After general manager Brandon Beane decided to deal star wide receiver Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans for a 2025 second-round draft choice, the Buffalo Bills have lost another long-standing cornerstone. It’s a new day at One Bills Drive. Naturally, the organization’s choice could not have been made lightly, given that the franchise was already heavily associated with selecting a wide receiver with a priority pick in the 2024 NFL Draft.
The Bills parted ways with Diggs, another elderly veteran who turned thirty this past season, and therefore created a big vacuum at receiver on the roster.
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Although Beane hasn’t had to enter drafts with many gaps in it in a while, this will undoubtedly be a new test for him and need excellent performance from the draft selections he selects.
The 2024 draft class is regarded as one of the strongest in recent memory in terms of depth and elite quality, so there won’t be a shortage of possibilities. The Bills will get a shot at the very most, but they won’t get to choose from all of them.
Imagine an impatient Brandon Beane, whose top receiver right now is either Curtis Samuel, who has never really been anything more than a reliable number three in an offense as a powerful short-area threat with gadget skills —or Khalil Shakir, who has 49 receptions in his two years of NFL action despite being a rising prospect.
Beane enjoys trading up for his partner. Many drafts have seen him lock in a guy that he perceives as a “faller” that they must seize. The organization traded up two spots to secure the first tight end off the board only last year in the first round with Dalton Kincaid.
Barring an unexpected, crazy trade into the top five for one of the outstanding three alternatives (Marvin Harrison Jr., Malik Nabers, and Rome Odunze), there is one player who makes sense as a target.
The next potential, on whom we will concentrate today, is positioned a tier below the top three.
The athlete in question is unlikely to be selected by the Bills with the 28th overall pick. Thus, based on reasonable assumptions, we can say that the Bills package one of their own or the just acquired 2025 second- and third-round selections in order to trade up to the No. 14 pick with the New Orleans Saints.
The Buffalo Bills choose in the 14th round of the 2024 NFL Draft…
LSU’s Brian Thomas Jr., WR
Malik Nabers, the presumed top-five pick’s running mate, isn’t too bad in his own right. Thomas Jr.
Boasts among the highest ceilings in this class and offers the Bills an extremely intriguing combination of height, weight, and speed. With nearly 17 yards per grab in 2023 and 17 touchdowns, which led the FBS, he is a big-play machine.
The absence of the big play was one of the issues facing the Bills offense in 2023. Although Stefon Diggs was once regarded as one of the NFL’s top deep-ball receivers, he has been lacking both the relationship with standout quarterback Josh Allen and the tendency for no receiver in the room to uncover vertically. Thomas doesn’t care about that; he made a livelihood off of it last year by consistently blowing SEC corners.
When necessary, Thomas can be a ball winner at the catch point and has perfected the art of vertical separation. In the short and intermediate sectors, he has room to grow and improve his route running; in the intermediate sections, he is exciting. Because of his length, he is not a natural route runner, so a team that decides to use that first-round choice on him must think it can get better. He isn’t prepared for the person he will become in two years. But for that reason, rather than placing in the top 10 like his teammate, he can fall into this teenage range. With Shakir and Samuel providing variety, there is a lot of flexibility in where he can line up across the formation, matching the talent of the team right now. However, Thomas is different from other names since he can align himself at the X location.
