PFF league-wide re-draft nets Bills familiar faces

Pro Football Focus created a league-wide fantasy draft. Here are the Bills’ selections.

Pro Football Focus recently completed its own version of a league-wide fantasy draft, assigning players to new teams following the 2020 draft order. The world-wide leader, ESPN, conducted theirs just last week.

In the task, PFF does a snake draft and starts off using the original draft order for the recent 2020 NFL Draft, so Buffalo selects at No. 22 overall, the pick the club traded to the Vikings in reality.

Buffalo, with the 22nd selection, stayed close to home and selected quarterback Josh Allen. Even though PFF has often been critical of Allen, they still see him as one of the integral parts to building a team. NFL analyst Evan Silva made the picks for the Bills and added his rationale for sticking with the Wyoming product as a Buffalo Bill:

It’s Sam Darnold, Josh Allen or Daniel Jones. I think that they’re all in very similar territory. I wake up one day, I like Darnold the best. I wake up the next day, I like Daniel Jones the best. But I kind of think I know the best, and that’s going to be the 2020 NFL MVP Josh Allen reuniting with the Buffalo Bills.

That’s some high praise from Silva for a player falling to 22nd overall in this re-draft. Interestingly enough, every selection before Allen was a quarterback, even the injured Tua Tagovailoa, current second-stringer  Jameis Winston (19th selection), the unemployed Cam Newton (20th overall). Overall, the first 26-straight picks are quarterbacks.

With Buffalo’s second-round pick, the team chose cornerback Tre’Davious White. White has been outstanding since being drafted (in real life) by the Bills in 2017, the first pick under the Sean McDermott regime. White earned his first All-Pro selection this past year, after tying for the league lead with six interceptions.

In the third round, Buffalo addressed their need for a premier pass rusher by selecting Shaquil Barrett. Barrett was a beast off the edge last year, leading the league with 19.5 sacks. The 27-year-old broke out last year in his first season with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, setting career highs in sacks, tackles, quarterback hits, tackles for loss. And, he added his first career interception.

Silva’s fourth and final pick for Buffalo visited the defense once again, selecting tackling machine Darius Leonard. In two seasons, Leonard recorded 284 total tackles, 12 sacks, and six forced fumbles.

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