There is no question that the decision to select Josh Allen in the 2018 NFL Draft was a franchise-altering move for the Buffalo Bills. They entered the draft that year with the 21st and 22nd pick in the first round but general manager Brandon Beane knew he had to move up if he wanted to select a quarterback.
It took two trades to get into position to select Allen with the first being a move with the Cincinnati Bengals that sent Cordy Glenn and the 21st overall pick to the Bengals for the 12th overall pick.
Unfortunately, it still had them too far back to select Josh Allen and on draft night, Beane made another move that sent the 12th overall pick along with two second round picks (53rd and 56th overall) for the seventh overall pick and the 255th overall pick.
Based on Josh Allen’s career to this point, the trades to move up to select the franchise quarterback certainly look like great deals. The Bills have now gone to the playoffs in consecutive seasons and went as far as the AFC Championship Game this past year.
The NFL draft has five QBs projected to go in the top 10 👀@AdamSchefter looks at what goes into teams looking to trade up, especially with highly coveted QBs available. pic.twitter.com/oRTcv4zOOI
— NFL on ESPN (@ESPNNFL) April 25, 2021
However, recently ESPN took a closer look at trades in the first round and what trading up for a quarterback entails. They looked at 25 first round trade ups for a quarterback during the common era and concluded that the team trading up overpaid every time, which includes the Bills move to select Josh Allen.
There is no question that teams are fine with overpaying when the quarterback works out and the Bills have been on both sides of this. Based on ESPN’s analytics, they overpaid for Josh Allen but this also means that the Kansas City Chiefs overpaid when they traded up with the Bills for Patrick Mahomes during the 2017 NFL Draft.
These are deals that worked out for both teams and even if they overpaid, there is no question they would make that move again with what they know. The difference with the Buffalo Bills deal, compared to some other trades, and why in my opinion they didn’t overpay was that they didn’t mortgage their future.
In that clip, Brian Burke of ESPN talks about how much teams undervalue future picks and they showed graphics of trades like the ones for Sam Darnold, Robert Griffin III, Carson Wentz and Jared Goff where the team was trading future first round picks to move up.
The Buffalo Bills didn’t have to due that in either of their trades and it certainly helped them to build around their franchise quarterback. If the Bills ended up trading their first round pick in the following year, they would have traded away the ninth overall pick.
Whether the Buffalo Bills paid too much to select Josh Allen is debatable, but in a quarterback driven league there is certainly a premium to be in position to draft these top talents each year. The fact that the Bills didn’t trade future picks to make that move is a major reason why I don’t believe they overpaid and ultimately was the right move.