Buffalo Bills: What Stefon Diggs can teach us about uncovering NFL draft value

Who could be the steal of this year’s draft?

Using the criteria that we noted with Diggs, we can evaluate if there are any players who might fall farther than they should, or may provide unexpected return value on a draft pick.

Looking for a player who was a five-star recruit out of high school, with high character and suppressed value due to personal issues and/or injuries that do not raise flags as recurring issues returns a short list. However, there is one player who stands out this year when evaluated in this way:

Clemson defensive tackle Bryan Bresee should be a target for the Bills at #27, and provides a clear day-two draft target if he falls out of the first round.

Bresee was a five-star recruit coming out of high school and started for Clemson as a rookie, being named the ACC Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2020 after an absolutely dominant season.

In 2021, he suffered a shoulder injury which cost him some time before tearing his ACL and missing the remainder of the season. As a junior in 2022, things got worse for him as a bad case of strep throat led to a kidney infection which caused him to lose about 45 pounds. As he was going through the ACL rehab, strep and kidney infections, his younger sister passed away after a battle with cancer.

Still, Bresee entered the NFL combine at 6’5” and 298 lbs with a Relative Athletic Score of 9.59, which is elite and has shown enough to project a bounce-back to elite performance at the NFL level.

With a need on the defensive line, and a majority of the players in their rotation either on one-year contracts, in the last year of their deal, or dealing with injury concerns the Bills could target Bresee as a high-upside player that the Bills should target in the 2023 NFL draft.