Bills GM on aggressive draft trade up: Kaiir Elam was last player with first-round grade

kaiir elam

Florida cornerback Kaiir Elam (5) gets held by South Florida wide receiver Demarcus Gregory during the first half of an NCAA college football game Saturday, Sept. 11, 2021, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)AP

Orchard Park, N.Y. — Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane has been searching high and low for a cornerback the past two years but he was determined not to force it.

That is until Florida’s Kaiir Elam was within reach on Thursday night late in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft.

Sitting at pick No. 25, Beane got aggressive when he saw the Kansas City Chiefs trade up to get Washington cornerback Trent McDuffie. He wasn’t so much worried about the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys ahead of him. He was more concerned about another team trading up looking for a cornerback.

The Bills had a first-round grade on Elam. In fact, Elam was the last first-round grade they had on any player remaining in the draft pool. So Beane sent this year’s fourth-round pick to the Ravens to move up to No. 23 to get his new cornerback No. 2.

“We had a good grade on Kaiir and we were down to one player in the first round on our board,” Beane said. “At that point it just made sense. Not sure what those teams would have taken but there was a lot of trade action going on too. ... I was worried more about someone else trading in in front of us knowing that a lot of people had us pegged for potentially as a corner.”

Beane joked that he’s heard all the cries from media, fans and even his neighbors and kids that the Bills needed to get another cornerback. Now that Elam is a member of the Bills, Beane said everyone can sleep good tonight.

All jokes aside, there was urgency to get Elam because of the Bills need for cornerback, Beane said. He said there were players that had first-round grades on their board at positions that weren’t needs.

Cornerback was on the higher end of the priority list.

“That’s usually when you’re going to see, if I’m gonna get aggressive, it’s usually when there’s a value there, and it fills a need,” he said. “If it wasn’t more of a stronger need for us, I probably would have just waited and see what happens and just take the best player on the board. But again I told you last year we thought a couple of times a corner may be available, but when we got on the clock, those players were gone that fit that value.”

So what does Beane think the Bills are getting in Elam?

“His straight-line speed is good. He’s a longer guy, you know, he’s over 6-foot, so those guys really have to clean up their transition when they’re back pedaling,” Beane said. “Some of the shorter guys can get out of it quicker. Those are the things that he’ll have to continue to work on when he’s not in press, when he’s playing off or press.”

One play in particular stuck out when Beane was watching Elam’s tape during the evaluation process. It was against Alabama and he couldn’t recall if he was covering Jameson Williams or John Metchie, but his ability to stick in coverage popped on film.

The Kansas City Chiefs racked up over 500 yards of offense in the AFC divisional round. Elam has 4.39 speed that translates on the field. He’s expected to compete for the second cornerback job in training camp.

“It’s like a deep over route and you know, you can see him carry the vertical. That’s what you want to see,” Beane said. “You want to see their transition, their ball skills, their tackling, but what are they going to do when they’re facing a speed guy. Their recovery speed, how do they hang with them, and it was not an issue with him.”

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