Bills find themselves in best case scenario in recent mock draft
Picking 28th in the NFL Draft like the Buffalo Bills are set to do later this year is never easy. While it's still a first-round pick, the high-end first-round-graded prospects are usually off the board as teams balance grabbing the best player available on their board and tending to team needs. But a recent scenario […]
Picking 28th in the NFL Draft like the Buffalo Bills are set to do later this year is never easy.
While it's still a first-round pick, the high-end first-round-graded prospects are usually off the board as teams balance grabbing the best player available on their board and tending to team needs.
But a recent scenario pictured by Pro Football Focus analyst Marcus Mosher is truly an ideal one as Buffalo gets one of the top prospects available and covers one of their biggest needs.
In his latest mock draft, the Bills grab a star linebacker out of Clemson, Trenton Simpson. Here's Mosher's analysis:
"Tremaine Edmunds is a pending free agent and the Bills appear ready to move on. Simpson is smaller than Edmunds, but he does have great sideline-to-sideline speed. He's also shown the ability to play in space and cover, which Buffalo needs in the middle of its defense."
Not only would the Bills be filling a big need with this pick but they'd be getting a hybrid player capable of shining in coverage, an area where Edmunds has struggled for most of his career before 2022.
Simpson did a little bit of everything as a Tiger, especially before former DC Brent Venables departed for Oklahoma's head coaching job.
He used the player mocked by the Bills as a pass rusher and a coverage player from various positions, even playing in the slot at times.
Perhaps the one knock on a pick like this would be positional value in taking an off-ball linebacker in the first round. But the fact that Simpson is a positionless defender shoots down that narrative.
Here's Michael Renner's analysis from PFFon the prospect:
"Simpson is the kind of fluid athlete with the range that everyone is looking for at linebacker. He even played the slot role in Clemson’s defense back in 2021. He’s only allowed 406 yards in his career on 612 coverage snaps."
Featured image via Gary Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports
