ESPN’s Bill Barnwell released his annual ranking of NFL offensive playmaker groups…but it is important to understand what he is actually ranking before anyone starts throwing things at their screen.
This is not a ranking of the best offenses in football.
Barnwell is looking strictly at each team’s running backs, wide receivers, and tight ends. His question is basically this: If every team had the same quarterback, same offensive line, same play caller, same injury luck (or bad luck), and same setup
around them, which group of playmakers would be the best?
That matters a lot when talking about the Buffalo Bills.
Because Barnwell has the Bills ranked at No. 29 out of 32 teams. Only the Cleveland Browns, New York Giants, and Miami Dolphins finished behind Buffalo. That is a pretty rough spot for a team that still has Super Bowl expectations, but it also says a lot about how much Josh Allen changes the way we view the roster. This ranking removes Allen from the equation. It removes Joe Brady. It removes the offensive line. Once all of that is stripped away, Barnwell clearly does not love what Buffalo has around him.
He does give James Cook III credit, and rightfully so. Cook has become one of the best running backs in football. The concern with Cook is the ball security. Barnwell noted that Cook had six fumbles last season, plus another in the playoff loss to the Denver Broncos. That is not a small issue, especially for a back who touches the ball as often as Cook does.
After Cook, the questions start piling up. The Bills added DJ Moore this offseason, but Barnwell is not sold that Moore is still a true difference-maker as he gets closer to 30. Khalil Shakir has settled in as a reliable slot receiver. Dalton Kincaid made the Pro Bowl and was more efficient last season, but he still has not fully become a high-volume answer many hoped he would be, and recently health and durability concerns have become more loud. Keon Coleman remains a huge question mark, and even though it might not be fair to say with such a small dataset but Joshua Palmer may have gotten worse after joining the Bills. And Skyler Bell will remain an unknown until we see him in action.
Interestingly, Barnwell had the Bills at No. 28 before the 2025 campaign and No. 24 in 2024.
That leads to the same question Bills fans have been asking for a while now. When Allen needs someone to get open on the biggest play of the game, who is the obvious answer? That is where this ranking stings.
For comparison, the Kansas City Chiefs came in at No. 20, even after a disappointing season from their wide receivers. Rashee Rice and Xavier Worthy both come with questions, and Travis Kelce is no longer the automatic TE1 option he once was, but the addition of Kenneth Walker III gives Kansas City more explosiveness in the backfield.
The Baltimore Ravens landed at number 16 with Derrick Henry, Zay Flowers, and Mark Andrews still leading the way. Barnwell pointed out some concerns there too, especially with Henry’s age, fumbling issues, and Andrews’ decline in production, but Baltimore still sits well ahead of Buffalo.
Then there are the Cincinnati Bengals at number 3. That one is not hard to figure out. Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins give Cincinnati two receivers who can win as WR1 options. Add Chase Brown to the mix, and the Bengals have the kind of high-end skill talent Barnwell obviously appreciates.
The top five were the Detroit Lions, Los Angeles Rams, Bengals, Atlanta Falcons, and San Francisco 49ers.
San Francisco might be the most interesting or controversial team near the top. Barnwell has them at No. 5 despite Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, and Mike Evans all on the wrong side of 30, and there are real injury concerns with that group. Still, the talent is obvious.
That is really the difference.
The Bills have good players. They have useful players. They have players who fit what Buffalo wants to do. But when you compare their group to teams with true game-changing wide receivers and tight ends, the gap is still there. Bills fans will not agree with No. 29, and that is fair. It feels extremely low for a team that has remained one of the league’s most consistent offenses. But the point of Barnwell’s exercise is not to rank what Buffalo’s offense will be with Allen at quarterback. It is asking what the playmakers look like without him on the field. Have the Bills done enough to give Allen a true go-to weapon when everything tightens up? Barnwell does not seem to think so.
The Bills’ offensive playmakers get yet another season to prove that No. 29 is way too low.
