Joshua Palmer is Officially on Notice After the Bills' Draft, Even If No One Is Saying It

The veteran wide receiver was added as a big piece to Buffalo's passing game last season, but things haven't gone as planned.

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Joshua Palmer reaches out for the ball at Bills Training Camp at St. John Fisher University in Pittsford on Aug.6, 2025. | Tina MacIntyre-Yee/Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

If you’ve been reading the tea leaves throughout the Buffalo Bills’ offseason, they have not shaped up in Joshua Palmer’s favor.

The Bills traded for DJ Moore, and the front office has consistently backed third-year wide receiver Keon Coleman, while Buffalo added rookie Skyler Bell in the fourth round of the draft and appears to have big plans for the youngster. A year after signing a lucrative free-agent deal with the Bills, Palmer could be on his way to being phased out of the team’s passing game.

Palmer struggled through an injury-plagued 2025 season, producing very few moments that inspired confidence for what’s to come in his second year in Buffalo.

A forgettable season

Buffalo Bills wide receiver Joshua Palmer (5) runs the ball against Baltimore Ravens cornerback Nate Wiggins (2) during the fourth quarter at Highmark Stadium. | Gregory Fisher-Imagn Images

Palmer played in just 12 games during his first season with the Bills, recording 22 receptions for 303 yards while going without a touchdown. He was on the field for 49% of the Bills’ offensive snaps, which was his lowest snap share since his rookie season with the Los Angeles Chargers.

The 26-year-old was lost due to an ankle injury during the Bills’ Week 6 loss to the Atlanta Falcons, when, coincidentally enough, he was brought down by Dee Alford, who was signed by the Bills in free agency this offseason to be their new starting nickel cornerback. Palmer was placed on Injured Reserve and went on to miss Buffalo’s next three games, then later missed Weeks 13 and 14. He was again placed on IR before the Bills’ playoff run, sidelining him for matchups against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos.

As a result of his failure to latch on during his first season with the team, the Bills went out and addressed one of their biggest roster holes with which they entered the draft. After adding Moore and Bell, and with the budding confidence in Coleman that the team has relentlessly professed, Palmer is looking more and more like the odd man out in the pecking order within Buffalo’s aerial attack.

At the end of the day, there are only so many targets to go around, and Palmer is likely to be the one left starving for opportunities when the team takes the field for training camp this summer.

Costly whiff

Bills wide receiver Joshua Palmer pulls in a pass on a crossing route during the second day of Buffalo Bills training camp at St. John Fisher University Thursday, July 24, 2025 in Pittsford. | Shawn Dowd/Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Bills signed Palmer to a three-year, $36 million contract last offseason in an effort to bolster a wide receiver corps that had taken a noticeable step back after the team traded away Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans.

It’s unlikely Buffalo can move on from Palmer this season, as he holds a $14.2 million dead cap charge if the team were to release him, according to Spotrac. However, it would cost the Bills just $4.8 million to do so in 2027. He has the Bills’ fifth-highest cap hit in 2026 at $11.75 million.

Despite being one of the team’s highest-paid players, he accounted for just 14.3% of the passing-game production from Buffalo wide receivers a season ago. Expect that number to drop this year, as Palmer is now on notice.

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