The Buffalo Bills have made some big moves this offseason, despite being up against the salary cap. They made a trade for wide receiver D.J. Moore and signed pass rusher Bradley Chubb in NFL free agency. However, the Bills still have some big needs heading into the 2026 NFL Draft.
Bringing in Moore and Chubb addresses the Bills’ two biggest issues. The wide receiver room failed Josh Allen last season, and the lack of a consistent pass rush was ultimately the big undoing for Sean McDermott’s defense. The problem is, this trade and NFL free agency move simply address the issues. They didn’t solve them.
As any draft pundit—or the Bills’ front office themselves—will tell you, acquiring Moore and Chubb will not preclude the team from drafting an EDGE or WR with the 26th pick in the upcoming NFL draft.
Moore is the player who is closer to be the answer for Buffalo than Chubb. The former Chicago Bears wideout is still just 28 (29 on April 14) and seemingly still has plenty of juice left in the tank. Yes, his numbers have slipped each year in Chicago, but a lot of that has to do with Caleb Williams’ development and increased target competition from young pass-catchers.
When the chips were down last season, like in overtime of Week 16 vs. the Green Bay Packers, Moore still came through in the clutch. As the Bills’ WR1 in 2026, fans should still see a close approximation of peak D.J. Moore. So, that leaves edge rusher as the Bills’ biggest need to address in the 2026 NFL Draft after failing to find it in free agency.
Bills’ biggest 2026 NFL Draft need is still at EDGE
Bradley Chubb (when healthy) is a fine player. He had double-digit sacks as a rookie in 2018 and again in 2023. Last season, he posted 8.5 sacks on a terrible Miami Dolphins defense. The problem is that Chubb has rarely been healthy in his eight-year NFL career, and at 30 in June, chances are his health concerns don’t get better. He’s only played two full seasons in his career and has played single-digit games in five seasons.
In a division that includes Drake Maye and a conference with Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, Joe Burrow, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Herbert, Bo Nix, and now Francisco Mendoza, getting after the QB has never been more important. So, even if Chubb does have one of his outlier seasons, the team still needs a young, explosive rusher to help turbocharge new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard’s aggressive defense.
Leonhard is switching the Bills from a 4-3 to a 3-4, which requires a different type of edge rusher than Buffalo has featured in the McDermott era. The big, rangy edge-setters like Gregory Rousseau and A.J. Epenesa are no longer the prototypes. While in Denver, Leonhard had the most success with Nick Bonnitto, who can help give Bills fans a roadmap as to what Brandon Beane might be looking for in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Bonitto was 6-foot-3, 248 pounds coming out of Oklahoma. His NFL.com scouting report described him like this:
“Undersized edge defender who plays in a slant-based scheme that makes evaluating his three-down value more difficult. Evaluating the pass-rush talent, on the other hand, is quite easy. He’s a wildly athletic rusher who blends get-off, stride length and flexibility into one alarming package for tackles trying to slow him down. … Teams will want him to get bigger, stronger and more assertive against the run as a 3-4 outside linebacker or he could be relegated to DPR (designated pass rusher) status.”
Well, Bonitto never got bigger. In fact, he’s now listed at 6-foot-3, 240 pounds. But what he did do is turn his pass rush ability into 27.5 sacks this last two seasons, back-to-back Pro Bowl appearances, and two top 10 finishes in Defensive Player of the Year voting. That’s the type of pass-rush production you can build a defense around, which is why the Bills must find that in the 2026 NFL Draft.
At pick 26, and without a second-round pick to facilitate a big trade up, Buffalo is out of the running for the top pass-rush prospects like Arvell Reese, David Bailey, Rueben Bain Jr., and likely even Ahkeem Mesidor. They may be in range for players like Keldric Faulk or T.J. Parker, but those players are more in the old Bills mold of traditional 4-3 ends.
So, that leaves a small handful of players the Bills could take at 26. Texas A&M’s Cashius Howell is who goes to Western New York in the latest ClutchPoints mock draft. Zion Young (Missouri) and Malachi Lawrence (UCF) are also options there. If Beane wanted to trade back to the top of the second to acquire more draft capital, names like Gabe Jacas (Illinois) and R Mason Thomas (Oklahoma) would be in play.
No matter what the name is, the Bills must address edge rusher in the 2026 NFL Draft because they did not do enough in NFL free agency to solve this problem.
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