Buffalo Bills

James Cook ran for three hundred and fifty-eight yards over expected this season — second among all qualified running backs in the league. That's the number that defines Buffalo's 2025. Here's how the Bills built the best rushing attack in football, why Josh Allen quietly had a top-ten passing year that didn't feel that way, and the one side of the ball that kept this team from going further. Twelve and five. Fifth seed in the AFC. A wild card win in Jacksonville, then a three-point heartbreaker in Denver in the Divisional Round. The Bills smashed on the ground all year — and got muffed by a Broncos team that punched them in the mouth in January.

Let's set the table with the team-level numbers. Buffalo's offense posted plus one hundred forty-four point four total expected points added — how much every snap improved their chances of scoring across the season — third in the league. The defense came in at plus thirteen, allowing minus fifteen point five expected points added, league-average territory. The real signature: a third-down conversion rate of forty-six point three percent, fourth in the league, and a red-zone touchdown rate of seventy-two point three percent, third. When the Bills crossed the twenty, they scored seven, not three. Add it up — seventy-six percent of their scoring drives ended in touchdowns, the highest share in football. And the consistency was real. Outside of a Week 10 trip to Miami where they got smoked thirty to thirteen and a Week 17 stinker against Philadelphia, they hit twenty-three points or more in every game. Steady floor, week in, week out.

Now let's talk about the passing offense. Josh Allen threw for three thousand six hundred and sixty-eight yards, twenty-five touchdowns, ten interceptions, and added plus eighty-six point eight passing expected points added — seventh in the league. His completion percentage was sixty-nine point four against an expected sixty-seven point eight, so plus one point five percent above what an average quarterback would've completed on the same throws. Solid, not spectacular by his standards — but the passing game's identity wasn't about volume. It was about finishing drives. Allen also ran for fourteen touchdowns, tied for third in the league among all players. What kept this unit from elite-elite status: forty sacks allowed on five hundred and ninety-three dropbacks, a six point eight percent sack rate that's middle of the pack. Pressure got home, and the Bills wore it. The receiver room was a true committee — Khalil Shakir led the team with seventy-two catches for seven hundred and nineteen yards and four touchdowns, with air yards spread across the rest of the room. No single receiver carried this passing game. Allen did.

Now let's dig into the rushing offense. This is the headline of the season. Buffalo averaged five yards per carry — first in the league, the only team in football at five flat — and posted plus forty-one point three rushing expected points added, second in the league. One hundred fifty-nine point seven rushing yards per game. Thirty rushing touchdowns. The Bills didn't just run well — they ran at an elite level every single week. And James Cook was the engine: three hundred and nine carries, one thousand six hundred and twenty-one yards, five point three a pop, twelve rushing touchdowns. His plus three hundred fifty-eight point two rushing yards over expected — that much more than an average back would have gained on the same carries — was second among qualified runners in the league. The defining moment came in Week 8 at Carolina, second and four in the second quarter: Cook took a handoff through left guard and went sixty-four yards untouched to the end zone. That run was the season in microcosm — explosive, decisive, and the Bills were never in a one-score game again that day. They won forty to nine.

Next up, the pass defense. This is where the story gets more complicated. Buffalo allowed minus fifty-seven point four passing expected points added — and remember, on defense a big negative number is good, so this unit was genuinely above-average against the pass, around the seventy-eighth percentile in the league. They generated thirty-six sacks, twentieth in the league, and twenty-one total takeaways — thirteen interceptions plus eight fumble recoveries, middle of the pack. Not dominant, but huge plays in huge spots. The clearest example: Week 14 against Cincinnati, fourth quarter, twenty-eight to twenty-five Bengals, Joe Burrow throws a short right intended for Ja'Marr Chase and cornerback Christian Benford jumps it — sixty-three yards the other way for a touchdown. That single play swung the game, the Bills won thirty-nine to thirty-four, and it captured the unit's identity. They didn't smother offenses week to week. They took the ball away when it mattered most.

And the run defense — this is where Buffalo got muffed. The Bills allowed plus forty-one point nine rushing expected points added on defense, and remember, on defense you want negative. A positive number that big puts this unit in the sixth percentile of the league — bottom of the barrel. Twenty-four rushing touchdowns surrendered. Two thousand three hundred and twenty yards allowed on the ground over seventeen games. That's where the Denver loss in the Divisional Round traces back to, and it's where the losses to Atlanta in Week 6, Miami in Week 10, and Houston in Week 12 all share DNA. When teams committed to running the ball against Buffalo, they moved it.

Welcome back to Muffed. The Buffalo Bills' 2026 draft class starts with a fact: they didn't pick in the first round. Brandon Beane traded out of 26 — part of the same maneuvering that brought DJ Moore to Buffalo earlier in the offseason — then traded back twice more before landing at 35. Ten picks, six on defense, headlined by Clemson defensive end T.J. Parker. The theme is loud and consistent: a defensive reset built around speed, length, and Relative Athletic Score outliers — that's a zero-to-ten grade comparing combine and pro-day testing to every player at the position since 1987. Beane and Joe Brady went hunting for athletes. The testing keeps jumping off the page.

