90 Buffalo Bills players in 90 days: WR Isaiah Coulter

The Buffalo Bills have revamped their wide receiver room over the course of general manager Brandon Beane’s tenure. Whereas the team had one of the league’s worst groups at the position throughout 2017 and 2018, the Bills have added an elite talent in Stefon Diggs and some other good players in Gabe Davis, Khalil Shakir, and others. That even omits players who are no longer with the team, like John Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, and Cole Beasley, who all raised the floor of the pass-catching group tremendously.

Despite what some of the pundits will spew for clicks in the offseason, the Bills are firmly in the midst of a championship window, so there isn’t too much room for unproven players to make the squad at key positions. Especially at wide receiver, the Bills can’t afford to waste an elite talent in quarterback Josh Allen by giving roster spots to unproven players at this moment.

In today’s edition of “90 players in 90 days,” we discuss one of Buffalo’s receivers — a long-shot to make the roster who holds some intriguing upside.

Name: Isaiah Coulter

Number: 82

Position: WR

Height/Weight: 6’2”, 198 pounds

Age: 24 (25 on 9/18/2023

Experience/Draft: 2; selected by the Houston Texans in the fifth round (No. 171 overall) of the 2020 NFL Draft

College: Rhode Island

Acquired: Signed reserve/futures deal with Buffalo on 1/9/2023

Financial situation (per Spotrac): Coulter signed his two-year contract upon the conclusion of Buffalo’s season last year. That two-year deal is worth a total of $1.855 million, of which $5,000 is guaranteed. Coulter carries a cap hit of $872,500 if he makes the roster, and the Bills are on the hook for a dead-cap charge of $5,000 if he’s released prior to Week 1.

2022 Recap: Coulter traveled quite a bit last season, as he began the year with the Chicago Bears. He had a rather productive preseason, as he was targeted 13 times in his three games, hauling in eight passes for 112 yards in those games. It wasn’t enough for him to make Chicago’s roster, though, and he was released on August 30. He signed with Chicago’s practice squad the following day, and while he was promoted to Chicago’s active roster on October 18, he didn’t appear in a regular-season game with the club. Chicago waived him on November 1. He then signed with Buffalo’s practice squad on November 3, but he only lasted with the team for a bit over a month, when the Bills waived him on December 9 without him ever participating in a game. He briefly signed with the Arizona Cardinals’ practice squad, spending three days in January as a member of the club, before he signed that reserve/futures deal with Buffalo.

Positional outlook: Coulter is one of 13 wideouts on Buffalo’s current roster. Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis, Khalil Shakir, Deonte Harty, Trent Sherfield, Justin Shorter, Marcell Ateman, Jalen Wayne, Bryan Thompson, Tyrell Shavers, KeeSean Johnson, and Dezmon Patmon are the others.

2023 Offseason: Coulter is healthy and participating in offseason workouts to date.

2023 Season outlook: Barring something very strange happening, Coulter is a camp body who’s auditioning for a spot on Buffalo’s practice squad or another team’s roster this summer. He does have some pretty great athleticism, having run a 4.45-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine in 2020. He also showed off a 36” vertical and a 10’1” broad jump.

While he may have low-end NFL production — and his college production is a bit skewed thanks to being a high-end athlete at a small school like Rhode Island — he does have some intriguing upside for a player in this position. In four NFL games, he’s only been targeted once, and he’s still looking for his first official NFL catch. With the Rhode Island Rams, he was an absolute beast, catching 132 passes for 1,855 yards and 12 touchdowns over the course of 34 games. That includes a final college season where he went 72/1,039/8 as a junior in 2019. The Bills could do much worse than a player like Coulter on their practice squad.