 2023 NFL Draft picks.
Last offseason, the Bills acquired a pick in August on cutdown day by trading a player they were going to release—defensive end Darryl Johnson—for a seventh-round pick. If Buffalo wants to have a full complement of 2023 NFL Draft picks, they could pull a similar move this August.