The Buffalo Bills managed to bring in some names that could help move the needle in what has become a very crowded AFC, but there is one big black spot this team did not address in the best way that many analysts believe could come back to bite them in the rear end.
The Bills did not use any of their premium capital in the 2025 NFL Draft on wide receivers, which led Brandon Beane to go on a mini-tirade against those who wanted to add one more big-name playmaker to Josh Allen's stable. Bills fans are not alone in their dislike of Beane's strategy.
ESPN's Seth Walder gave Buffalo a B+ offseason grade, but took issue (as so many Bills fans did) with Beane's decision not to address wide receiver in the 2025 NFL Draft until he took a seventh-round flier on Kaden Prather. The financial picture isn't very rosy.
Walder notes that Buffalo is right up against the salary cap after their offseason moves, and they will be over the cap in 2026 to such a sharp degree that they will likely need to part ways with some of their more expensive veterans to level things out.
Bills ripped by ESPN for not drafting wide receivers early
The Bills' current wide receiver room is led by a thoroughly average underneath target in Khalil Shakir, an emerging young player that still has room to grow in Keon Coleman, and free agent signing Josh Palmer. Walder was not a particularly big fan of the Palmer signing.
Palmer has never amassed more than 1.9 yards per route run (he had 1.6 last season) despite playing with the high-powered Justin Herbert as his quarterback. Going to Allen should help him sustain his production, but committing to him for three years is quite the plunge for Buffalo to take.
Allen has enough star power to help the Bills overcome many of their biggest roster holes, and Beane has shown that he can put together a contending team without Jerry Rice and Andre Reed as his starting receivers, but that doesn't mean he necessarily allocated his resources to the best of his abilities.
The Bills tried and failed to fix their wideout room on the fly last year with the Amari Cooper trade, and Beane may have put this team in a situation where they will need to surrender draft capital once again in order to get some extra offensive punch.