Critical Buffalo Bills questions a month before the draft: Cornerback, inside linebacker, left guard
For these three positions, there isn't a clear path for next season.
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Maxwell Hairston is entering his second season at cornerback. Jamie Schwaberow / Getty Images
With the NFL free-agency period slowing to a crawl, the league is on its way to reconvening for the 2026 NFL Draft. As far as the Buffalo Bills are concerned, since their free-agency activity ceased, we’ve gone over some of their biggest remaining needs, as well as taken a look at a Bills-only mock draft.
At this time of year, however, ahead of the draft, thinking critically about all roster issues is very important. While we’ve discussed the topics of edge rushers and wide receivers a great deal since the end of the season, those are two areas they’ve addressed.
They haven’t addressed three other spots, and it’s worth examining the “why” behind it. Taking a look at their roster through the lens of their actions so far, here are three critical questions with the draft only one month away.
1. Is Maxwell Hairston ready to be the unquestioned starter?
Most of the attention this offseason has been on the defense’s front seven and how the Bills will need to shape the roster into new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard’s vision, and rightfully so. It is the area with the most change when you shift from one scheme to another. But one area that hasn’t received extended discussion is the boundary cornerback position. Christian Benford is the no-doubt-about-it top cornerback on the team. He has always been a strength in zone coverage, and his abilities in man coverage have jumped as he’s grown in Buffalo, which will be a big asset to the Bills, who seem destined to play man at a higher rate than they usually did under former head coach Sean McDermott.But the other cornerback position remains a relatively large unknown. Maxwell Hairston will enter his second season, at least at this point, as the locked-in starter opposite Benford. There is obviously an internal desire to have Hairston be that unquestioned starter, given he was the team’s top draft choice in 2025. If he develops into a plus starter, that would help their entire situation, both on the field for winning and from a front-office perspective. However, it is worth considering whether Hairston showed enough as a rookie to warrant locking him in to that role so early into the process.
The Bills have yet to bring in a third cornerback of consequence since the start of the offseason, leaving them without a backup plan. There is still time, and it’s fair to point out that the Bills didn’t sign Tre’Davious White until a little before the 2025 draft. White wound up most often being their No. 2 cornerback. But to this point, the way the Bills have approached the situation has been similar to how they handled safety Cole Bishop in 2025. Hairston, like Bishop in 2024, suffered an injury early in his rookie year training camp, which set his development timeline back. Bishop had 463 snaps in his rookie season, whereas Hairston had 348. Then, in his second year, the only competition they provided for Bishop in the offseason was to bring back Damar Hamlin. However, they made it very clear in that lower-tier contract that Bishop was destined for the starting lineup. That carried over, as Bishop showed immediate signs in spring workouts that he was in their 2025 plans.
However, there are some differences between the situations. The first is that Bishop’s injury prevented him from playing only in the first week. He was still coming back from his summer-long injury before making his debut in Week 2. Hairston’s multi-month knee injury kept him out until Week 8. The other key difference came when the two players got their playing opportunities as rookies. Bishop began very slowly in 2024, showing some inexperience and struggles in his first start. When he got a chance later in the season due to injuries, though, he showed signs of growth and flashes of potential playmaking abilities.
For Hairston in 2025, as mostly a split-snap player, it began fast, with two interceptions in his first three games, and he showed some good signs in his first two. Beginning with his third game, a loss to Miami, even with the interception, Hairston struggled in coverage, a struggle that became more evident as the season went on. That Miami game was Hairston’s first start and the first time he took every available defensive snap in a game. Even if Hairston didn’t get injured against the Jets in Week 18, it was clear the Bills were at their best defensively when White, not Hairston, was on the field. To Hairston’s credit, he looked a bit better in man coverage than in zone, and the Bills are likely to play a higher percentage of man under Leonhard. Leonhard’s 2025 Broncos played man only 31.4 percent of the time, though, so Hairston will still need to play a lot of zone coverage, too.
The faith in Hairston and how the Bills treated the roster in the subsequent offseason seem similar to how they stacked the wide receiver room with Keon Coleman in the 2025 offseason, at least so far. Teams, at some point, have to take the leap with their young players and put them into the lineup. It’s necessary to learn about them. At the same time, it’s also worth learning from previous mistakes. While Bishop worked out, they at least gave themselves an out with Hamlin, whom they knew could start if need be. With Coleman, they didn’t do as much to stack that position outside of signing Joshua Palmer, whom they brought in to start alongside Coleman, not compete with him. The lack of insurance policies behind Coleman helped lead to the position becoming a major need this offseason, and it’s worth wondering whether they could have avoided that by not relying so heavily on Coleman delivering on his potential.
