A position of emphasis for the Buffalo Bills at the 2026 NFL Combine is the wide receiver position. The Bills fielded one of the worst receiving corps in the NFL in 2025 and will need to address it with some big additions in the coming months.
Of course, new head coach Joe Brady knows elite wide receiver play. He helped put Justin Jefferson and Ja’Marr Chase on the fast track to becoming elite NFL receivers while coaching them at LSU. While he may not have played the biggest role in their development overall, he showed in that historic 2019 season that he knows how to utilize such elite talent.
Now the task is finding talent that can offer Josh Allen the same level of comfort down the field that Jefferson and Chase gave Joe Burrow during that championship run. That starts at the Combine, where Brady detailed what he’s looking for at the position in Indianapolis this week.
Bills HC Joe Brady using Combine to identify receivers who fit both scheme and culture
“The biggest thing about wide receiver play is that no two receivers are the exact same, right? So, I think understanding their type of skillsets and seeing what those kind of look [like] in specific drills, right? There’s some guys that are naturally quicker, well, I hope to see that quickness in some of the drills, and some guys are straight-line speed, they might struggle in a shuttle drill or whatnot,“ Brady said at his Combine press conference on Tuesday.
“But to me, I like the Combine to really understand their personality, what makes them tick. I just want football players that love ball, right? Try to get an opportunity to just try and connect with them. Understand that, look, you can test really well, and I hope those guys do that, but, you know, you are what you put on tape as well, and I’m going to take that way more into consideration.”
Those are the things Bills Mafia likes to hear, but at the same time, Keon Coleman is the lone receiver currently on the 2026 roster who was drafted by Brandon Beane with Joe Brady in the building. His immaturity-based benchings last season don’t exactly match up with the type of mentality Brady said he likes to pursue.
Obviously, Brady and the Bills have publicly backed Coleman, urging him to get back on track in Year 3 to be a part of the solutions out wide instead of being one of the big problem spots.
Nonetheless, it remains to be seen whether Coleman will rise to that challenge, and in the meantime, Brady and the Bills need to find a receiver in this draft who won’t present the same headaches while also stepping into an immediate role to contribute right away.
To that end, the intangibles that Brady is looking for are the aspects that aren’t so obvious to analysts and reporters. The meetings and interviews that take place in Indianapolis and the weeks between until the draft will clearly play a significant role in helping the Bills decide between their many options at the position.
Brady mentioned later in the press conference that when he’s watching drills, he’s also looking for the players with positive body language, who are involved with the other prospects during the drills, while also taking note of which players are off to themselves or scrolling their phone between events. While Bills Mafia can’t sit in on the interview process to get a better idea of who Buffalo will target, they can, at the very least, do their own scouting while watching the Combine themselves.