Bills Take Advantage of Roger Goodell’s Favoured IPP as Buffalo Adopts Chiefs ‘Playbook’ to Draft Travis Clayton

This year’s draft happened to be a historic one. It is safe to say that no one went home disappointed. The same might be the case with the Buffalo Bills, who surprisingly traded their pick to the Kansas City Chiefs but later came to grips by drafting Keon Coleman. Following in their rival’s footsteps, the Buffalo team went ahead and got themselves Travis Clayton.

But things are a bit different with Clayton because he’s never played football. He was selected as one of 16 players as part of the International Player Pathway program. But there’s a lot more to him than what people make of him. The NFL shared the news of his signing through their Instagram account.

The Buffalo Bills got out of their way with Travis Clayton

With pick no. 221, the Buffalo Bills selected O-Lineman from the UK. The NFL updated the fans on Instagram by writing, “With the 221st overall pick, the @buffalobills selected International Player Pathway graduate Travis Clayton 🇬🇧” There’s a video in the post that mentions that Clayton has a background in boxing, soccer, and rowing.

Clayton looks pretty agile during his workouts. The Buffalo Bills commented, “LET’S GO‼️” on the post and so did Louis Rees-Zammit, a rugby player out of the UK, who was signed by the Kansas City Chiefs about a month ago. Rees-Zammit wrote, “Let’s goooo 🔥.” But coming back to Clayton, he ran a 40-yard dash in 4.79 seconds.

Apart from his dealings with boxing and soccer, Clayton had been a former rugby player and his 40-yard time was faster than any O-Lineman ever had in the Combine in the last 10 years or so. “The league is really putting an emphasis on expanding the game,” Bills General Manager Brandon Beane said. “He’s obviously raw. We haven’t ever seen him truly play football. … His measurables are wowing – off the page.”

But Clayton still has a lot of hurdles to cross, just like the Chiefs’ Louis Rees-Zammit.

The Chiefs IPP moves

Clayton and Zammit’s situation is a bit weird at the moment. Though the players made it to the 90-man roster, they will still be scrutinized till the team has finalized the last 53. The ex-Welsh rugby union player still has a long way to go because he’s with the Kansas City Chiefs, a team that runs some of the most complicated plays.

There has been some scrutiny towards the RB prospect because he clocked decent speeds in the combine, but he failed to keep up with local prospects in terms of other metrics and aspects of the game. Rees-Zammit is ranked in the bottom 7% of the wide receiver prospects in terms of speed, size, and strength.

Things are a bit different for Clayton, though. It’s because he’s 6’7” and has a pretty agile body, as she showed his workouts in the combine. Hopefully, the Bills’ new Lineman thrives in the league.