The Bills have had one constant since 2018: Josh Allen. The part behind him has been much less settled. That is why a trade idea involving Kenny Pickett is worth more than it might seem at first glance, even if it would not touch Buffalo’s starting job at all. In a league where one injury can change everything, the backup quarterback spot is not a throwaway discussion.
At the moment, Kyle Allen is set to be the Bills’ backup quarterback, but Chris Landers of FanSided has proposed a deal that would send Kenny Pickett to Buffalo for a 2027 seventh-round pick. It is a low-cost move on paper, and that is the appeal. Buffalo would not be spending premium draft capital, but it would be adding another name into a competition that has long felt unsettled for a team built around Josh Allen’s stability.
Why the proposal exists
The logic is easy to understand. If the starter is among the most important players in football, the player behind him has to preserve the offense if called upon. The Bills have cycled through Matt Barkley, Mitch Trubisky, Kyle Allen and Case Keenum as backups to Josh Allen since 2018, which tells you the organization has never fully solved the role. That is not a catastrophic problem when the starter is healthy, but it is a real roster issue when the margin for error disappears.
Pickett’s current value also helps explain why the price is so modest. Landers argued that his stock could hardly be lower, pointing to a starting stretch in Pittsburgh that was largely disastrous and a recent two-year run that has looked replacement-level. For Buffalo, that creates a simple gamble: take a quarterback with some starting experience and see whether a change of environment unlocks more than the market currently expects.
What Kyle Allen’s presence changes
None of this means Kyle Allen is suddenly being pushed aside. In fact, his role makes the whole discussion more interesting. If he is already set as the backup, then any trade for Pickett would be about adding competition rather than crowning a new No. 2. That can be healthy. It keeps the spot from becoming automatic and forces the Bills to think about who gives them the best chance to keep the offense functional if Josh Allen ever misses time.
Kyle Allen’s 2019 season with the Carolina Panthers is part of why the conversation keeps circling back to him. He played in 13 games that year and threw for 3,322 yards with 17 touchdowns and 16 interceptions. Those numbers tell the story of a quarterback who could operate an offense, but also one who could put it in danger. That is the exact kind of profile that makes backup decisions matter in a contender’s building.
So the question is not whether the Bills are searching for a new starter. They are not. The question is whether they want to keep building the backup job around familiarity, or whether they prefer to add another layer of competition for a position that has never fully stabilized. In that sense, a trade for Kenny Pickett would not be a headline-grabbing overhaul. It would be a practical attempt to protect continuity, which is exactly what a good backup quarterback is supposed to do.
And for a team with Josh Allen at the top of the depth chart, that may be the most important detail of all.
