The Buffalo Bills’ offense led the NFL in rushing through the 2025 season, and certainly, James Cook gets a significant portion of the praise for that accomplishment. After all, Cook led the league in rushing himself with 1,621 yards on the ground.
But like every great running back, he had a little help from his friends up front. Still, it wasn’t just the offensive linemen pulling their weight as receivers and tight ends alike got in on the action.
Jackson Hawes, a fifth-round pick out of Georgia Tech last spring, got his flowers in an unexpected way for doing his part as a blocker following his noteworthy rookie season.
Buffalo Bills TE Jackson Hawes earns top rookie honor in PFF’s 2025 grades
Pro Football Focus released its ranking of the 15 highest-graded rookies through the 2025 regular season, and Hawes came away with the top spot, earning an 85.2 grade for the season. Hawes narrowly edged out first-round tight end Colston Loveland with the Chicago Bears for the honor.
“The fifth-round pick played 335 run-blocking snaps at a team-high 70.4% rate. While Hawes struggled in gap-blocking schemes (55.8 PFF run-blocking grade), he earned the third-best PFF zone run-blocking grade (83.5) and ranked third at the position in overall PFF run-blocking grade (74.0),” Lauren Gray wrote for PFF.
The Bills knew they were getting a strong blocker in Hawes, but coming away as PFF’s highest-graded rookie is a surprise to be sure, but a welcome one. Hawes did get some extra opportunities throughout the season as Dalton Kincaid delt with a lingering knee issue that forced him to miss five games, but this honor goes to show that he capitalized on his extra reps.
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While Hawes didn’t put up volume stats as a receiver, just 16 catches for 187 yards, he made the most of them. He caught three touchdown passes and the other 13 receptions led to first downs. While he just barely made the cut, he earned PFF’s fourth-highest receiving grade at 84.1.
His season high in receptions in college was just 16 in his final season at Georgia Tech. His season-high at Yale was just 13, which he hit twice. With that in mind, the Bills are practically already getting more out of Hawes as a receiver than they expected, too.
Hawes isn’t asked to do a ton for the Bills. He played just 43% of offensive snaps and 18% of special teams snaps. But clearly, when called upon, he gets the job done. With Kincaid and Knox ahead of him on the depth chart, the Bills can breathe easy at the tight end position, knowing they have three reliable players they can count on in both phases of the offensive attack.