Getty Jalen Wydermyer makes a catch at the NFL Combine.
The Buffalo Bills continued to add weapons for quarterback Josh Allen after the NFL draft, signing a Texas A&M tight end who was once seen as one of the best players at his position among this year’s crop.
The Bills announced that they signed Jalen Wydermyer, a 6-foot-5, 255-pound pass catcher whose athleticism and skill had him atop draft boards heading into last season. As Timm Hamm of SI.com’s All Aggies noted in a story published May 1, Wydermyer fell off during the season but is still seen as a good fit for an NFL team.
“Before the 2021 season, Jalen Wydermeyer was projected to be maybe the first tight end off the board in the 2022 NFL Draft, but he slipped during the Aggies’ 2021 season,” Hamm wrote. “He could still be a contributor in the NFL because of his athleticism and had 40 catches for 515 yards and four touchdowns as a junior. Wydermyer playing on Sundays is a natural fit.”
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Wydermyer’s ‘Smooth’ Skills Stand Out
Wydermyer was praised for his skills in the passing game, with NFL.com noting that the he has “smooth separation” on vertical routes. He had 40 catches for 515 yards and four touchdowns last season, following up a strong 2020 in which he had 46 catches for 506 yards and six touchdowns.
Despite Wydermyer’s strong three-year career with the Aggies, NFL.com’s pre-draft analysis noted that he needed to develop his game beyond his pass-catching abilities to stick with an NFL team.
Jalen Wydermyer to sign with Buffalo Bills
“Productive three-year starter who failed to show much run-blocking and pass-catching development after his freshman season in 2019,” NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein wrote. “Wydermyer has NFL size, but pro teams will have a hard time ignoring his poor pro-day testing. The route work isn’t very crisp or explosive and he will likely wear NFL man coverage in short and intermediate routes. He’s athletic in the air and has jump-ball talent but needs to prove his 2021 drops were an outlier if he’s to be trusted by NFL quarterbacks. Wydermyer simply isn’t going to profile as an explosive athlete, so he’ll need to get much better as a run blocker.”
Bills Loading Up at Tight End
The Bills have made other offseason upgrades at tight end, a position that was largely barren behind Dawson Knox in 2021. In March, the team landed former Tampa Bay Buccaneers tight end O.J. Howard to a one-year deal. Howard’s signing could give the Bills the ability to run more two-tight-end sets. As general manager Brandon Beane said on March 18, could give the Bills the ability to run more two tight end sets.
“There’s various ways to run an offense, whether you run two tight ends, whether you run five wide, whether you run two backs,” Beane said March 18 at a press conference. “You really just want to find different pieces, and it doesn’t have to fit exactly.”
Ex-Bucs tight end O.J. Howard going single-digit with Bills, from his Instagram …
Howard added that he would be ready to play whatever role the Bills ask of him, whether that be running routes or blocking.
“I think it will involve me playing different roles,” Howard said via WGR-550 radio. “I think my mindset, even coming out of college, was that I’m an all-around tight end. I can get in there and block if I need to, I get open and make a catch.”
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