Bills Address Backup QB by Trading for Case Keenum
One of the best things Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane was able to do in what turned out to be a magnificent 2021 offseason was convince Mitchell Trubisky, an accomplished quarterback with a winning record and two career playoff starts under his belt, to come to Buffalo for a year at a below-market contract to back up Josh Allen.
Now that Trubisky has cashed in on that by getting a chance to become the next franchise quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers, it is clear that Beane won't be able to pull off a similar move this spring, even after trading a seventh-round draft pick to the Cleveland Browns for journeyman Case Keenum on Saturday, according to NFL Network's Tom Pelissero.
Keenum has played for seven teams in his nine seasons in the NFL, with a 29-35 record as a starter. However, he did have a breakthrough season with the Minnesota Vikings in 2017, leading them to the NFC Championship Game after finishing with career bests in completion percentage (67.6), yards (3,547), touchdown passes (22), and yards per attempt (7.4) in 14 regular-season starts.
"We're shopping, you know, `please come to us for as cheap as you can right now,' " Beane told reporters a day earlier about his search for a backup quarterback. "We're kind of telling people we're selling opportunity. Come here and we'll help you improve your value for next year. ... We're at the point where we can't really extend ourselves too much."
After his surprise splash move to add pass rusher Von Miller in free agency, Beane suggested they didn't have a lot of money left to spend on quarterback. Yet Keenum comes with an $8.4 million salary cap hit this season, according to Over the Cap.
That has to be worth it, though, to avoid the rumor that they might have had to go back to their 2020 backup, Matt Barkley, who's started just seven games in nine years, winning two, and has thrown twice as many interceptions (22) as touchdown passes (11).
If that prospect seemed scary, that's because it was.
Because of the way Allen plays, it's not a matter of "if" he will get injured but "when." Even if he suddenly stops running or scrambling as much as he's done, he's looking at the same inevitability.
Almost every quarterback, despite new rules being added every year to protect them, has to go through the process, regardless of their style. The longer they play, the more likely it is they will miss at least major portions of a season at some point.
Every Super Bowl-winning quarterback of this millennium save Eli Manning has missed games due to injuries. Most, like Tom Brady, Ben Roethlisberger, Peyton Manning and Nick Foles, have missed more than just a start or two and spent time on the injured reserve list.
Allen and the Bills have been fortunate that the many dings he's absorbed, including a concussion in 2019, have not prevented him from answering the bell each week. But the odds of that trend continuing get lower with every game he plays.
That's why the backup quarterback is so important and why they need an established veteran who's won more than two games in nine years to be ready to step in.
They were lucky they didn't have to plug Barkley in two seasons ago. they didn't want to have to take that gamble again.
Hence the high-priced insurance policy with a quarterback who at his best had his team on the brink of a Super Bowl.
Still, they could remain on the lookout throughout the preseason and even into the regular season for a better option.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