Start with the pass defense, because that's where Buffalo spent the real capital. T.J. Parker came off the board at 35, and Brady was emphatic in the presser that Parker sets the run-stopping tone before you ever get to the pass rush. His Clemson line — 37 tackles, 9 tackles for loss, 5 sacks — is solid, not eye-popping. The athletic profile is what makes the pick sing: a 9.39 Relative Athletic Score, top 7 percent of every defensive end measured in four decades. At 62, the Bills grabbed Ohio State corner Davison Igbinosun — Beane flat-out called corner the biggest hole on the roster. Igbinosun's 52 tackles and 6 passes defensed paint a sticky cover guy without the ball-production breakout, with a 6.91 Relative Athletic Score that's good, not elite. The fifth-round addition of South Carolina's Jalon Kilgore is where this group gets fun: a hybrid star-nickel in college with 54 tackles and 10 passes defensed — that 10 ranked fifth in the SEC — and a 9.68 Relative Athletic Score as a strong safety, top 4 percent ever. Beane said outright they're moving him to safety and sent a coach to Columbia to work him out there. Round 7 closes with Missouri corner Toriano Pride Jr., a 8.41 Relative Athletic Score, 30-visit guy Beane described as undersized, feisty, and fast — backup-nickel and special-teams flex. The 2025 Buffalo pass defense allowed minus 57 expected points added, which is solid, but the corner room needed bodies. They added three, plus a premium edge.

The run defense was the unit that genuinely bled — plus 41.9 expected points added allowed in 2025 — and they answered with two more athletic outliers. TCU's Kaleb Elarms-Orr at 126 was a tackling machine — 130 stops, 11 tackles for loss, seventh in the Big 12 — and tested at 9.33 for linebacker, top 7 percent. Beane addressed the size question head-on: Elarms-Orr isn't a thumper, he's built like Terrel Bernard and Dorian Williams, and if he were bigger he wouldn't have been there in the fourth. Beane called him an arrow-up player and a likely fourth-down piece for Jeff Rogers. At 181, Penn State's Zane Durant — 25 tackles, 4.5 tackles for loss, 4 sacks, 9.28 Relative Athletic Score, top 8 percent for a defensive tackle. Brady labeled him an inside rusher. Beane was clear: not a need pick, just value sticking on the board.

On offense, two of three picks landed on the offensive line — a unit that gave up 40 sacks in 2025. Boston College tackle Jude Bowry went at 102, framed by Beane as the answer to losing swing tackle Ryan Van Demark in restricted free agency. Bowry's 9.48 Relative Athletic Score is top 6 percent ever at the position; Beane said he'll start as a swing tackle with the versatility to compete at guard. Round 7 brought Texas A&M guard Ar'maj Reed-Adams at 241 — 7.85 Relative Athletic Score, late-round interior depth.

The passing offense got one pick, and it might be the steal of the class. UConn receiver Skyler Bell at 125 was a monster producer — 1,276 yards, 13 touchdowns, 101 catches — every one of those numbers led the American Conference and finished top-five nationally. Then he tested at a 9.83 Relative Athletic Score, top 2 percent of every receiver since 1987. Beane was visibly surprised Bell was on the board in round four and said the staff had spent extensive pre-draft time on him, ready to pounce. The role projection was honest: Bell didn't play much special teams at UConn, so to earn a jersey he'll need to handle gunner and core-four work alongside the receiver job.

Buffalo also added a punter — Michigan's Tommy Doman at 239, a four-year starter with kickoff experience, in to push Sam Martin.

Pick of the draft. You can argue T.J. Parker — highest selection, the defensive identity piece Brady kept returning to. You can argue Igbinosun at the position Beane himself called the biggest hole on the roster. But the pick of this class is Skyler Bell at 125. The argument is value over slot: when a receiver leads his conference in catches, yards, and touchdowns AND lands in the top 2 percent of athletic testing, he doesn't fall to round four. Buffalo got a 24-year-old with three-level college production and combine numbers that would've been a Day 2 conversation if the buzz had caught up to the tape. Beane more or less said it out loud — they thought he'd be gone and couldn't believe he was sitting there.

Looking ahead to 2026, the question is whether this defensive infusion actually changes the unit's personality. Brady has been explicit: he wants the defense playing with the same attacking edge as the offense, and Beane just spent five of his top hundred picks across two drafts to make it happen. The stress test is the secondary. Igbinosun, Kilgore, and Pride all have to play real snaps for the room Beane himself called the biggest hole on the roster. If they hold up, Parker and Durant get to pin their ears back, and this class smashed. If the rookie corners get targeted into oblivion, the front-seven investment doesn't matter. Buffalo bet on athletes. Now they need to coach them up.