The veteran wideout is a big target who also does the dirty work on special teams
The Buffalo Bills have plenty of new faces at wide receiver this season. I’m sure that’s not the first time you’ve read something like that since the team signaled a change in direction by allowing Gabe Davis to sign with the Jacksonville Jaguars in March and trading star wideout Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans in April.
Rather than entering with a clear “alpha” in the room, it seems that the Bills are content to try to use the receiver room as a whole to their advantage. To borrow from Moneyball, they aren’t replacing Diggs, but they’re replacing him in the aggregate. That means that Buffalo will need contributions from all of the receivers on their roster at some point, and it also means that the competition for roster spots will be fierce this summer.
In today’s edition of “91 players in 91 days,” we profile a veteran who has shown some potential on offense over his career, but whose best work seems to come on special teams.
Mack Hollins
- Number: 13
- Position: WR
- Height/Weight: 6’4”, 221 pounds
- Age: 30 (31 on 9/16/2024)
- Experience/Draft: 8; selected in the fourth round (No. 118 overall) of the 2017 NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles
- College: North Carolina
- Acquired: Signed with Bills on 3/14/2024
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Hollins signed a one-year deal worth a total of $2.6 million. Of that total, the contract guarantees him $1.1 million. His cap hit for the 2024 season is $2.48 million.
2023 Recap: Hollins spent last season with the Atlanta Falcons, marking his fourth franchise stop of his NFL career. After a breakout season with the Las Vegas Raiders in 2022 where he set career highs in targets (94), receptions (57), yards (690), and touchdowns (4, which tied his previous career high set in 2021), he was less a part of the Falcons’ offense than he had been part of the Raiders’ offense.
In 13 games with Atlanta, he made three starts. Hollins was targeted 30 times in the passing game, and he caught 18 passes for 251 yards. He played on 37% of the Falcons’ special teams snaps, as well, where he contributed three tackles. He missed time with a sprained ankle, an injury which sidelined him for three games in the middle of the season.
Positional outlook: Hollins is one of 13 receivers vying for space on the roster this year. Keon Coleman, Curtis Samuel, Khalil Shakir, Andy Isabella, K.J. Hamler, Justin Shorter, Chase Claypool, Lawrence Keys, Xavier Johnson, Bryan Thompson, Tyrell Shavers, and Marquez Valdes-Scantling are the others.
2024 Offseason: Hollins is healthy and participated in all offseason work. He’s ready for training camp.
2024 Season outlook: Hollins is a pretty safe bet to make the roster given the guarantees on his deal, but I think that anyone expecting much production from him on offense would be making a very risky wager. He’s not someone who's ever earned much opportunity outside of special teams work, and his one solid year came when teams were essentially begging quarterback Derek Carr to throw it to Hollins instead of wide receiver Davante Adams.
This signing reminds me a lot of Andre Holmes, another former Raiders wideout who had a big catch radius and limited production on offense. He also had one “big” year with the Raiders borne more out of necessity than anything else (Holmes caught 47 passes on 99 targets for 693 yards and four scores in 2014 — the only season where he had double-digit starts for a 3-13 team with the NFL’s worst offense).
Hollins feels like a firm WR5 on the roster behind Coleman, Shakir, Samuel, and Valdes-Scantling. Perhaps he’ll see work in specific goal-line packages or as the designated blocking receiver on run downs, but I can’t imagine a scenario where it’s good for Buffalo’s receiving corps if Hollins becomes a starter at some point this season.
Hollins is a talented gunner on special teams who might be able to contribute some on offense, but he isn’t someone the team is likely to rely on for offensive production once September rolls around.