How about cornerback for the Buffalo Bills at the trade deadline?
If so, would Tariq Woolen move the needle? He’s the league’s largest outside cornerback at just over 6’4” and 208 pounds who signed a one-year deal in March with the now 2-4 Eagles. He’s most known for his six-interception rookie campaign, and he’s snagged six since then in the regular season.
This article is the third in the trade-candidate series I plan to sprinkle onto the site until the actual trade deadline until November 10, which
is 18 days from now, and lands after Week 9.
Past installments in this series:
Derwin James, Brian Thomas Jr. Jessie Bates
Age: 27
Woolen entered the NFL out of the University of Texas San Antonio in 2022 after one of the craziest combines we’d ever seen at the cornerback position. At his gargantuan size, Woolen ran 4.26 with a 42-inch vertical.
The Seahawks drafted him in the fifth round that year. After the spectacular rookie campaign, Woolen’s ball production cooled, yet he’s established himself as one of the better young physical (and speedy) outside cornerbacks in the NFL.
He was integral on Seattle’s Super Bowl winning defense in 2025, playing 72.8% of the snaps and logging 41 tackles, 12 pass breakups, and a pick during the regular season. In the playoffs, Woolen registered four more pass breakups with eight total tackles.
2026 snap splits
Wide corner: 85.6%
Box: 12.4%
On the snap-split front, Woolen has a grand total of seven total snaps in the box, on the defensive line, and at free safety. For all intents and purposes, he’s about as full-time of an outside corner as it gets in today’s NFL.
How he’d fit with Bills
Given his size, explosiveness, experience, and pass-breakup radius (arm length in the 97th percentile), Woolen is a fun fit on just about every team. The Seahawks had the NFL’s fifth-highest zone coverage rate in 2025 and had a Top 10 zone-coverage percentage in three of Woolen’s four seasons with the club. The Eagles are almost right smack dab in the middle of zone-coverage rate (15th) in these first six games.
Essentially, Woolen is best in an off-man, zone-coverage style defense, and while Jim Leonhard was known for a man-coverage philosophy, the Bills have the ninth-lowest man-coverage rate entering their bye week.
Woolen has had double-digit pass breakups in each of his first four seasons in the NFL, and that six-pick rookie year of 2022
This year in Philadelphia, he’s played in all six games and has defended four passes to go along with 24 tackles. On 30 targets in his coverage area, Woolen has allowed 16 catches for 206 yards with three touchdowns. He’s surrendered a completion rate over 59% on targets in his coverage area in just one season to date in the NFL.
In short, Woolen would fit schematically — if the Bills continue their zone-heavy ways — I just don’t know if there’s room for him to come in and start at outside corner.
Financial obligation for Bills to trade for him
2026 salary: $1.26M
If the Bills trade for Woolen after Week 9, they’d be on the hook for $630k in prorated 2026 base salary. He’s an impending free agent after this season, which simultaneously creates plenty of flexibility for the Bills if he were to be in their future plans and lowers his asking price.
Projected cost to acquire
Using Syndicate32.com’s trade machine, the projected cost to trade for Woolen is an early Round 4 pick in 2027.
That feels just right for a player of Woolen’s caliber, at his age, and with his contract situation. He’s demonstrated big-play ability in his past but hasn’t been able to recreate the magic from his rookie season in 2022.
Should the Bills trade for Tariq Woolen?
If the Bills feel they desperately need to add an outside cornerback to the defense, Woolen should be at or near the top of their trade-candidate list at that position.
With Christian Benford, Davison Igbinosun, and, yes, even Max Hairston (I’d be silly to quit on him at this juncture), I don’t necessarily see how swinging a deal for a starting-caliber outside cornerback would be something the Bills brass would believe is a necessity right now.
Yet, given his expiring contract, the fact he should be in the prime of his NFL career, and what should be a relatively low acquisition cost, I could be talked into Woolen as a trade-deadline target simply because it’d give the Bills more talent in the secondary. His 70-plus games of NFL experience is very enticing too, especially relative to the youth in Buffalo’s cornerback room right now.
If the Bills can pry Woolen away from Howie Roseman and the Eagles for a fourth or fifth-round pick, I’d view the towering, incredibly fast and lengthy cornerback as a fine addition to Buffalo.
If he’s brought in, the Bills would have plus depth in their outside cornerback room.
