The NFL Draft kicks off tonight live from Green Bay, Wisconsin and the Buffalo Bills will be looking to add young talent to help elevate the Bills from Super Bowl contenders to Super Bowl champions. The draft brings lots of shocks and questionable moves from various teams.
Every year, there are a handful of moves that seem ridiculous that actually turn out to be the right pick. Vice versa, we have seen star prospects land somewhere just to be come a bust later on. Even though the draft gives teams a good idea of who the prospects are, nothing matters until they get onto the field in September.
The Bills have had their fair share of shocking NFL Draft moments, but we don’t always realize how shocking it was until after the fact. For example, in 2017, they traded the No. 10 overall pick to the Kansas City Chiefs who drafted Patrick Mahomes, the quarterback the Bills cannot beat in the playoffs.
Then in 2020, as part of the Stefon Diggs-to-Buffalo trade, the Bills sent the Vikings the 22nd overall pick who used that pick on wideout Justin Jefferson. Think about it, we could have been living in a world where Mahomes and Jefferson would be in Buffalo…
The good news for the Bills is that they have some luck in the draft, ranging from the first round to the very last round. Matt Velazquez from Bleacher Report recently created a “20 most shocking moments in NFL Draft history” list and the Bills are featured not once, but twice. One pick worked out in their favor, and the other one, well not as successful.
Bills' two shocking moments in NFL history per B/R
1.) Bills drafting RB Willis McGahee in 2003 in 1st round
Heading into the NFL Draft in 2003, running back Willis McGahee was coming off a phenomenal season at the University of Miami where he rushed for 1,753 yards and 28 (yes, 28!) touchdowns. He also had 355 yards through the air.
However, McGahee suffered a major knee injury just months before the draft which looked like it would hurt his draft stock as there was a chance that he would not be able to play in the 2003 season. Despite the risk, the Bills opted to draft McGahee 23rd overall, while knowing that there was a chance that McGahee wouldn’t play until the following season.
Even though McGahee missed the 2003 season, he would come into the 2004 season right where he left off in college, rushing for 1,128 yards and 13 touchdowns for the Bills. In his tenure for the Bills, McGahee averaged over 1,100+ rushing yards in three seasons but his time with Buffalo was very short.
McGahee wasn’t exactly a fan favorite at the end of his time in Buffalo and instead of the Bills finding a way to keep him for the future, the Bills traded McGahee to the Baltimore Ravens and his that’s where his career started to slowly go downhill compared to what he was doing in Buffalo early on.
Buffalo took a chance on McGahee early in the first round and while the production was there, only having three seasons with him proved to be a waste of a pick.
2.) Bills trade-up journey for QB Josh Allen in 2018
He is the most beloved athlete in Buffalo and is the current MVP of the league from last season. Looking back on it, the Bills got extremely lucky to get their franchise quarterback No. 7 overall back in 2018. It wasn’t just a simple setup for Buffalo, as they had to make multiple trades to move up in the draft to acquire him.
At one point leading up to the draft process, the Bills originally had back-to-back picks (No. 21 and No. 22) going into the 2018 draft and part of their journey was trading the 21st overall pick, as well as offensive tackle Cordy Glenn to the Cincinnati Bengals in exchange for the 12th pick.
Buffalo would then trade the 12th pick along with other draft capital to Tampa Bay, to move up No. 7 overall to draft Josh Allen.
Allen was a huge boom-or-bust prospect coming out of Wyoming and the Bills took a chance on him in the top ten. It’s safe to say that Buffalo had the steal of the draft with Allen seeing as how he has performed up to this point in his career and has the Bills as a Super Bowl contender year-in and year-out.
Heading into 2025 NFL Draft
We could very well witness a move in this weekend’s draft where we look back a year or five years from now and say that a move that the Bills did, or didn’t make, ultimately set the Bills up for either major success or failure.
The NFL Draft kicks off tonight live from Green Bay, Wisconsin at 8PM EST and will go through Saturday, April 26th.