Bills trade-down logic, targets in Round 1 of 2026 NFL Draft

ARLINGTON, TX - APRIL 26: A video board displays the text "THE PICK IS IN" for the Buffalo Bills during the first round of the 2018 NFL Draft at AT&T Stadium on April 26, 2018 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images) | Getty Images

The Buffalo Bills are not stocked with draft capital this April. Sharp Football Analysis ranked Buffalo 27th in the league in total draft capital, with their seven picks totaling less value than only the Indianapolis Colts, Seattle Seahawks, Green Bay Packers, Atlanta Falcons, and Denver Broncos.

Each one of the teams at or beneath the Bills’ mark has some recent player addition to show for their lack of draft capital: the Colts have cornerback Sauce Gardner; the Packers have pass rusher Micah Parsons; the Broncos have wide receiver Jaylen Waddle; the Seahawks have Rashid Shaheed (in addition to simply being the last pick in every round by nature of being the defending Super Bowl champions, a surely acceptable reason to have your draft capital valued lower than other teams). The Bills have wide receiver D.J. Moore, acquired in a trade with the Chicago Bears last month.

Only the Falcons, whose front office used their 2026 first-round pick to move up during the 2025 draft to take pass rusher James Pearce out of Tennessee, are likely feeling bad currently about their placement on the list. Pearce isn’t currently attending workouts with the team following a February arrest after an altercation with his ex-girlfriend that resulted in charges of felony aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, felony fleeing and eluding police, felony resisting an officer with violence, and misdemeanor stalking. He may end up serving time in prison (the trial is scheduled to begin on May 4th, 2026).

But whether a team is thrilled with their perceived net-asset gain associated with moving draft picks for players, there’s no doubt that in a limited resource environment that is the NFL salary cap, the acquired veteran player or players are always more expensive (either now or in the near future) than the players the team would have selected with the spent draft capital. And so, teams like the Bills may be looking to trade down in the 2025 NFL Draft in order to re-balance the scales when it comes to more affordable, younger players.

There are always situations and players a team isn’t willing to trade away from, especially in the first round. Almost no strategy that includes potentially trading back will stand against a player at a position of need who is sticking out a full tier or two above anyone else on the board when that team’s pick comes around. Certainly, that situation applies for Buffalo in this draft.

If wide receiver KC Concepcion is sitting there at 26 overall, does it matter if the Bills have a call that could net them positive value by moving back? Maybe not. But given the team’s remaining needs on the defensive line (where they could use a five tech/4i and a true nose tackle), linebacker (both at edge rusher and interior linebacker, the latter of which where they’ve added no players since the opening of the league year in March), and wide receiver specifically, the idea of trading back should be on the team’s mind with the absence of a second-round pick from the Moore trade.

So that’s the “why,” but what about the “who” in this scenario? The New York Jets may immediately spring to mind picking at 33 overall (the same place the Bills took wide receiver Keon Coleman two years ago). They have the most total draft capital in the league and may want to move up for Ty Simpson, the quarterback largely assumed to be the only other Round 1 signal caller apart from presumptive first-overall pick Fernando Mendoza out of Indiana.

But the Jets already pick at 16 overall. If they loved Ty Simpson, why wouldn’t they just take him there and avoid hoping he makes it past the Pittsburgh Steelers and Cleveland Browns at 21 and 24 overall, respectively?

The Las Vegas Raiders moving up from 36 overall to take a wide receiver to pair with their new quarterback makes sense (they’d be jumping the wide receiver-connected Kansas City Chiefs, Miami Dolphins, Tennessee Titans, and New England Patriots to do so). However, if there’s a player worth that jump, the Bills may just pick that player themselves and spare Bills Mafia another Xavier Worthy situation (though Worthy hasn’t been a superstar with the Chiefs).

The Falcons just traded up last year to take linebacker James Pearce and gave up their 2026 first rounder to do it, so it’s not as if teams won’t move up and give up assets for a non-quarterback. It just makes the landing place and team more difficult to outline.

The Simpson trade doesn’t feel likely due to the reasoning outlined above, and we don’t know who will be there when Buffalo is on the clock late next Thursday night. But based on the current status of the 2026 Bills, they should be open to taking any phone call that comes in between now and the 26th overall selection of this year’s NFL Draft.

…and that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I’m Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @BruceExclusive and look for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network — see more in my LinkTree!