Bills Needs List 2013 Includes Tight End, Says Buddy Nix

For weeks now - ever since he spoke candidly from the 2013 Senior Bowl in late January - Buffalo Bills GM Buddy Nix has maintained that his team's top three positional needs are quarterback, wide receiver and linebacker. That's not exactly a secret. Also not a secret: the fact that the team has needs beyond those three positions.

Chris Brown of BuffaloBills.com relays Nix's words from a radio interview in Knoxville, Tennessee on Tuesday, where he also admitted that the team "needs a young" tight end to play alongside Scott Chandler, who is coming off of a late-season ACL injury.

Chandler has had two solid (yet also unspectacular) seasons as Buffalo's starting tight end, catching 81 passes for 960 yards and 12 touchdowns in 29 games. He's entering a contract season, however, and the aforementioned injury throws a wild card into the equation; backup tight end Lee Smith is purely a blocker, despite the first two touchdowns of his career last season.

Buffalo has not drafted a tight end since 2009 (Nix was the Bills' national scout at the time), when the team selected Shawn Nelson out of Southern Miss in the fourth round. Plagued by injuries (mostly migraines), Nelson played only two seasons in Buffalo, recording 21 catches and one touchdown before his departure. He's now out of the league.

If you'd like to discuss tight end prospects in the 2013 NFL Draft, be sure to stop by this evening for our live draft chat with SBNation.com's Dan Kadar, which begins at 8:30 ET.