Bills had chance at 6-foot-4, 4.47-second 40 WR but chose CB instead
Bills had chance at 6-foot-4, 4.47-second 40 WR but chose CB instead originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
The Buffalo Bills spent the entire 2025 NFL season feeling like they were a standout wide receiver short of their ceiling.
Keon Coleman 's lack of progression didn't help matters, and neither did injuries to Joshua Palmer . But all told, WR let the Bills down.
They could've had a different sort of group if they had used their 2025 NFL Draft first-round pick differently.
In the draft, the Bills took cornerback Maxwell Hairston out of Kentucky with the No. 30 overall pick.
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ESPN put together a redraft of the selections, and in that process, their Bills writer Alaina Getzenberg took WR Jayden Higgins for the Bills.
Higgins, out of Iowa State, actually went to the Houston Texans with the 34th pick.
"The Bills didn't do enough to address wide receiver, so this is an opportunity to add a big target (6-foot-4, 214 pounds) who also ran a 4.47 40-yard dash," Getzenberg writes. "The position is in need of a variety of talent, and Higgins could have been a good part of that building process."
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Higgins had flashes as a rookie with Houston, and he likely would've been pressed into a pretty sizable perimeter role pretty early with Buffalo.
In the redraft, Hairston drops to the 44th pick for the Dallas Cowboys .
"Injuries in the beginning and the end of his rookie season did not help, but Hairston still managed two interceptions, which would have tied for the most with the Cowboys," ESPN's Todd Archer writes . "Cornerback was a need last season and is an even bigger one as the Cowboys enter 2026 after the release of Trevon Diggs . Hairston has the tools to be an impact player."
Buffalo didn't have a ton of cornerback depth, either, so giving up Hairston in this process wouldn't be simple. But the Bills really needed wideout help that they simply didn't have.
