The Buffalo Bills' 2026 NFL Draft haul led to mixed reviews. Some thought that the Bills made some great selections and solid trades to maneuver the board and get plenty of future contributors. Others claim that they missed their biggest holes, but that's what free agency is supposedly for. There are players on the market to plug the Bills' holes, but first we need to assess what those needs are. Where do the potentially fatal flaws lie?
The interesting thing about the Bills 2026 draft is that they did technically address all their needs- With 10 selections they drew from 9 different position groups. The only spots on the roster which didn't see an addition were TE, K, LS, and QB. No one can argue that those four spots were major positions of need for the team, so they must have answered their questions; Surely?
For that to be the case, the Buffalo Bills would have the perfect roster- They do not, ergo, all is not well.
Biggest positions of need Bills must still look to fulfill
3) Linebacker
From a sheer personnel standpoint, Buffalo needs more help at linebacker. Matt Milano and Shaq Thompson are both still on the market, but they're also very much not on the Bills. Both players were significant contributors in 2025. Kaleb Elarms-Orr is not two men, nor is he capable of playing both linebacker positions. He's a good choice in the fourth round, but he is alone.
Elarms-Orr isn't discredited by this, it's simply the truth. Kaleb is a fine LB prospect who could be impactful this year, but he doesn't fill two spots. With the expectation that Dorian Williams and Joe Andreessen step up this season, there would have been reason to double-dip at linebacker in the draft.
2) Wide Receiver
If there was reason to double-dip at linebacker, there was double reason to dip at wide receiver. The Bills are in a financial hole, largely due to their issue finding WR talent in free agency. It's a premium position, commanding greater and greater resources season-over-season. It's been the bane of the Bills during the Josh Allen era, and it remains so.
In a decent draft class, the Bills could have selected countless WRs, keeping costs down for future seasons and allowing them to gamble on young, cheap talent instead of spending top dollar ineffectively ad infinitum. The Bills' issue is less that they don't have enough talent, but that they are constantly overpaying for what they get.
Certainly, they could do better than giving Keon Coleman significant snaps, as is currently the plan, but the bigger issue is the money. This time next season, if they missed on D.J. Moore and go back to the most expensive drawing board on earth, the team will regret not having a cheap WR group to build off. They have cost themselves elite talent like Maxx Crosby on the market, and miss their chance at incoming top FAs.
1) Guard
The biggest hole on the Bills roster was glaring from Day 1. Padding on 7th-round G Ar'Maj Reed-Adams is certainly a method, but not a sincere one.
The team enters the final season of standout starter O'Cyrus Torrence's contract with no future in sight. Buffalo brought back Alec Anderson to replace market-setting guard David Edwards - a notable downgrade. Neither player is going to be on the roster next season, as the team cannot afford market value. Behind them, there are no players but Reed-Adams himself retained at guard. Not a single one.
If the Buffalo Bills were interested in competing beyond the 2026 NFL season, they would have jumped on this class of guards. They didn't just need long-term replacements, they also needed an improvement on Alec Anderson as a stop-gap. The 2027 offseason will be riddled with issues, but the costly guard situation will be the top story.
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