Buffalo Bills give inside look at war room on draft day: 'Kincaid would be a game-changer'
Buffalo really wanted Dalton Kincaid.
The Bills traded up two spots in last month’s NFL Draft to select the former Utah tight end with the 25th overall pick in the opening round. On Wednesday, the Bills published an inside look at the war room that night, and the stress surrounding the pick was palpable.
Beane says the Bills, who entered the night with the 27th pick, didn’t have that many first-round grades on their board. As the first round moved along, the conversation became about moving back in the draft and trying to pick up some extra capital.
The night of the first round, he told reporters they were anxious about when the run on pass-catchers would be. When it started at No. 20 with the selection of Ohio State’s Jaxon Smith-Njigba, the pressure was on.
“In the days leading up (to the draft) I started getting less hopeful that Dalton was going to make it to us,” Beane said in the exclusive.
He felt the Los Angeles Chargers would pick a tight end, and he thought Kincaid would be their guy. Instead, they went with a receiver. Baltimore and Minnesota took receivers with the next two picks, and then New York traded up with Jacksonville to No. 24.
So Beane got on the phone with Jacksonville to ask about jumping the Cowboys at No. 26 in order to get their guy.
“If you see us trade up for a guy, it’s a player that we are in sync with the coaches (and) personnel. We all see the fit,” Beane said.
And during the scouting process, the Bills’ director of football research, Dennis Lock, identified Kincaid as having the best hands he’d seen during his time as a scout.
“(Dennis) Lock runs a lot of metrics out there in the analytics world and by his numbers, he hadn’t seen hands that measured as elite as these in the last eight years that he’d done all his studies of receivers and tight ends,” Beane said.
The Bills signed tight end Dawson Knox to a four-year extension last year — a deal that included a reported $31 million guaranteed. They plan to use both.
“We can get the use out of both of them,” Beane said. “View it as another receiving weapon. This is not an old-school Y tight end that’s in-line, block first, receive second.”
The whole video is worth a watch. Check it out below: