As the Buffalo Bills and the rest of the league begin preparations for the 2026 NFL Draft, there’s no better time to look back on last year’s class to make an assessment on how promising it’s shaping up to be.
CBS Sports recently took the liberty of grading all 32 draft classes from 2025 and gave the Bills a passing grade, earning a solid B. That was good enough to rank as the No. 14 draft class compared to the rest of the NFL.
While it’s a favorable grade, Bills Mafia knows that they need to see more out of the 2025 class moving forward.
Bills still waiting on early-round breakout performances from 2025 draft class
CBS also highlighted the Year 1 hits from each team, and the Bills had just two: DT Deone Walker and TE Jackson Hawes. That only serves to highlight how marginally disappointing the class really was in its first year, as both players were Day 3 selections.
That’s not to say that first-round pick Maxwell Hairston is trending toward bust status, but it is no doubt concerning that fans have to scan down to the fourth-round pick to find the first player who made the biggest impact.
Walker earned high praise and recognition for his efforts in his rookie season, despite playing just 47% of the defense’s snaps in 2025. Still, with 39 tackles, eight for a loss, one sack, four QB hits and pass deflections at the line, and seven QB pressures, Walker made a strong first impression. Now the hope is that with a new defensive scheme, he can still find a way to pick up where he left off in 2026.
As for Hawes, he was named Pro Football Focus’s highest-graded rookie, almost entirely for his blocking abilities. His role won’t change much, especially as long as Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox are ahead of him on the depth chart. Nonetheless, the former Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket caught 16 passes for 187 yards and three scores, which more than matched his entire receiving production at the college level.
Second and third-rounders T.J. Sanders and Landon Jackson each spent time on Injured Reserve in their rookie campaigns. Sanders played roughly 160 snaps fewer than Walker, and Jackson played in just three games and didn’t record a single mark in the stat sheet.
General manager Brandon Beane has put together stronger draft classes, with 2018 and 2022 standing much taller than the rest. Still, similar to that 2022 class, which includes James Cook, Terrel Bernard, and Christian Benford, sometimes it takes some time to see a class begin to make its impact.
Nonetheless, Bills Mafia is hoping for a class that makes a stronger and more immediate impact in 2026, especially if the team heads into Round 1 with the wide receiver or edge rusher positions still standing out as the team’s biggest needs. Luckily, it’s a solid class in both regards.