Bills second-round draft pick Keon Coleman said quarterback Josh Allen texted him last Friday to say, “You’re the guy that I want.”
As it turns out, Allen had a good idea of what was coming.
Buffalo had traded down to No. 33 overall — the first pick of Day 2 — and General Manager Brandon Beane was prepared to draft Coleman. Allen had been somewhat involved in the draft process to that point, reaching out to Beane on several occasions.
“Josh is crazy about the draft process. He loves it,” Beane said in an interview with SiriusXM NFL Radio. “If I get a call from Josh in the offseason, it’s usually him seeing somebody on a highlight, running into somebody, throwing with somebody — just something to ask me what I think about this guy. He called me at the Senior Bowl [to ask] what do I think about a couple of guys there. So he loves it.
“He’s been in the building the last couple of weeks now that the offseason program’s started. So we did give him some guys, we said, ‘Hey, sit back with the coaches, y’all watch them together and talk about how you’d use them. I’d like to hear what you see.’ And he liked a lot of the guys, he really did. But Keon was one — I know he liked him a lot, too. And Josh and I didn’t speak Thursday, really. Maybe he stopped by that morning. But that next day, Friday morning, he FaceTimed me — actually I was still at home before I headed in here. And he was like, ‘What are you thinking?’ And I said, ‘Well, barring somebody blowing me away, I’m going to take Keon.’ And he was pretty pumped.”
So pumped that Allen let Coleman know that he was the receiver the quarterback wanted at the top of the second round.
The relationship between quarterback Josh Allen and wide receiver Stefon Diggs wasn’t always pleasant before the Bills traded Diggs to the Texans this offseason, but things are off to a good start with the team’s newest wideout.
Buffalo traded down twice to move out of the first round and into the top pick of the second round before selecting Keon Coleman to kick off last Friday night’s activities. Coleman said his feeling at the end of his visit to the Bills facility ahead of the draft made him “plan on coming back” and Allen gave him the kind of welcome that makes it clear everyone is happy how things played out early in the draft.
“He texted me the day of and was like, ‘You’re the guy I want. I watched a lot of receivers and I want to play with you,’” Coleman said, via the team’s website. “And I’ve been saying the same thing. I want to play with the guy that wears number 17. I think he’s a great quarterback, one of the best in the league right now and I would love to be catching passes from him. I’m ready for that.”
The Bills also saw Gabe Davis leave as a free agent this offseason, so there will plenty of opportunities for Coleman, who had 11 touchdowns at Florida State last season, to prove his readiness for his new role at the top of the depth chart in Buffalo.
The Bills are retaining one of their edge rushers for at least one more year.
Per Peter Schrager of NFL Media, Buffalo will pick up defensive end Greg Rousseau’s fifth-year option for 2025.
The No. 30 overall pick of the 2021 draft, Rousseau is now set to make a projected $13.4 million guaranteed on the final year of his rookie contract.
Rousseau, 24, has recorded 17.0 sacks with 30 tackles for loss and 42 quarterback hits in his 46 games.
In 2023, Rousseau had 5.0 sacks with 12 TFLs, and 18 QB hits in 16 games. He also recorded four passes defensed with a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. He then recorded his first postseason sack and had a tackle for loss in two playoff games.
After getting cut and suspended a year ago, wide receiver Quintez Cephus is back in the NFL.
Cephus has signed with the Bills, his agents announced.
The 26-year-old Cephus was a 2020 fifth-round pick of the Lions who played in Detroit for three seasons, catching 37 passes for 568 yards and four touchdowns. Last year he was suspended indefinitely for violating the NFL gambling policy, and the Lions subsequently cut him.
But last week Cephus was reinstated, and now he has his next team. He’ll compete for a roster spot on a team that needs some help at wide receiver, and he would appear to have decent odds to make the team.
The son of future Hall of Famer Frank Gore will start his NFL career with one of his dad’s former teams.
Per multiple report, Southern Mississippi running back Frank Gore Jr. will sign as an undrafted free agent with the Bills.
Frank Sr. played for the Bills in 2019, appearing in 16 games and starting eight. He was a third-round pick of the 49ers in 2005.
Frank Jr. had 1,131 rushing yards in 2023. The year before, he gained 1,382 yards, gaining 6.1 per carry.
It will be an uphill climb for Frank Jr. to make the 53-man roster. It’ll take the kind of raw determination that helped his dad finish third on the all-time career rushing list.
The Bills have drafted a player who has never played football.
With the first pick in the seventh round of the 2024 NFL draft, Buffalo selected Travis Clayton, an English rugby player who has participated in the NFL’s International Player Pathway program, which identifies athletes from other countries who have the potential to play in the NFL.
Clayton definitely has that potential. He’s 6-foot-7 and 300 pounds and showed off impressive athleticism during his rugby career. He’s reminiscent of Jordan Mailata, who also was a seventh-round pick having played only rugby, not football, and is now the Eagles’ starting left tackle.
