Bills GM Brandon Beane Reveals Plans for Free Agency, Draft: 'Need to Hit This'
The Buffalo Bills may have wasted their best opportunity to win a Super Bowl. Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs were at their most vulnerable, had to play in Highmark Stadium, and were staring down the barrel of Josh Allen on a potential game-winning drive.
Needless to say, none of that matters. Buffalo’s season is over, which means there is only one thing to look to: next year. Maybe they’ll never have a better shot of beating Mahomes, but that doesn’t mean they can’t.
Continuing to keep the Super Bowl window open is a must with Allen under center. It would be irresponsible to suggest otherwise. But how that looks can be daunting. The Bills are aging, especially on defense, and their cap situation won’t get much better. The heaviest years of Allen’s contract are yet to come into effect.
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General manager Brandon Beane will have to balance talent retention and staying competitive with re-tooling and getting the cap into a healthier place. As heartbreaking as Sunday’s loss was, Buffalo wasn’t good enough to beat a weakened Chiefs team. Upgrades are necessary – finding them may prove to be difficult.
“I don’t get into that ‘window closing’ mindset … this is a quarterback league and I believe in the guy we got under center,” Beane said.
With that guiding principle overlooking the offseason, Buffalo will be tasked with taking on free agency with limited resources. It’s something the front office has to acknowledge, even if it means looking back on ill-advised contracts like edge rusher Von Miller’s six-year, $120 million deal. He did not record a sack this season.
“We’re going to be shopping at some of the same stores we were shopping at last year,” Beane said. “We’re not going to Main Street in New York City or wherever those high-end stores are.”
Last year’s free-agent haul was notoriously small, headlined by guard Connor McGovern’s deal worth $7.45 million per year. This time around, safety Micah Hyde, defensive tackle DaQuan Jones, edge rushers Leonard Floyd and A.J. Epenesa, and receiver Gabe Davis are the biggest names leaving town. There’ll be some effort to bring some combination of those esteemed Bills back to Buffalo, but they can get priced out by other contenders.
“We’ll work around it,” Beane said, regarding the cap situation. “We’re not planning on taking a year off from being competitive.”
They may not make any big splashes, but that doesn’t mean talent won’t be brought in. They’ll have to win on the margins of free agency and the waiver wire. Most importantly, Beane’s front office must do a better job in the 2024 NFL Draft.
This has been a noticeable shortcoming of the current administration and directly relates to the cap casualties quickly approaching.
“We need to hit this draft … if you don’t hit in the draft, when you get in this cap situation, it really shows,” Beane said.
Buffalo’s draft standing – starting with the 28th pick – is adequate in terms of total capital, though without a top pick, a blue-chip prospect won’t be an option.
This is the most important offseason of Beane’s tenure, and while draft picks shouldn’t be judged on their immediate impact, 2024 will serve as an inflection point for the Bills. If Allen and the Bills are going to get their Super Bowl, these next few months will be remembered as why.
