ORCHARD PARK – Josh Allen has a new weapon to work with in the passing game as the Buffalo Bills selected UConn wide receiver Skyler Bell with the first of their back-to-back picks in the fourth round of the NFL Draft.
Bell is coming off a spectacular 2025 season for the Huskies when he caught 101 passes for 1,278 yards and 13 touchdowns, doing so from the boundary as well as coming inside to the slot.
The 5-foot-11, 192-pounder ran a 4.4 in the 40 at the scouting combine, and he met with the Bills in Indianapolis, and that interest came to fruition.
New Bills defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard may have had a hand in that. Bell began his college career at Wisconsin when Leonhard was the Badgers’ defensive coordinator and then their interim head coach, so he had some inside intel on the speedy wide receiver.
Wide receiver was a hot button topic all of last year and into this offseason, even after the Bills acquired DJ Moore in a trade from the Bears. So now Bell joins the competition to fill the No. 4 spot behind Moore, Khalil Shakir and Joshua Palmer.
Bell did have a problem with drops, 24 of them across his four years at UConn, which matched the number of touchdown passes he caught. Also, the one thing that could turn the Bills off is that he was not asked to play special teams in college, but as a bottom of the depth chart receiver, that will be a must in Buffalo.
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 add speedy wide receiver Skyler Bell in Round 4
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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