Clayton isn’t the only rugby player to enter the NFL this offseason. The Chiefs previously signed Louis Rees-Zammit out of the International Player Pathway program.
Rees-Zammit was able to sign with any team because he is more than four years out of high school. Clayton, because he’s in his fourth year out of high school, was draft eligible.
The Bills think he has a lot of promise as an NFL offensive lineman. Now he’ll get his chance.
The Bills began the draft with the 28th overall pick and nine other selections. They closed Thursday night not making a first-round pick after two trade downs and now have the same number of picks but three higher picks that what they had.
Buffalo is believed to have wanted receiver Brian Thomas, who went to the Jaguars at No. 23.
So, they traded with the Chiefs, moving from 28 to 32, and then traded with the Panthers, moving from the last pick in the first round to the first pick in the second round.
Buffalo didn’t waste any time picking a much-needed receiver after trading Stefon Diggs to the Texans. It selected Florida State receiver Keon Coleman with the 33rd overall selection, opening Friday night’s two rounds of picks.
Coleman made 50 receptions for 658 yards and 11 touchdowns in his only season at Florida State after two seasons at Michigan State.
He joins Khalil Shakir, Curtis Samuel and Mack Hollins, among others, in the team’s receivers room.
The Chiefs traded up to get their guy in speedy receiver Xavier Worthy.
But Worthy also went to the team he wanted.
“I’ve been calling it,” Worthy told reporters after the pick, via Pete Sweeney of ArrowheadPride.com. “I’ve been saying it since the beginning of the year. ‘I’m going to the Chiefs.’ Everybody thought the NFL was never going to let the Chiefs get to me. But I’m here. I’m excited, man, just to be able to play with Pat.
“Seeing the success that Tyreek Hill had in this offense, I feel like it will be amazing.”
Worthy set a scouting combine record with his 4.21 40-yard dash and is expected to help Kansas City’s deep passing attack. Coming to a team fresh off back-to-back Super Bowl victories to play with the game’s best current quarterback is exactly what Worthy was looking for.
“Everybody’s dream is to play with Patrick Mahomes, probably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time,” Worthy said. “Just to be able to play for him, everybody talks about it. I’ve been saying it for a while.
“‘I’m going to be a Chief.’”
In 39 games at Texas, Worthy caught 197 passes for 2,755 yards with 26 touchdowns. He also averaged 14.1 yards on 40 punt returns, including a 74-yard return for a touchdown in 2023.
Bills fans hoping to see their team take a wide receiver at No. 28 on Thursday night might have been disappointed when they heard the team would be trading the pick and, judging from the social media reaction, they were more than disappointed by the trading partner.
The Chiefs, who have eliminated the Bills from the playoffs in three of the last four seasons, moved up from No. 32 and took speedy wide receiver Xavier Worthy to address one of their biggest needs. The upset from fans came from the playoff history, the Bills’ own need at the spot and perhaps because they remember that another draft-day trade with the Chiefs led to Patrick Mahomes’ arrival in Kansas City.
Buffalo picked up a third-round pick on Friday in the Chiefs deal and the Bills then traded out of the first round altogether while adding a fifth-rounder from the Panthers, which Bills General Manager Brandon Beane said was more significant to the team than anything the Chiefs were planning at No. 28.
“I could see them taking a receiver but you don’t truly know. . . . But where they were moving from, I don’t think it mattered to us who they were picking,” Beane said, via Matt Parrino of NewYorkUpstate.com. “Now we’ve got the two 2s, a 3, a 4 and four 5s. I think that gives us a chance to fill some roles or use ammo to move around again, depending on how the board falls.”
The Bills have the first pick of the second round, which gives them plenty of targets to choose from and also offers the possibility of another trade with a team that spent Thursday night talking themselves into the need to move up for their chosen player. Whenever the Bills do make their first choice, nailing it would be a good way to quiet grumbling around the team’s Thursday night process.
Former South Carolina receiver Xavier Legette said recently that the Panthers had told him they hoped he’d make it to the second round of the 2024 draft.
As it turns out, Carolina didn’t want to wait that long.
The Panthers traded up one spot to No. 32 overall to Legette, concluding the first round.
Legette, 23, is from the Carolinas and will now get to stay there to start his pro career.
He was a second-team All-SEC selection in 2023. He led the team in receiving, finishing with 71 catches for 1,255 yards with seven touchdowns.
In 53 games with 32 starts at South Carolina, Legette tallied 113 catches for 1,678 yards with 12 touchdowns. He also served as a kick returner, averaging 26.4 yards on 29 attempts in his career. He had a 100-yard kick return for a touchdown in 2022.
The Panthers acquired the No. 32 overall pick from the Bills. Buffalo had previously swapped spots in the first round with Kansas City.
The Bills received No. 33 and No. 141 for the Panthers’ No. 32 and No. 200.