Bills Add Ex-Browns First-Round Selection to Practice Squad

The Buffalo Bills added 17 players to the practice squad on Monday, and one of them was a 2020 first-round pick.

Buffalo signed left tackle Jedrick Wills Jr. to the practice squad after the Chicago Bears released him on Sunday.

Wills Spent Five Seasons With the Cleveland Browns

The Browns drafted Wills to be the team's starting left tackle, but he didn't have the best five years in Cleveland.

First off, the Browns moved Wills from right tackle to left as a rookie. Wills played right tackle at Alabama, and a big part of that decision was that he protected Tua Tagovailoa's blind side, since he is a left-handed quarterback.

Wills played in 58 games for the Browns, but he struggled to stay on the field during the last two seasons. The Browns made the playoffs in 2023, but Wills was absent for most of the run due to a season-ending right knee injury he suffered in Week 9 during a win over the Arizona Cardinals at Huntington Bank Field.

The next season was worse for Wills, as he played only five games, starting four, after aggravating the knee injury he suffered the season prior.

Wills was a free agent all of last season, and he didn't want to sign with a team because he wanted to take care of his knee injury.

"I injured a couple of ligaments, but usually when people like when they get fell on or something in their knee, they mess up all their ligaments and people can just go in and repair it and they get healthy," Wills said in March, via Zack Pearson. "I had minimal damage to my ligaments. It was more of an alignment issue from where I got fell on. So they had to actually – it wasn't my knee, they had to go into my femur and do what was called an osteotomy to kind of correct my alignment. So my knee is healthy."

The Bears took a chance on him this offseason, but they must've not liked what they saw from him in training camp and the preseason because he couldn't make their 53-man roster.

Buffalo doesn't need Wills to play at all this season unless injuries occur on the offensive line. If the Bills don't need to see him in any games, then maybe letting him sit out a year on the practice squad could be beneficial. This would let him practice a full season, potentially helping him develop into a reliable backup swing tackle next year.

There is a chance that another team could come in and steal Wills from the practice squad and sign him to their active 53-man roster this season. Bills fans should be on the lookout for this.

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