Of all the teams picking in the top 10 in the first round of tomorrow’s NFL Draft, few have been as hard to figure out as the Buffalo Bills. As a team with no true glaring holes on their roster, the Bills have a lot of flexibility as to where they might go at No. 9 overall.
Numerous people from around the league have pegged the Bills as a team that could potentially move up in the first round, possibly as high as No. 1 overall. Some see them as prime candidates to target either Jadeveon Clowney or Sammy Watkins at the top of the draft.
Others believe that the cost of moving up would be too much for the Bills to justify. Should they remain where they are in the first round, one could easily see Buffalo going after an offensive tackle like Jake Matthews or Taylor Lewan, or a big-time receiving threat like Mike Evans or Eric Ebron.
But one player who is sitting on the fringes of this discussion is LSU wideout Odell Beckham Jr. One of the big risers of the pre-draft process, Beckham Jr. has seemingly cemented his status as a worthy candidate of a mid-to-early first-round pick. He is not the finished product that Watkins is, nor is he a physical specimen like Evans. But he has decent size for the position (5-foot-11, 198 pounds) and good hands along with the big-play explosiveness you want from a No. 1 wide receiver.
Moving up for a player like Clowney would certainly cause a big splash and garner a lot of hype for the Bills. But as the experts like to remind us, this is the QBDL (Quarterback Driven League) we’re talking about, and the Bills, above all else, must focus on giving EJ Manuel all the tools he needs to make good on his status as a former first-round pick.
Beckham Jr. may not rank as highly as Watkins or Evans with the Bills’ staff. But by all accounts many teams are looking to move up for the two elite receivers in this year’s draft, and the Bills (assuming they don’t move up), may find themselves in a position where their top choice may be off the board by the ninth pick. If that happens to be the case, they could do much worse than selecting Beckham Jr.
Nick Richardson is an NFL blogger covering the Buffalo Bills for Rant Sports.com. Follow him on Twitter @NickSonofDave, “Like” him on Facebook or add him to your network on Google.
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