Perfect pick in first round set the tone for Bills 2025 draft class built for a purpose

ORCHARD PARK - You don’t really need to go too deep into the weeds to understand why the Buffalo Bills did what they did across three days at the 2025 NFL Draft.

In 2024, the Josh Allen-led offense scored 525 points, the most in team history, and their 30.9 average per game ranked second in the NFL. The defense allowed 368 points, a 21.6 average per game that ranked 12th and was the third most since Sean McDermott became coach and Brandon Beane became general manager.

Oh, lest we forget in the AFC Championship Game, the offense scored 29, the defense gave up 32, and that meant the Kansas City Chiefs went to the Super Bowl and the Bills did not.

“We’ve played really good defense for a long time here,” McDermott said a few days after that gut-wrenching loss. “That’s what we’re used to doing. I would say this year probably not as good as we played in the years prior. We didn’t perform well enough in the Kansas City game. We have to figure out a way to perform better against that football team.”

That same day, Beane added, “I start with myself and say, ‘Did we give the coaches the right talent?’ How healthy were we in each of those games? Were we missing a guy, were a couple guys nicked up? Who did we play? There’s not a short, brief answer. You know that we can find solutions to continue to improve there in the big games.”

None of us were invited to the pow-wow when Beane, McDermott and the entire braintrust at One Bills Drive sat down to begin preparations for 2025, but it has become pretty clear what they wanted to accomplish this spring. Fix the defense.

To that end, the first five picks in the draft were spent on defense - cornerback Max Hairston (first round), defensive tackle TJ Sanders (second), edge rusher Landon Jackson (third), defensive tackle Deone Walker (fourth) and cornerback Jordan Hancock (fifth). And after a reprieve to pick blocking tight end Jackson Hawes in the fifth, cornerback Dorian Strong was chosen in the sixth round, making it six of the first seven selections on the weaker side of the ball.

All of this came on the heels of Buffalo signing free agent defensive linemen Joey Bosa, Michael Hoecht, and Larry Ogunjobi, and defensive backs Tre’Davious White, Dane Jackson and Darrick Forrest.

“I thought it was stronger, more depth on the defensive side of this draft,” Beane said. “You’re always going to leave a draft and somebody’s going to say, ‘Well, why didn’t you address this?’

Maxwell Hairston was the perfect pick at No. 30

When the draft began, the only position where the Bills did not have an obvious starter was CB2 opposite Christian Benford. Beane claimed he had a first-round grade on Hairston, and given how the cornerback market played out, you can probably take him at his word.

The only corners who went in the first round besides Hairston were two-way star Travis Hunter at No. 2 to the Jaguars, and Jahdae Barron to the Broncos at No. 20. Will Johnson was expected to be gone, but a knee condition dropped him all the way to the middle of the second round, and Trey Amos - a popular mock pick to the Bills - lasted until the end of the second round.

Beane stayed patient, let the round come to him, and Hairston was there at No. 30. Now, the Kentucky product has to come in and make Beane look good, something Kaiir Elam did not do when he was picked in the first round in 2022.

Bills can never have enough CBs

That’s a universal belief in the NFL in this era of superstar quarterbacks and wide receivers who defenses have to find a way to combat. Well, the Bills sure have enough now as they get ready to enter the OTA phase of the offseason.

After Hairston, Beane took two more in Hancock and Strong. With White and Jackson back to reunite with Benford, that gives Buffalo three players who have started many NFL games, and they join holdover backups such as Ja’Marcus Ingram and Brandon Codrington, plus practice squaders Daequan Hardy and Te’Cory Couch.

Cornerback will be one of the best competitions, but of course, most eyes will be on the first-round pick to come in and win the job.

Much-needed girth coming to the Bills D-line

When the Bills traded up in the second round to select Sanders, I thought they might be doing it to get edge rusher Donovan Ezeiruaku, a player who had been projected as a first-rounder. Also, a 332-pound one-tech DT was sitting there in Alfred Collins. Instead, the trade up was for Sanders who weighs in at 305 pounds.

He’s a better pass rusher than Collins, and being more agile is a prototype the Bills like for that position. Still, the defensive line remained lacking in a true one-tech run-stuffer, that is until Beane went off script and added the 345-pound Walker.

He suffered from a back injury in 2024 and it greatly affected his tape and explains his drop into the fourth round. The Bills must have been OK with the medical or they wouldn’t have picked him, and if he is the player they believe he can be, Ed Oliver and the linebackers should benefit from having a big body tying up blockers.

“If we were playing a game, he’s healthy enough to go play a game,” Beane said. “We do want to get that stronger to another level, so we still have time before camp. Our number one goal is going to be to make sure we have him as strong in that back, hopefully, to what it was in ‘23. I don’t think it’s that far off.”

Bills have lots of height up front

Back in the day, the Bills put together a basketball team that played charity events in the area in the offseason. If they were to do that today, they’d have quite a group when you consider Walker stands 6-foot-7 while Jackson, Rousseau and Epenesa are all 6-6, and Sanders and DaQuan Jones measure 6-4.

“That’s nothing you can teach or you can coach,” Beane said of length. “You’ve got it or you don’t. It’s not an end all, be all, but it’s a great starting point.”

Length has served the Bills well as Epenesa has 17 career passes defensed and Rousseau has 15. If Jackson, Walker and Sanders can get their arms up, they figure to rack up a few, too, and that’s an underrated stat in the NFL for defensive linemen.

Think back only to the AFC title game when on Buffalo’s ill-fated final possession, Kansas City’s Charles Omenihu batted down an Allen pass intended for Curtis Samuel that, had it gotten through, could have been a long gainer and changed the outcome quite favorably.

“I think that’s going to be a fun battle when we get to St. John Fisher and put the pads on,” Beane said of the D-line. “I think there’s gonna be a lot of competition in there and we’ve obviously infused a lot of youth, but we got veterans in there as well and I’m excited.”

Longshot Hawes could make team

The Bills have Dalton Kincaid and Dawson Knox as their top two tight ends, and the only other one before Saturday was Zach Davidson. That’s because they did re-sign free agent Quintin Morris who had been the third-string tight end for three years, and reserve/futures contract signing Armani Rogers blew out his Achilles and was waived with an injury designation last week.

Hawes is not a good pass catcher; in fact, he wasn’t good at all. But he was an outstanding blocker, especially when he proved he could play in a big-time environment after transferring to Georgia Tech from Yale.

“I think he’s a guy that can block but has enough athletic ability,” Beane said. “He’s not a throwaway in the pass game. I’m watching that Georgia-Georgia Tech game that was a thriller and this dude’s all over the tape standing out making plays. And so we started talking about him.”

Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social. Sign up for his Bills Blast newsletter here:  https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills draft picks 2025 address weakness on defense: Analysis