ORCHARD PARK – There were several football analysts over the past few months who mocked a cornerback to the Buffalo Bills with the No. 26 pick in the first round of the NFL Draft, but that never seemed all that plausible. Not in the first round. No way.
The Bills have Christian Benford entrenched on one side and 2025 first-round pick Maxwell Hairston has to be considered the presumptive starter on the other side. So why use such a high value pick to bring in a player who wouldn’t likely start in 2026, a year in which the Bills need to hit the ground sprinting in Joe Brady’s first season as head coach.
And if things go as the Bills hope over the next several seasons for Benford and Hairston – obviously no guarantee because both have proved to be injury prone – that first-round cornerback might be nothing more than a sub-package player. That’s not what first-round picks are supposed to be.
However, that didn’t mean president/general manager Brandon Beane could ignore the position because behind Benford and Hairston, the Bills had, checking the notes here … nobody.
That’s why he made a trade up into the bottom of the second round to select Ohio State’s Davison Igbinosun, and at that spot it was probably the right time to address the glaring need for depth, though it can also be said that it didn’t feel like it was necessary to trade up to secure this particular player.
“As we started this draft, I thought that the biggest hole on our roster was corner,” Beane said when the festivities concluded Saturday night. “Corner is a premium position. You can’t have enough of those guys. Right now with Tre’Davious (White) being a free agent, with Dorian (Strong’s) uncertainty at this point (due to his neck surgery), this adds another guy. So this is a depth player that will come in and compete. He’ll push our starters in time and we’ll take it one day at a time.”
Beane also took versatile Jalon Kilgore in the fifth round and cornerback Toriano Pride Jr. in the seventh, meaning three of his 10 picks were spent to help the secondary.
Here’s a look at how the draft and free agency set up the cornerback depth chart as the OTA portion of the offseason begins:
Max Hairston is on notice in his second year
Hairston’s rookie season was pretty much a bust. He suffered a knee injury early in training camp and didn’t make his debut until Week 8 in Carolina. Through the rest of the regular season he was in a timeshare with White who surprised many with his level of play after two serious recent leg injuries and how he kept Hairston out of the starting lineup.
Then Hairston got hurt in the season finale and missed both postseason games, so he enters 2026 with questions hanging over his head regarding his ability to stay on the field.
“He had a couple tough setbacks there, one in camp, and then the ankle at the end there,” Beane said. “But Max is a pro, works hard, does the right things. You say it all the time, what’s the number one ability? Availability, and he’ll have to armor himself. He knows what an NFL season is like. He knows what an NFL training camp, to a degree, is like. But yeah, I like where Max is at.”
Also, we don’t really know what new defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard thinks of Hairston, but we do know that when he was with the Broncos, they favored big, physical boundary corners like Patrick Surtain II and Riley Moss.
Igbinosun is three inches taller and the same weight as Hairston, and while Hairston ran the fastest 40 time at the 2025 scouting combine (4.28 seconds), Igbinosun was no slog this year at 4.45. It seems like he will have a great chance to compete for a starting job.
“I truly felt like we needed to get better there,” Beane said of his plan to add depth to the position. “We looked in free agency, but it’s a premium position and we spent our dollars on DJ (Moore) and (Bradley) Chubb, and getting Connor McGovern and some of the other pieces back. Maybe it’s a scar from last year or a previous year, from the playoffs, but our depth’s really been tested there for a variety of reasons.”
Jalon Kilgore could find a hybrid role
Beane did add to the cornerback room in free agency, signing nickel Dee Alford to replace departed Taron Johnson. But with Cam Lewis also gone via free agency, he needed a backup and Kilgore could be the answer.
At South Carolina he was primarily a slot corner but he also took plenty of snaps at safety and Beane said safety is where he’ll get the bulk of his reps for now. He showed that he could cover in the deep half but also come down to the line and play in the box against the run.
However, Kilgore seems like a piece Leonhard will be able to deploy in several ways. The 211-pounder has 30 pounds on Alford so if the opposing offense uses a big-bodied receiver or a tight end in the slot, Kilgore can match up inside.
Jordan Hancock, a 2025 fifth-round pick, is another versatile player who bounced back and forth between slot corner and safety as a rookie last season, so the competition between Hancock and Kilgore should be intriguing. They’ll keep both because veteran free agent safety signings CJ Gardner-Johnson, Geno Stone and Damar Hamlin are all on one-year contracts, but game day jerseys will be up for grabs.
Do the Bills need to sign a veteran CB?
Behind Benford, Hairston and Igbinosun, there is almost nothing, so yes, that would be a good idea. Strong’s neck injury might take him out of the mix completely this season, and the rest of the depth chart features Daryl Porter Jr., MJ Devonshire, Te’Cory Couch and seventh-round pick Toriano Pride Jr.
Beane has referenced on numerous occasions how unfortunate it was that the Bills’ late-season cornerback depth was trashed by injury and how big a role that played in the loss to the Broncos, memories of watching Dane Jackson and Darnell Savage get burned for touchdowns forever etched into your brain.
“You saw the depth of our corners tested last year through injury,” he said. “You want to make sure as the season goes along, if injury strikes, that you’ve got enough guys, even if they’re not starters.”
White is still working out at the Bills’ facility as he waits for an offer from Buffalo or another team, but it feels like a longshot that the Bills, with a new defensive staff and philosophy, will bring him back. But given how the free agent market has thinned out, that might be the most logical thing to do.
Another option would be to go to camp with the current group, wait to see how the final cuts around the league go, and add to the position just before the start of the season when there will surely be more players to choose from, whether it’s White or someone else.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills draft picks strengthen secondary with three defensive backs