ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — It could take some time before many Buffalo Bills fans are over the sting of the “Why the Heck Did You Help the Chiefs?” narrative stamped on the team’s draft Friday night.
This has the potential to linger through the 2024 NFL season and perhaps the postseason. In order for it to stop, Xavier Worthy, the super-fast receiver the Bills could have had in the first round but instead allowed Kansas City to select 28th overall, needs to become a non-factor. There better not be anything remotely approaching what happened with the last guy the Bills allowed the Chiefs to grab with a previously held Buffalo pick. I’ll just use his initials: P.M.
In the meantime, however, there’s finally another rookie receiver in the draft discussion for the Bills. His name is Keon Coleman, a former Florida State standout who they selected Friday night with the first pick of the second round, 33rd overall. That was the pick the Bills received after trading the Chiefs’ 32nd choice to the Carolina Panthers (who used it for another receiver, Xavier Legette, that the Buffalo fan base had on the wish list).
At the moment, Coleman’s most appealing quality for the Bills’ faithful is that he’s a receiver. He plays the position that was widely assumed to be what the team desperately needed to address after trading Stefon Diggs to Houston and allowing Gabe Davis to sign with Jacksonville. An instant starter? That remains to be seen.
The Bills used their other second-rounder on another position of need, safety, with the selection of Cole Bishop of Utah. Bishop is versatile, playing both free and strong safety in college, and able to cover tight ends as well as support the run. Dalton Kincaid, the Bills’ first-round pick from Utah in 2023, verified Bishop’s assertion that he got the better of Kincaid in practice. How soon he cracks the starting lineup is also anyone’s guess, given the considerable mental challenge of playing safety in the NFL.
The Bills’ final pick of Friday night, using the third-round choice acquired in the trade with KC, was former Duke defensive tackle DeWayne Carter. He would seem to have a decent chance of finding his way onto the field as part of the Bills’ frequent rotation of defensive tackles.
For the time being, what will qualify as the most intriguing part of Buffalo’s draft is Coleman, who the Bills decided was the better choice than names more prominently connected to them: Ladd McConkey (taken one slot later by the Chargers) and Adonai Mitchell (selected 19 spots later by Indianapolis).
The qualities to like about Coleman are his size (6-foot-3 and 213 pounds) and surprisingly good athleticism that stems from a basketball background that includes one season at the major-college during two years at Michigan State before transferring to FSU. Bigger guys generally don’t return punts, but Coleman did and was effective.
“A lot of times, bigger guys have some stiffness,” General Manager Brandon Beane told reporters. “He really drops his weight (at the) top of the route and gets separation. Some guys, due to their stiffness, they struggle to separate from the DBs. He does a great job there.
“He uses his body position, obviously wing span. (Makes) contested catches. He’s got some RAC (run after catch) ability, too. He’s not just a big guy that catches the ball and goes down. He can make plays with his feet.”
But the feet are mainly what allowed Coleman to be there when the Bills picked. By NFL receiver standards, they aren’t all that fast. At the NFL Scouting Combine, Coleman ran a 4.61-second 40-yard dash. Beane said the receiver’s “play speed” is “closer to 4.5,” meaning he runs with abandon and aggressiveness that isn’t compromised by a reluctance to make contact.
“Not 4.4, but plenty fast,” Beane said. “Is he going to run away from people? Probably not. Would you love him to be 4.4? I think if he was true game speed 4.4, he wouldn’t have been available.”
Expecting Coleman to seamlessly fill a gaping hole in the offense right away could be expecting too much.
For one thing, he’s young and raw. He turns 21 next month. For another, he played only one season at Florida State, catching 50 passes for 658 yards and 11 touchdowns, after two with the Spartans (amassing 65 receptions for 848 yards and eight TDs in that span).
Still, Coleman does offer the kind of target Josh Allen would look for on the many off-schedule plays that are part of the quarterback’s trademark. That could prove particularly helpful in the red zone.
“This gives us another guy that Josh can trust even, even if he is covered, to throw him a ball, whether it’s back shoulder, whether it’s a fade in, the back of the end zone,” Beane said. “If you look at his tape, you'll see all of those throws at some point. And, you know, he makes his fair share.”
For now, that will have to serve as the appeasement for those who had wanted the Bills to be aggressive and trade up in the first round for a receiver, such as Marvin Harrison Jr. of Ohio State, or Rome Odunze of Washington or LSU's Malik Nabers or Brian Thomas Jr.
"It's dangerous to say you're one player away, you know what I mean?" Beane said. "If you're going up for a quarterback or some elite pass rusher, totally get it. It's just really hard, from as far back as we were, to go to the top 10 where a couple of those top receivers were and what you're going to have to mortgage. I've never found it to make complete sense."
Instead, Beane focused on the present and chose to trade down to add picks to allow the Bills to hit multiple areas rather than one. And for now, that will have to be one of the reasons not to ponder “Why the Heck Did You Help the Chiefs?”