It’s a layered conversation, but steering toward a safety net for a mostly unknown entity, despite the level of draft investment in that player, seems wise. Hairston showed some good signs early, but the Bills should equally acknowledge the warning signs of his later-season results. Especially when they are pushing to finally make it to the Super Bowl, taking a step to dilute a variable that could become a major conversation in-season is never a bad roster-building approach. Given the entire case, finding an experienced veteran to compete with Hairston and, at worst, be a quality No. 3 cornerback is an important thing to address before training camp.
2. Where does Terrel Bernard fit?
The Bills have not added an inside linebacker, which suggests the two starters will be Terrel Bernard and Dorian Williams unless they make another move. Their top backup is Buffalo native and third-year player Joe Andreessen, and there are only two practice squad players behind him. The odds of adding one or two inside linebackers before training camp are very strong. However, with only one pick in the first two rounds and the linebacker free-agent market mostly drying up, adding two of consequence to push Bernard and Williams out of their projected starting positions seems like a long shot. If one has to go, that’s most likely to be Williams, who is in the final year of his rookie deal in 2026.That brings us back to Bernard, who signed a long-term deal last offseason. The contract had its option bonus trigger this offseason, which means the Bills would have to take a dead cap charge of nearly $19.5 million in 2027 just to release him next offseason — something that seems relatively unlikely given their cap situation. Even if they were to do a post-June 1 designation, they wouldn’t get any real savings for offseason purposes and would push nearly $11 million in dead cap into the 2028 season. That has become a relatively large issue for two reasons. The first: Bernard’s performance in 2025; the second: how well he fits the vision of the new defensive scheme.
There is no denying Bernard was battling injuries last year, which likely impacted his on-field performances. Most commonly, Bernard’s struggles to fight his way off blocks and to hold his ground were part of the Bills’ issues defending the run when he was in the lineup. It became clear in the second half of the season the Bills were a better run-defending unit with Shaq Thompson in the lineup at middle linebacker. While injuries have to be factored in for 2025, Bernard has struggled with those same components of his game in prior seasons, albeit not as much as last year. In previous seasons, based on our film study, he was closer to an average to slightly above-average starter compared with how he performed in 2025.
Thinking critically, it does make you wonder how well Bernard fits the new defensive scheme, given that, generally speaking, inside linebackers are expected to control their gap and get off blocks to fortify the run defense. The lean for inside linebackers is usually to be a little bigger and stronger, and the team lists Bernard at 224 pounds. According to his Relative Athletic Score profile, Bernard’s weight is in the 18th percentile for off-ball linebackers. There is definitely a world in which Bernard was a better fit for McDermott’s old defense, which favored lighter linebackers, and now he could be caught in the middle of changing schemes.
The contract does not add any favors or decrease any pressure to make the investment worthwhile. It could also be part of why the Bills didn’t make any free-agent inside linebacker signings this offseason. It’s not to say Bernard can’t acclimate to the new scheme and conquer some of the areas in which he struggled previously, but until he shakes off his 2025 season and becomes a plus starter, the ceiling of his position with him in the lineup will be a topic of conversation.
3. Are the Bills going to make left guard a priority?
With the Bills choosing not to match Minnesota’s offer sheet to reserve offensive tackle Ryan Van Demark, a roster spot for an additional offensive lineman is open. On Monday, the Bills hosted free-agent interior offensive lineman Austin Corbett, who can play both center and guard. Corbett played one game at left guard in 2025, but according to Pro Football Focus, that was the first time he’s taken snaps at left guard since the 2019 season. He’d be an interesting addition, but with him turning 31 in September, it’s unclear whether he’d be brought in to start. As we know well, left guard is the biggest spot in question for the Bills.As it stands now, the Bills have not signed Corbett, leaving the job solely to one of three unproven reserves from 2025: Alec Anderson, Sedrick Van Pran-Granger or Tylan Grable. Much like the Hairston discussion, the team can never truly know about any of them until they get legitimate reps, but it’s a difficult thing to bank on with stakes as high as they are in 2026. On top of that, their best hope of the trio is Anderson, as he put together a solid game against the Steelers in Week 13 and then again in the Week 18 finale against the Jets, but he’s signed for only one season before he becomes an unrestricted free agent.
It does make you wonder whether the Bills are plotting a move or two, because the position could be a potential weakness or one they’ll want a longer-term plan for. Whether it’s Corbett, a draft pick or both, the Bills have the roster space to carry 10 offensive linemen, and they’ve done it in the past, too. Their offensive line is one of the most important pieces to their success on that side of the ball, but their level of investment to find David Edwards’ replacement will be an interesting one to track.
