Do the Buffalo Bills have enough ammo to trade up?

Do the Buffalo Bills have enough ammunition to move up in the 2018 NFL Draft? Will they be willing to pay the price? We explore the options…

The Buffalo Bills have one of the best draft capital situations you could possibly ask for as a re-building NFL franchise.

We’ll get a closer look at the Bills’ draft capital in a bit, but to recap their past year, they have basically cleaned house from the previous regime, trading or releasing all of the team’s top players or highest paid players, including some high draft picks that hadn’t yet finished rookie contracts.

The Bills’ maneuvering over the past year has all seemed to indicate their interest in the 2018 quarterback class, but they won nine games this past season and ended up with the 21st and 22nd selections in the 2018 NFL Draft.

Even with two first rounders, it was a pipe dream to think that they would be able to get a top quarterback on their board that far down in the first round.

The Bills moved up nine spots after trading offensive tackle Cordy Glenn, but even having the 12th overall selection now, they could be in a bad position no matter what.

Let’s look at the Bills’ draft capital as it currently stands, and whether or not they’ll be able to make a move up to get a quarterback.

Draft Capital

Right now, the Bills are armed with two picks in the first, second, and third rounds. They have a mid-late fourth round selection, giving them seven picks within the top 121, six picks in the top 96, and four picks within the top 56, including number 12, 22, 53, and 56 overall.

Those picks were not all acquired at a great cost to the Bills’ roster depth, either.

They have a second first round pick in this year’s draft because of their willingness to move down in the first round of last year’s draft with the Kansas City Chiefs to move down.

The Bills may have to hope someone in this year’s draft in the top five picks is willing to do the exact same.

Will they be able to trade up?

The big question right now is whether or not the Bills will be able to trade up. They have the draft capital to make a trade happen, but how far are they willing to go?

This discussion involves quarterbacks, so you can basically throw the trade value chart out the window.

Even if you did not throw it out the window, moving from pick number 12 to pick number two would cost the Bills their two first round picks this year as well as a second round pick this year.

If that were all it was going to take, a deal would be done right now.

There are a lot of factors at play here.

First of all, the Giants don’t seem motivated to move down that far. They have an opportunity to get the top player on their board, potentially at quarterback or at literally any other position. If the Browns take the Giants’ top QB, they would then be able to get their top non-QB and a high impact player.

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The Browns at four overall are in a fairly similar situation. They won’t be overly motivated to move down because they have a chance to get both their top quarterback as well as potentially their top non-quarterback.

The Bills are going to have to give up substantially more than the trade value chart indicates, potentially their top four picks in this year’s draft as well as a high pick in next year’s draft in exchange for the number two overall pick.

Would the Giants be willing to do that?

With the amount of holes on their roster, I would think they’d at least strongly consider it. But the Bills would also have to be willing to pay that price.

To me, it seems they have made all of these moves to get in position to get a quarterback. You might as well finish the job and get the guy you want the most, and move ahead of a division rival in the process.

Buffalo has plenty of draft capital in this year’s draft, and they could sweeten the pot with a prime pick in next year’s draft. They might need to swallow that big pill and get a deal done sooner than later, because top quarterbacks are coming this week to visit the Giants.

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