Bills built cornerback depth in the draft after learning a hard lesson

ORCHARD PARK - There were several football analysts over the past few months who mocked a cornerback to the Buffalo Bills with the No. 26 pick in the first round of the NFL Draft, but that never seemed all that plausible. Not in the first round.

No way. The Bills have Christian Benford entrenched on one side and 2025 first-round pick Maxwell Hairston has to be considered the presumptive starter on the other side. So why use such a high value pick to bring in a player who wouldn’t likely start in 2026, a year in which the Bills need to hit the ground sprinting in Joe Brady’s first season as head coach.

And if things go as the Bills hope over the next several seasons for Benford and Hairston - obviously no guarantee because both have proved to be injury prone - that first-round cornerback might be nothing more than a sub-package player. That’s not what first-round picks are supposed to be. However, that didn’t mean president/general manager Brandon Beane could ignore the position because behind Benford and Hairston, the Bills had, checking the notes here … nobody.

That’s why he made a trade up into the bottom of the second round to select Ohio State’s Davison Igbinosun , and at that spot it was probably the right time to address the glaring need for depth, though it can also be said that it didn’t feel like it was necessary to trade up to secure this particular player. “As we started this draft, I thought that the biggest hole on our roster was corner,” Beane said when the festivities concluded Saturday night. “Corner is a premium position.