The Buffalo Bills must make a move at the 2023 NFL trade deadline. The Bills are struggling heading into their Week 8 Thursday Night Football tilt with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Josh Allen and the offense put up a staggering 123 points from Week 2 to Week 4 but have only scored 59 from Week 5 to Week 7. To help fix the offense and turn the season around as we approach the midway point, Buffalo must bring in Las Vegas Raiders wide receiver Hunter Renfrow.
Why the Bills must trade for Raiders WR Hunter Renfrow
There are several reasons why the Bills are 4-3 heading into Week 8 against the Buccaneers. Josh Allen played hero ball in Week 1 against the New York Jets, and the injuries to TreDavious White, Matt Milano, and DaQuan Jones have crushed the defense.
The 2023 NFL trade deadline doesn’t present an opportunity to turn Allen into a better decision-maker or replace All-Pro defenders. However, there is a chance for the Bills to fix a third problem, and the team needs to jump on that chance.
Buffalo doesn’t have a reliable second pass-catcher. Or at least they don’t have one who Allen fully trusts. You can easily see this watching the games, and the numbers back it up, as well, painting a stark picture of the Bills’ pass-catchers after superstar wideout Stefon Diggs.
Diggs has 55 catches for 678 yards and six touchdowns this season. Gabriel Davis, the team’s second-leading receiver is well behind that Diggs with just 22 catches for 347 yards and four touchdowns. After that, it’s rookie tight end Dalton Kincaid with 25 catches for 193 yards and no TDs, and running back James Cook with 17 catches for 186 yards and one score.
Anecdotally, you can tell that when Allen drops back in a big spot, he wants to force the ball to Diggs, and he does that all too often. This is especially an issue on third and short to medium where his favorite target is double-teamed or running a deeper route. There is no one underneath that the Buffalo QB is truly comfortable throwing the ball to.
In Allen’s best statistical season, 2020, where he finished second in the NFL MVP voting, the team’s second-leading pass-catcher was slot receiver Cole Beasley. That year, the diminutive wideout had 82 catches on 107 targets for 967 yards. The season prior Beasley had 67 catches on 106 targets for 778 yards, and the season after he had 82 catches on 112 targets for 693 yards.
Beasley was Allen’s safety blanket, and he no longer has that. Davis isn’t that type of player, and the players they’ve tried in that spot in the last two seasons — Isaiah McKenzie and Khalil Shakir — aren’t the caliber of player that Beasley was.
In fact, the Bills got so desperate last season for a Beasley-type player that they brought Beasley back out of retirement!
Well, there is a Cole Beasley type available at the trade deadline in Raiders WR Hunter Renfrow.
In Renfrow’s 2021 Pro Bowl season under Jon Gruden and Rich Bissacia, the former Clemson Tiger had 103 catches on 128 targets for 1,038 yards and nine touchdowns. The last season-plus under Josh McDaniels hasn’t been as productive, and the rumors are that Renfrow and his head coach are not on good terms right now because of that, hence all the trade talk.
And that’s why there is even more good news for the Bills ahead of the NFL trade deadline.
McDaniels and the Raiders desperately want to trade Renfrow but are having trouble doing so due to his $16.1 million per year contract. That means general manager Brandon Beane may be able to get Renfrow while giving up little or even improving a Bills draft pick in an upcoming draft for doing so.
As the NFL trade deadline becomes more like the NBA, teams are becoming more and more willing to give away players for nothing — or even pay in draft capital — to get bad contracts off their books.
The last six NFL trades before the deal that sent safety Kevin Byard from the Tennessee Titans to the Philadelphia Eagles for actual assets were for future sixth-seventh-round pick swaps. In order to acquire Cam Akers, JC Jackson, Chase Claypool, Randy Gregory, Van Jefferson, and Mecole Hardman, the team receiving that player only had to give up a sixth-round pick, and they got the player and a seventh-round selection back.
So, the Bills should be able to get Hunter Renfrow and a Raiders seventh-round pick in a trade for a just future sixth-rounder. Yes, they’ll have to take on that money this season, but Beane can also get out of the deal this offseason by restructuring, extending, or cutting Renfrow. If the Bills do release the WR in the offseason, he will only leave behind a $5.5 million cap hit.
This trade is an absolute no-brainer for the Bills, and if they don’t do it, they will regret it while sitting at home and watching the Super Bowl.
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