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New Buffalo Bills receiver Joshua Palmer had a simple reason for signing with the team located just a short distance from where he grew up in Brampton, Ont., and where his parents now live in Toronto.

It wasn’t so much proximity to his roots or even picking Buffalo because it’s a team knocking on the door to win a Super Bowl.

“They wanted me, and I had told my agent, I just want to go to a team that wants me,” the 25-year-old Palmer said this week, following practice during the team’s three-day OTA period. “They wanted to give me an opportunity, and I wanted the opportunity. I think it’s a perfect marriage.

“I think I bring versatility because I take a lot of pride in being able to do everything, play anywhere on the field.”

The Bills did indeed want Palmer as the primary addition to an offence that led the AFC in scoring a year ago, all while seeing one of the highest rates of man coverage from opposing defences.

Adding Palmer, a player with a reputation as an elite route runner with the ability to separate in either man or zone coverage, which should make him a frequent target in the Bills’ offence this season after signing a three-year $36 million deal back in March, half of which is guaranteed.

“He’s a very good route runner, good hands and he doesn’t have route indicators,” said Bills general manager Brandon Beane. “I feel like this offence uses guys being in the right position. It’s not always having to win one-on-one press as it is just understanding setting guys up and using leverage.”

Palmer should mesh well with the Bills' “everyone eats” philosophy when it comes to throwing the football, where players are targeted based on their ability to get open, not on their draft position, salary, or profile on the depth chart.

It’s an approach that paid dividends by keeping defences guessing about where Josh Allen would go with the football in any given game or any given play.

With the Chargers last season, Palmer caught 39 balls for 584 yards and one touchdown. He saw roughly half the number of targets as rookie Ladd McConkey and two-thirds as many as former first-round pick Quentin Johnston, who struggled with inconsistency securing the football.

“He’s been in an offence where there’s always been another guy, and we just felt like getting him here we could showcase him a little more,” Beane said. “He’s always been a player who’s intrigued me. He’s always looked like a smart player and I think he’s show that here in the spring.”

Palmer’s modesty and team-first attitude should also blend with Buffalo’s culture.

When it was suggested to Palmer this week that he brings elite route-running ability Buffalo, he doubled-down on his need to improve that aspect of his game, despite his success in that regard so far in his career.

“I pride myself on the routes that I run, so seeing it come to fruition on the field … there’s a still a lot to improve. A lot to improve in my routes, having more patience.”

Palmer may not have chosen Buffalo based on it being close to home but he’s taken advantage of the proximity, spending weekends with his parents throughout the off-season and making up for 11 years away that began when he left Brampton to finish his high school football career in in Florida.

Palmer grew up dreaming of playing in the NBA, playing community basketball with teammates that included Toronto Raptors star R.J. Barrett, among other elite prospects.

“I thought I was going to play in the NBA, but I stopped growing,” said the 6-foot-1 Palmer, who in his mid-teens pivoted back to football, a game he had picked up from his father, Keith, who had played at the University of Windsor.

Young Joshua would attend his dad’s touch football games, and also played on a kids team alongside John Metchie, a second-round NFL draft pick currently with the Houston Texans.

His success in high school earned him a scholarship to Tennessee from where he was made a 2020 third-round selection by the Chargers with whom he spent four seasons.

“I’m learning about the guys and how they think and how they act and how they respond to things, everyone’s humour, everything,” he said of his time so far in Buffalo. “It’s just a time of learning.

“Now it’s just getting used to [Josh Allen’s] tendencies, knowing where he’s going to throw the ball … what I have to do to get to help him get to where he wants to go.”