The Buffalo Bills stayed put on Thursday night and at pick 30, selected Kentucky CB Maxwell Hairston. The speedy defensive back out of Lexington was seen as a Day 1-2 pick and had met with the Bills at both the NFL Combine and he was brought in for a Top 30 visit.
Hairston was named Second-Team All SEC in both 2023 and 2024 along with an honorable mention All American in 2023. He was also one of the fastest players at the Combine with a 4.28 40-yard dash, putting him in elite company. He was able to have such a great combine despite missing considerable time during the season.
Below is Maxwell Hairston’s publicly reported injury history and analysis.
Injury History
2022 Kentucky
Undisclosed injury, vs Vanderbilt, missed 1 game.
According to Hairston’s game logs, he missed the contest against Georgia in 2022. There are no reports of why he missed or what he was dealing with.
2023 Kentucky
No publicly reported injuries.
2024 Kentucky
Shoulder injury, vs Ohio, missed 5 games.
Hairston was forced to leave the contest against Ohio with a shoulder injury. This happened at some point during the second defensive series. He left the game for further assessment but was able to return late in the third quarter and secure an interception and return it for a touchdown. He was then forced to miss the next five games and seven weeks total.
Injury Analysis
The biggest issue that Hairston dealt with was his shoulder injury in 2024. There aren’t many details as to what the exact injury was but there are several clues as to what may have happened.
Here is the clip where both of his shoulders took most contact and then he exited for the final defensive series in the first quarter.
He was able to later return to the game in the third quarter and get a pick-six. He also did not have any notable braces or harnesses on his shoulder when he returned or later in the season.
Later reports had stated that he had to go to the hospital for further evaluation ahead of the upset win over Ole Miss the following week. He also described the injury as a freak accident and downplayed any durability concerns.
Not having the exact mechanism of injury or any additional details makes it incredibly difficult to clearly identify a risk. The reports also suggest he was in the hospital for several days as the Ohio game was on 9/21 and the Ole Miss game was played on 9/28 with Hairston texting his teammates to “continue to work.”
The initial thought was that he suffered a sternoclavicular joint sprain. However, he was able to return later to the Ohio game and potentially injured the shoulder in practice which led to the hospitalization. The video available doesn’t show much as to what could have possibly happened.
If this was a SC joint sprain that required further assessment due to an aggravation in practice, this would at least make sense to miss the extended time. In 2019, Tyreek Hill suffered a posterior SC joint sprain and missed four games before returning. In 2012, Danny Amendola suffered the same injury and missed three games. Both later required a brief hospitalization to correct the issue. Considering this was college, Hairston may have wanted to wait til he was fully healthy in order to mark his return to play especially with the Wildcats dealing with a losing record.
The one main upside is that this is not an injury that occurs frequently. In fact, SC joint sprains comprised only three percent of all shoulder injuries. There are certainly other possibilities but without more information, we are left guessing.
Buffalo Bills Injury Analysis
The Bills have historically shied away from picking injury risks in the first two rounds. I had initially thought Hairston was a risk due to the time missed in 2024. But if the Bills took him in the first round, then that means the shoulder checks out and is healthy. Brandon Beane even confirmed that on Thursday night.
This may have truly been a one-off injury and his other known medical history supports this. Overall, there aren’t any major faults in the Bills selecting Maxwell Hairston. New information could come out later but he didn’t appear to require surgery and nothing suggests that this is a worrisome issue.
I would like to wish Maxwell Hairston a warm welcome to the city of Buffalo and to remain healthy this season.
Top Photo Credit: SBNation.com
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