A Dayton Daily News report from Carlos Holmes indicates that the Buffalo Bills hosted South Florida defensive end Jason Pierre-Paul on a pre-draft visit this past Monday.
This news coincides nicely with a March 18 report, courtesy Russ Lande at The Sporting News, that the Bills were looking hard at some of the draft's top pass rushers with the No. 9 overall pick.
Blessed with phenomenal athletic gifts, Pierre-Paul remains one of the draft's biggest boom-or-bust prospects. He has just one year of Division I ball under his belt, as he's a junior entrant who spent his first two collegiate years playing at the JUCO level. Pierre-Paul picked up 6.5 sacks, 16.5 tackles for loss and 45 tackles in 13 games as a junior at South Florida, and that production, coupled with that aforementioned athleticism, caused his draft stock to soar.
Pierre-Paul did not start playing football until his junior year of high school, so there will likely be a steep mental hill to climb for the athletic prospect as well. Pierre-Paul measured in at 6'5", 270 pounds at the NFL Combine, ran a 4.69-second 40-yard dash, 35-inch arms, 10.4-inch hands (an important factor for defensive linemen), and is really, really good at backflips.
Teams view JPP as capable of adding weight and playing down in a 4-3 scheme, or shedding a few pounds and playing OLB in a 3-4, which is obviously what he'd do in Buffalo. His potential is almost limitless, but like Aaron Maybin a year ago, there may be a degree of patience required for whichever team adds JPP to their roster.