Bills GM touts untapped potential of intriguing WR: 'You see the speed'

Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane spoke highly of wide receiver K.J. Hamler during a recent podcast appearance.

Dec 13, 2020; Charlotte, North Carolina, USA; Denver Broncos wide receiver KJ Hamler (13) scores a touchdown in the third quarter at Bank of America Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports / Bob Donnan-USA TODAY Sports

Promising prospects who quickly fizzle out of the NFL are a dime a dozen given the extreme variables that go into constructing a successful professional football career; countless prospects with immense ability and potential are selected in each NFL Draft, the vast majority of them never reaching their projected ceilings due to situation, injury, or a combination of several factors both in and out of their control.

K.J. Hamler—as of right now—falls into this unfortunate category. Selected in the second round of the 2020 NFL Draft thanks to his speed and perceived positional versatility, the former Penn State Nittany Lion has struggled to make a consistent impact at the professional level, appearing in just 23 games for the Denver Broncos over his three seasons with the team. He caught 42 passes for 620 yards and three touchdowns, never playing a full season for the club.

Talent has never been Hamler’s issue—it’s been his availability. He appeared in just 13 games as a rookie, missing frequent time with a nagging hamstring injury. He showed signs of a year-two breakout before tearing his ACL early in the 2021 season, with hamstring injuries again plaguing his 2022 campaign. As if the in-season injuries weren’t enough, the injury bug bit Hamler hard in the 2023 offseason; he tore his pectoral muscle in the spring before being diagnosed with pericarditis—or inflammation of the sac surrounding the heart—that summer. The illness prompted his release from the Broncos.

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He spent the 2023 season as a member of the Indianapolis Colts practice squad, signing a futures contract with the Bills following the conclusion of the campaign. It’s an advantageous situation for Hamler, who has the opportunity to carve out a potentially meaningful role in a Buffalo receiving corps that recentered itself around youth and financial value in the offseason. At just 24 years of age and with a comparatively unique skill set, the idea of the wideout earning a spot at the bottom of the team’s depth chart is not egregious.

Drew Lock to K.J. Hamler for an 80 yard TD 🤯

(via @NFL)pic.twitter.com/jclEsFLcLn

— The MMQB (@theMMQB) August 14, 2021

Bills general manager Brandon Beane seems to share this sentiment. During a recent appearance on The Athletic Football Show, the executive spoke about the team’s recently adopted wide-net approach to the receiver position (likening the group to a Baskin-Robbins); he specifically mentioned Hamler, stating that the ability is there—if he can stay healthy.

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“K.J. Hamler is here competing,” Beane said. “He had the injury bug there a little bit, trying to see, we’ve really worked on him seeing if we can armor his body a little bit, show the durability. You see the speed, you do watching these guys run out here run on air in phase two. It’ll just be, is he able to keep himself healthy?”

Speed, an attribute specifically mentioned by Beane, has always been one of Hamler’s strengths; he reached a top speed of 21.76 miles per hour in the 2018 college football season (for reference, the top speed recorded in the NFL last season was 22.23 miles per hour).

It’s an element that can potentially set Hamler apart from his peers throughout spring and summer workouts—though Buffalo’s receiving corps possesses a bevy of skillsets, speed is an attribute it lacks in abundance, with Hamler and Curtis Samuel being its only two ‘speedy’ wideouts. If the fifth-year wideout is able to flash his wheels in the preseason, he could ultimately sneak his way onto the Bills’ active roster.