Bills release UDFA tight end Jalen Wydermyer

The Buffalo Bills surprisingly released former Texas A&M tight end Jalen Wydermyer on Sunday, per Aaron Wilson of Pro Football Network. He went undrafted in the 2022 NFL Draft after he ran a surprisingly slow 40-yard dash at his pro day (5.03) and struggled with drops during his final season of college football with the Aggies.

As a freshman in 2019, Wydermyer caught 32 passes for 447 yards and six touchdowns. He then had nearly identical stat lines in 2020 and 2021, with 46 receptions for 506 yards and six touchdowns as a sophomore and 40 receptions for 515 yards and four touchdowns as a junior this past season. Overall, Wydermyer caught 118 passes for 1,468 yards and 16 touchdowns in his three-year collegiate career, averaging 12.4 yards per catch.

Coming out of Dickinson High School (Dickinson, Texas), he was rated as the No. 13 tight end in America and a four-star prospect, according to the On3 Consensus Rankings for the 2019 cycle.

The Bills have Dawson Knox and OJ Howard at the top of their tight end depth chart and it looks like Wydermyer will now be searching elsewhere for a new home in the National Football League.

Lance Zierlein’s Scouting Report of Jalen Wydermyer

Prior to the NFL Draft, draft analyst Lance Zierlein gave an in-depth look at Wydermyer’s status as a prospect in this year’s class. Zierlein thought that Wydermyer could have been taken as early as the sixth round, but he went undrafted.

“Productive three-year starter who failed to show much run-blocking and pass-catching development after his freshman season in 2019,” Zierlein said. “Wydermyer has NFL size, but pro teams will have a hard time ignoring his poor pro-day testing. The route work isn’t very crisp or explosive and he will likely wear NFL man coverage in short and intermediate routes.

“He’s athletic in the air and has jump-ball talent but needs to prove his 2021 drops were an outlier if he’s to be trusted by NFL quarterbacks. Wydermyer simply isn’t going to profile as an explosive athlete, so he’ll need to get much better as a run blocker.”

On3’s Jonathan Wagner also contributed to this article.