Before you know it, we will be watching the Buffalo Bills take the field in Week 1 against whoever the NFL decides to pair them up against, which we will find out on Wednesday, May 14th at 8PM EST. The Bills are one of the few teams in the league that are true championship contenders, but they still need to reach a Super Bowl. They’ve been knocked out of the AFC championship game twice this decade and went three consecutive years of losing in the divisional round.
The Bills have too much talent to not reach the Super Bowl in the Josh Allen-era, but it’s a matter of having all of the pieces click together at the same time. Each year, the Bills are tasked to go up against some of the best teams across the league, because the Bills are in that class. Then there are opponents that they face that may not be as talented as them, but they may have had the chance to draft a potential superstar early on in the NFL Draft.
Buffalo will be seeing four specific first-round rookies who could be a difference-maker against them either in 2025, or for the future. Two of them are in the AFC East so the Bills will be seeing them twice a year for the forseeable future.
Top 4 first-round rookies Bills will be going up against in 2025
S Malaki Starks - Baltimore Ravens
The Ravens brought in a draft class that no one is talking about and they should be. It started off with them drafting safety Malaki Starks out of Georgia. The fact that Starks fell right into the lap of the Ravens is just not fair. Pairing him with Kyle Hamilton automatically gives Baltimore the best young safety duo in the league.
Starks is a hard-hitting safety, much like Hamilton, but can play fantastic pass-coverage as well. The Bills always seem to struggle against the Ravens, whether they come out winning or not but now their game against Baltimore just got more complicated with the addition of Starks.
OL Will Campbell - New England Patriots
The first player to join the AFC East was LSU offensive lineman Will Campbell who was drafted 4th overall by the New England Patriots. Last season, we saw that Drake Maye can become a franchise quarterback when he almost nothing around him. This offseason has been about building up around him on both sides of the ball, and the Patriots made the right choice to draft protection for Maye.
Campbell is the best offensive lineman from this draft class and that should scare Bills fans. He doesn’t give up a ton of pressure and he’s already becoming a Pats fan-favorite with his comments about how he will do whatever it takes to protect Maye.
However, Campbell will be battle tested against the Bills in 2025 as he will be seeing the presence of Greg Rousseau and Joey Bosa.
DE James Pearce Jr. - Atlanta Falcons
One of the biggest shocks of the first round of the draft was the Atlanta Falcons trading back in the first round, sending a haul of picks including a 2026 first roudner to the Los Angeles Rams to acquire Tennessee edge rusher James Pearce Jr.
The Falcons must feel very confident in Pearce to be an immediate impactful player right out of the gate to give up the picks they did. Pearce is a top-five talent in this draft class, but there were questions about his character early on which is what made him slide. While the Bills don’t need to face the Falcons every year, they will in 2025 and Pearce could be a player to keep an eye on.
DL Kenneth Grant - Miami Dolphins
I’ll admit it, I was hoping that the Bills were going to somehow acquire defensive tackle Kenneth Grant out of Michigan. However, not only did he go a lot earlier than we all thought, but he landed with the Miami Dolphins, the team that thinks that they can take down the Bills but haven’t shown it.
The Dolphins got great value with the acquisition of Grant to plug into the middle of the defensive line and he could cause some problems for the Bills’ offensive line in 2025 and beyond.