Buffalo Bills: 2 wide receivers to trade up for in 2023 NFL Draft

Wide Receivers the Buffalo Bills should trade up for: Zay Flowers, Boston College

A late riser, Zay Flowers was seen as a second-round pick before an electric performance at this year’s Shrine Bowl.

Flowers has good speed, runs nice routes, and plays super with excellent physicality. He’s a smart receiver who did knows how to stay open and read leverage in man coverage as well as settle down in zone coverage. Flowers stands out as a dynamic athlete when used in motion and designed touches while also being a good blocker. His acceleration is truly something to marvel at, alongside having solid long speed.

So what’s the catch? Flowers stands at only 5’9 and 180 lbs. To many teams, he may be considered too small to even think about drafting. However, his smaller stature is not necessarily a fatal wound to his stock. There’s a good amount of shorter receiver talent in the NFL right now (Hill, Waddle, Kirk, Marquise Brown). Furthermore, Flowers showed in 2021 that his size would not be a limiting factor at the next level when he torched future second-round pick Andrew Booth Jr. and the Clemson secondary.

Flowers is my pick over some more highly-regarded prospects because I love the way he plays. He plays with such intensity and physicality it feels like he truly loves the sport. Often times he will perform a Deion Sanders-Esque high step before exploding into the defender. While blocking, Flowers often will get under the pads of much larger linebackers. Every team is going to want a player who cares as much as Zay Flowers does.