Buffalo Rumblings
Is any position other than QB off-limits for the Bills in Round 1?
The Buffalo Bills’ defense needs a strong offseason overhaul before even considering themselves among the top NFL defenses as they have been in past years under head coach Sean McDermott. Several positions are needed and difference makers will be essential to building out a unit that has failed time and time again to make key plays when needed during playoff football.
One position that a McDermott-coached team has never invested incredibly high in is at safety. Certainly, much of that was due to Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer — but times have changed.
In the 2024 NFL Draft, the Bills did take Cole Bishop out of Utah in the second round. Bishop is a good athlete at the position who always seemed best playing in a hole or robber position.
Bishop’s play as a rookie was sporadic despite the high investment and historically good coaching output from McDermott at the spot. He had inconsistencies in his tackling in addition to a lack of trust in coverage.
Not to be forgotten was the massive amount of time he lost in the offseason while managing injury. Veteran Damar Hamlin consistently saw more time over Bishop when healthy despite Hamlin having his own clear limitations as an athlete.
Hamlin is now a free agent and some questions still loom about Bishop’s future in the defense. Taylor Rapp, a solid starter, has two years left on his three-year deal signed last offseason.
Ideally, the team would like to have three safeties at its disposal to leverage multiple looks. The future of the investment in the spot is somewhat dependent on how confident the team feels about Bishop’s year two trajectory.
However, if the Bills aren’t as confident in Bishop’s future and want another high-quality investment of speed and athletic juice, there’s an option that could make sense. Would Buffalo’s decision makers target the position early in consecutive drafts?
Let’s get to the mock of it all...
We used the 2025 NFL mock draft simulator from Pro Football Focus to complete a realistic first-round mock draft. The Buffalo Bills are selecting at 30 overall in the 2025 NFL Draft as things currently stand.
One of the more volatile draft slots for an individual player at this point in the NFL Draft cycle belongs to Georgia safety Malaki Starks. Many thought of him as a top-10 overall player heading into the 2024 college football season — an uncommon presence for that specific position, which shows how highly he was thought of.
The former five-star prospect has shown plenty of athletic juice and ball skills that illustrate what could be a high-impact playmaker at the next level. Starks was a three-year starter in Kirby Smart’s vaunted Georgia defense and compiled nearly 200 tackles and six interceptions over the course of his career. He will...
