POD Community Mock: With the 28th pick, the Bills select…

With the 28th pick in the POD Community Mock, the Bills select…

The Detroit Lions are on deck in our 2024 Pride of Detroit Community Mock Draft, and Erik Schlitt is patiently waiting for his turn on the clock.

But before he can make his selection, he is at the mercy of the Buffalo Bills and acting Bills general manager Elite539. The Bills are seemingly stuck in AFC purgatory: too good to be earning top-10 picks, but not good enough to reach the big game. The Kansas City Chiefs have their numbers, and they’ll need some sort of plan of attack to finally hurdle them.

But before we get into their pick, catch up on the previous 27 selections with our Community Mock Draft tracker.

With the 28th pick in the Pride of Detroit Community Mock, the Buffalo Bills have selected Brian Thomas Jr., receiver out of LSU.

Here’s Elite539 with the explanation for the pick:

“If the draft plays out this way, Josh Allen might forgive me, the Bills’ general manager, for trading away his top receiver for two and a half cheese sticks and a juice box. Even before the Stefon Diggs trade, wide receiver was a need in Buffalo, as Gabe Davis was not retained in free agency, and the receiver room was inadequate before he left, too. Josh Allen might be a superstar, but someone has to catch his passes.

“Enter Brian Thomas, Jr.

“Thomas caught 68 passes last year for 1,177 yards and a whopping 17 touchdowns to lead the nation in that category. One in every four of his receptions went for six points. Thomas is a fast, big-bodied receiver with a 9.97 Relative Athletic Score, ranking tenth out of over three thousand wide receivers since 1987. He has an absolutely massive catch radius and an impressive ability to high-point the football. Thomas’ combination of size, at nearly 6-foot-3, vertical athleticism, and 4.34-second 40 speed is rarely seen, and these traits will quickly endear him to Bills fans and to Josh Allen. The combination of the big-bodied, athletic quarterback and the big-bodied, ATHLETIC (if you haven’t caught on yet, he’s athletic) wide receiver will terrorize AFC defenses, and it may be enough to finally get the Bills over the hump past Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs.

“There is no reason for Thomas to have fallen this far. If he falls far enough in the real draft that the Bills don’t even have to spend any other draft resources in a trade up for a receiver of his caliber, Patrick may not get his hat trick. The road to the AFC Championship will run through Allen and the Bills.”

THE DETROIT LIONS ARE ON THE CLOCK! We’ll have a separate post later today running down the options for the Lions.