What is your favorite serendipitous draft story?

[Logic]

10 minutes ago, TBBills Fan said:

I gave money to a dancer named serendipity once. 

 

Splendid time

Pac Man, is that you? 

[ddaryl]

1 hour ago, Steve O said:

Passing on Brian Orakpo to draft Aaron Maybin. What a great first step he had!

I'm still flabbergasted by that decision. 

[MrEpsYtown]

It’s just everything with the Josh Allen pick. Wrong Josh and all that from the fans. We made the playoffs, traded Cordy Glenn to move up and somehow found a way into the top ten and somehow got Josh despite all of the teams in front of us in need of a QB. Not sure there will ever be a better story than that. 

[Low Positive]

1 hour ago, T.E. said:

The Bills trading away their 1988 first-rounder, which prevented them from taking any of the other RBs that were drafted ahead of Thurman Thomas.

 

(Gaston Green, John Stephens, Lorenzo White, Brad Muster, Craig Heyward, Ickey Woods, and Tony Jeffery)

 

[NewEra]

If we lock him up:  He’ll be worth it if we win a Super Bowl.  If we don’t, he won’t be worth it.  

[Bill from NYC]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

Gotta be honest: Everyone but Bills fans probably looks at the 2017 Bills-Chiefs draft day trade as pretty serendipitous.

Bills trade the pick to the Chiefs that they use to take possible future GOAT Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes proceeds to win 3 championships and 3 Super Bowl MVPs before age 30 and singlehandedly prevents the Bills from advancing to multiple Super Bowls.

Serendipity.

 

Hey, at least we were able to draft CB Tre White instead of Mahomes. You see? There IS always a silver lining. 

[TBBills Fan]

1 hour ago, Logic said:

Pac Man, is that you? 

Pac man can't spell splendid

[Old Coot]

1999 Draft. Saints have the no. 12 pick. Their coach trades ALL of the Saints '99 picks and two of their first three picks in the 2000 draft for Texas running back Ricky Williams.

 

Ditka is fired after the Saints struggle. Ricky plays three years for the Saints and then is traded.

 

Read about it here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Williams_trade

[Big Turk]

3 hours ago, Steve O said:

Passing on Brian Orakpo to draft Aaron Maybin. What a great first step he had!

 

But we drafted him for his rapping and painting skills!

[Big Turk]

My favorite Draft Day moment? Of course it's...

 

Edited 13 hours ago by Big Turk

[MarkyMannn]

2002 I get tickets from work to attend the draft in the Jim Kelly suite. We draft Mike Williams and 20 minutes later trade for Drew Bledsoe.  The mood there is Super Bowl!!! 

 

Years later I realize I had a front row seat to one of the darker moments of the Bills history

Edited 12 hours ago by MarkyMannn

[Don Otreply]

2 hours ago, davefan66 said:

Love the Elway drama. As one of the first years I watched the draft, it helped make me more interested in the draft.  Also, the Manning/Rivers draft.

 

Not really draft, but related. Jim Kelly leaving Buffalo at the alter…

 

Jim Kelly in town to sign after the draft.  Bruce Allen of the USFL calls the Bills offices and the secretary gives the call to Kelly’s agent and tells him not to sign. Jim leaves and the rest is history.  I do believe his years in the USFL helped make him a better NFL QB, specially in the K Gun.

Yup, that’s top shelf Billsy right there,

[Wizard]

The most serendipitous draft moment for me was CJ Spiller. Ben Rapelisberger had just gotten in trouble in a Nevada hotel (I lived about an hour away at the time).

 

The Steelers were contemplating trading Ben because of this incident as well as I believe his near fatal motorcycle accident.

 

The Bills reached out (allegedly) to offer their first round pick (I believe #9) and the Steelers were seriously considering it. We ended up drafting Spiller.

 

I would have liked to have seen how that potential trade would have played out rather than "Spiller" being what the Bills felt was a "can't miss prospect."

 

Spiller was another major reach by Buffalo in the drought era and it is possible the team could have got 6-8 years from a HOF level (I don't like Big Ben) quarterback.

Edited 9 hours ago by Wizard

[MarkyMannn]

6 hours ago, davefan66 said:

Not really draft, but related. Jim Kelly leaving Buffalo at the alter…

 

Jim Kelly in town to sign after the draft.  Bruce Allen of the USFL calls the Bills offices and the secretary gives the call to Kelly’s agent and tells him not to sign. Jim leaves and the rest is history.  I do believe his years in the USFL helped make him a better NFL QB, specially in the K Gun.

Probably Bills solution to all this was to fire the secretary 

[The Jokeman]

1 hour ago, MarkyMannn said:

Probably Bills solution to all this was to fire the secretary 

Actually not signing Kelly allowed us to bottom out and draft Bruce Smith a few years later. 

 

In terms of serendipitous the trade of OJ Simpson to the 49ers lead to us to taking Tom Cousineau first overall in 1979 who eventually was traded to Cleveland for 1st in 1983 lead to us drafting Jim Kelly. 

[Doc Brown]

12 hours ago, Logic said:

Gotta be honest: Everyone but Bills fans probably looks at the 2017 Bills-Chiefs draft day trade as pretty serendipitous.

Bills trade the pick to the Chiefs that they use to take possible future GOAT Patrick Mahomes. Mahomes proceeds to win 3 championships and 3 Super Bowl MVPs before age 30 and singlehandedly prevents the Bills from advancing to multiple Super Bowls.

To add a little salt to the wound, in the 2024 the Bills trade their 1st round pick to the Chiefs AGAIN, who then take Xavier Worthy, who then makes a substantial offensive impact for the Chiefs in the AFCCG, where they beat the Bills, whose rookie WR does bupkis.

Serendipity.

 

That's true.  If we just used all that draft capital the following draft to draft Josh Rosen at least we'd suck for a few years, pry be on to another coach/gm or two, and would pry be looking at 16 1:00 games next year with are stadium being renovated.  

 

I'll take the four losses to KC before that scenario.

10 hours ago, Old Coot said:

1999 Draft. Saints have the no. 12 pick. Their coach trades ALL of the Saints '99 picks and two of their first three picks in the 2000 draft for Texas running back Ricky Williams.

 

Ditka is fired after the Saints struggle. Ricky plays three years for the Saints and then is traded.

 

Read about it here:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricky_Williams_trade

Maybe I'm just getting old but I'm pretty sure most football fans are well aware of Ditka giving up all his picks to draft Ricky Willams and then just golfed the rest of the draft.