In recent years, fans of the Buffalo Bills have grown accustomed to waiting during the NFL Draft. As one of the league’s most successful regular-season franchises, that leaves Buffalo idle into the late evening hours when the draft unfolds each April.
This year, the Bills are slated to pick at 26th overall, which will put them somewhere in the neighborhood of 11:28 p.m. EDT. That will remain true if each team before them takes the maximum allowed time of eight minutes to hand in their selection card.
There’s also the very real possibility that Brandon Beane, the team’s newly appointed president of football operations and also general manager, finds his way to trading out of the 26th overall pick. Those expecting a trade up may want to reconsider the idea. Those who acutely analyze the draft believe the smartest move for Buffalo is to trade back, perhaps even out of the first round entirely.
In this year’s SB Nation NFL Mock Draft, the trade-back scenario is exactly what played out, with the Houston Texans asking for pick 26, and offering the top pick in Round 4 (141 overall) for the Bills to slide back just two spots. With that 28th pick, Buffalo Rumblings selected linebacker C.J. Allen.
Regardless of when the Bills actually make their pick, fans should prepare for another long night of waiting out first-round draft coverage.
