Buffalo Rumblings
Moore has the potential to give the Bills’ offense something not seen in several years
Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane recently had a bit of a tirade regarding the team’s inability to draft a wide receiver with a premium pick in the 2025 NFL Draft. We may never know what precisely led to his uncharacteristic response but perhaps it was because he knew all along he’d be exploring other avenues to add firepower to the skill positions.
Shortly after Beane’s on-air radio appearance with WGR550, the Bills were in the news again, this time hosting free-agent wide receiver Elijah Moore at team facilities. Then on Wednesday, April 30, we found out that Moore was, in fact, signing with Buffalo for the 2025 NFL season.
So what does the former New York Jets and Cleveland Browns receiver Elijah Moore bring to the field? Let’s do some analysis.
When Elijah Moore was drafted with the 34th pick in the 2021 NFL Draft, the Jets were likely focused on the information contained in this handy chart from mockdraftable.com.
Approaching the diminutive stature of Cole Beasley, Moore shouldn’t be expected to win jump balls as a 5’10, 180-pound wide receiver. But look at that speed! The shuttle times and three-cone drill results are also tantalizing aren’t they?
Want more charts? Who doesn’t want more charts?
Moore doesn’t have a plethora of charts from Next Gen Stats, but the ones he does have paint a picture of what the Browns and Jets felt he could do. The one I embedded is in my opinion his most complete (charted) game. Honestly, this would be a very complete game for any player.
This chart wasn’t selected to suggest that Moore should be expected to produce these types of numbers or results all the time. I wanted this to serve as the illustration, one that shows a relatively diverse route tree with successful results. The game this represents had him primarily as a slot player, but looking through all his charts there’s a good amount of boundary use with the anticipated speed-dependent routes.
The spider chart is of course Moore’s college performance/athleticism, and a lot can happen in a few years. In the spirit of “what have you done for me lately” let’s take a peek at Moore’s most productive game from 2024 — a loss against the Denver Broncos in which Moore caught eight passes (14 targets) for 111 yards.
Did I mention that Elijah Moore is pretty small for an NFL wide receiver? I’m pretty sure I mentioned that. I don’t consider myself a very large person, I mean my nickname is “Skarekrow” after all. I’m significantly larger than Moore. Patrick Surtain II, who Moore was matched up with here is larger than me. Here, Elijah Moore effectively blocked the much larger Surtain.
This was against Levi Wallace,...
