When Josh Allen dropped back to pass and scanned the field during his rookie season, his receiving options were such a ragtag group that they could have doubled as Shane Falco’s weapons in The Replacements.
Zay Jones, Robert Foster and Kelvin Benjamin were the Buffalo Bills’ most targeted receivers in 2018, and running back LeSean McCoy had the second-most receptions on the team with 34. Buffalo’s top-five receivers and tight ends were all under 30 at the time, and not only is Jones the only player still in the NFL, but he was the only one who played beyond 2020.
But over the next three offseasons, the Bills invested $83.353 million in free-agent receivers and tight ends, while using five more draft picks, including a 2020 first-rounder for Stefon Diggs. By 2022, however, acquisitions like Cole Beasley, John Brown and Emmanuel Sanders were gone.
In 2022 and 2023, those players were replaced by Jamison Crowder, Deonte Harty and Trent Sherfield for a combined $7.875 million and none of them lasted more than a year. It got so dire that Beasley and Brown were brought back at the end of 2022.
The Bills paid more than that sum this month when they signed Curtis Samuel to a three-year, $24 million deal in an attempt to restore a near-empty cupboard for Allen. Now the question becomes whether or not Buffalo is done adding weapons.
“I think we’re a work in progress roster wise when you look at it,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said Monday at the NFL owners meetings. “… We’re not content with being where we are and you’ve constantly got to reinvent yourself, evolve both schematically and roster-wise, trying to stay ahead of it. When people want you to zig, you zag and I think that’s the importance of evolving in this situation.”
The Bills have been dinged in recent years for not using top draft assets for receivers. They have spent a first-round pick (Dalton Kincaid in 2023) and a third-round pick (Dawson Knox in 2019), but the only pick higher than a fourth rounder used on a receiver was the No. 1 pick used to trade for Diggs.
Some of that is because Buffalo tried to develop from within. Isaiah McKenzie didn’t pan out as a full-time slot receiver, while Gabe Davis was adequate but never achieved the No. 2 production of Beasley or Brown.
As a result, Allen has averaged more than 10 fewer passing yards per game and has thrown nine fewer touchdowns over the last two seasons than he did from 2020-2021.
But, as the Bills have shown, the free agency route isn’t sustainable long-term. General manager Brandon Beane said Sunday the Bills are in the single digits in salary cap space, with another $6 million coming June 1 with the release of cornerback Tre’Davious White.
Logic seems to lead toward the Bills adding a receiver early in the draft this year, but they also have a few other holes to shore up next year and in the future.
“I feel like we’re in a pretty good spot,” Beane said. “Do we have some holes? Yes. But I don’t feel like we’ve got something gaping where we’ve got to get Round 1 or Round 2, per se. And we’ll continue — free agency is not over. We’re still trying to fill some odds and ends. Obviously, we’ve used a good portion of what we created cap-wise, so I wouldn’t expect anything big.”
Teams rarely hit it big on receivers during free agency, so any major additions would come in the draft or via trade. None of the top-20 receiving leaders last season were acquired in free agency and 14 were drafted by their current team.
The Bills clearly have big plans for Samuel, but not as a traditional No. 2 receiver, and he likely is not Diggs’ heir as the No. 1 option as a 27-year-old who has never had a 1,000-yard season. Beane views Samuel as a player who can line up at running back, receiver and a gadget guy — something they tried and failed with McKenzie, Harty and Nyheim Hines. But at the owners meetings and the NFL scouting combine, Beane has reiterated a desire to have as many receivers who can line up in different spots as possible.
“You gotta be smart, and you want to be versatile. You start there,” Beane said. “They don’t all have to be, but that’s how we’re going to value them — the more you can do … the more ways that we can line you up in different spots, whether you’re inside or outside. Are you smart enough to play more than one spot? Those are high value things, that in this offense, that we think are very important.”