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Buffalo Bills get: RB Derrick Henry
Tennessee Titans get: RB Latavius Murray, 2024 second-round pick, 2024 fifth-round pick
The Buffalo Bills have been perceived as a Super Bowl contender for the better part of the last half-decade but have only reached the conference championship game once since drafting Josh Allen in 2018. While the team had plenty of firepower during last year’s regular season, it ran out of gas in the playoffs with the ground game notably stalling out.
The Bills largely failed to address that issue in the offseason and have come out of the gate in 2023 looking somewhat inconsistent on the offensive side of the ball. While Buffalo is averaging an impressive 374.8 yards and 28.8 points per game, respectively the No. 6 and No. 3 marks in the league, a closer look reveals that much of this production has come against weaker opponents.
The Bills ran up the score on the Las Vegas Raiders and Washington Commanders during the first month of the campaign—tallying up a combined 75 points in those games—and have just one truly impressive win under their belt this year in the form of a 48-20 victory over the Miami Dolphins. The team underwhelmed in a season-opening loss to the New York Jets and mustered just 20 points in a losing effort against the Jaguars in Week 5.
Buffalo even looked out of sync during its most recent win, narrowly scraping by the undermanned New York Giants by a slim 14-9 margin. That result should prompt Buffalo’s front office to become buyers at the deadline, as it’s becoming clear this unit needs some assistance if it is going to finally get over the hump and bring a Lombardi Trophy to western New York.
A lack of upper-echelon skill-position talent is hamstringing the Bills’ ability to become a consistently elite squad this year. While Stefon Diggs remains one of the league’s top wideouts and there’s hope that rookie Dalton Kincaid evolves into a top-tier tight end, the backfield lacks a standout star right now. James Cook hasn’t been bad by any means—he’s put up 363 yards and a score on 75 carries while chipping in another 140 yards on 14 receptions—but the second-year rusher isn’t yet on the level of truly elite talents like Derrick Henry.
Cook isn’t getting much help either. Latavius Murray has surprisingly emerged as the second-most productive back on this roster during a resurgent season, but he still has just 131 yards and two scores across 31 carries.
Trading for Henry would give Buffalo one of the most potent running back platoons in the league. He’d add the edge and depth that the team needs to keep pace with the surging Dolphins, a squad that leads the league in rushing by a wide margin right now. Miami has used that strength to reach the top of the AFC East standings at 5-1, and the Bills cannot afford to squander the tiebreaker advantage they currently have over their rival.
While the Bills aren’t flush with cap space—they have just under $2 million available—they could make a Henry trade work with some creative maneuvers. Shipping over Murray would both clear up a roster spot and take some salary off the books while giving Tennessee a veteran replacement for Henry. The rest of the cap room required could be made up for in the form of various restructures, cuts and through negotiations with the Titans to assume some of the financial burden.
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