The Bills made their second trade in as many days moving up the board in round two to grab a wide receiver prospect that they coveted in Zay Jones.
Buffalo Bills Insider Chris Brown provides the details. Here is his report:
The Bills armed themselves with extra draft capital following their move down the board on day one of the draft Thursday night. On day two they used the very assets they acquired from their trade with Kansas City to make a pair of moves up the draft board in round two and round three Friday night. The moves allowed the Bills to address two of their more pressing offensive positional needs.
In round two the Bills moved seven spots up the board to land WR Zay Jones with the 37th overall pick.
Buffalo swung a deal with Los Angeles by parting with their pick at 44 in round two and the third-round pick they got from the Chiefs (91st overall) to make the move to pick 37. In addition to pick 37, the Bills got the Rams’ fifth-round pick at 149th overall.
Head coach Sean McDermott admitted that the early run on receivers on Thursday, with three going in the top 10, accelerated where they felt a prospect like Zay Jones would come off the board.
“We looked at it last night when we broke and the ice was getting awful thin, really, at the wide receiver position in general,” said McDermott. “There weren’t quite as many wide receivers, a few of them went early, and then there weren’t many around at this level and we valued Zay and we felt that we wanted to go get him and made sure we got our guy.”
The Rams pick at 149 overall gave Buffalo a total of four fifth-round selections that they parlayed into their second trade up the board.
The Bills took the pick from the Rams at 149 along with their own fifth-round selection (156 overall) and packaged it with their pick at 75 in round three to move a whopping 12 spots up the board to take OT Dion Dawkins at the bottom of round two with the 63rd pick.
Buffalo’s move was very calculated as they got one spot ahead of McDermott’s former team the Carolina Panthers, who had an offensive tackle need and took one in Taylor Moton from Western Michigan.
“You do your homework and you look at the needs, whether it was my former situation or not,” McDermott said in reference to Carolina. “I saw they did pick a tackle after us so who knows? You never know. I’m sure they got the player that they wanted. We got the player that we wanted and that’s what is most important for us.”
Unlike day one of the draft when the Bills were fielding a number of calls for their pick and teams were coming to them, Buffalo was aggressive on day two and made two climbs up the board to get prospects they coveted.
“This was a situation where if our player was there we were going to look to do something as opposed to sitting around and we were able to do some things with that first-round pick where we gained some ammunition to be able to move some things around,” said McDermott. “We accrued some picks and we’ve had to package some things to get some guys, but they’re guys that we believe in.”
The Bills actually had a chance Thursday night to move down again from their spot at 27, but they chose to stay put and get CB Tre’Davious White.
“We look at every option,” McDermott said. “We’ve done it in free agency. We’ve done it in the draft. If there are good players out there and we have the ammunition and we feel it’s the right fit that’s what we’ll do. The same way we weren’t going to trade away from (Tre’Davious White) the other day in the first round.”
After parting with two of their four fifth-round selections, Buffalo now has just two fifth-round picks left (163, 171) and their sixth-round pick (195) for day three of the draft.
“There are a lot of picks between where we are now and where we pick again,” McDermott said. “I don’t think anyone is packing up for the night at this point in time. We’re going to sit here and do our homework and see where we are and where we need to be.”