Bills' Future Salary Cap Update is Indictment on Brandon Beane’s Poor Roster Management

Free agency was a challenge for the Buffalo Bills due to a tough salary cap situation that was created by poor roster management over the past several seasons.

And things won’t get any easier for them next year.

According to Spotrac, the Bills are slated to be over the 2027 cap by about $33 million, which is the second-worst spot among NFL teams as it stands today.

Now, every year we see the Bills reach cap compliance through salary cap gymnastics. However, being in a position where they must do so time and again has prevented them from bringing in the wave of talent needed to reach and win a Super Bowl.

That’s an indictment of general manager/president of football operations Brandon Beane’s shoddy decision-making at many critical junctures while trying to make past improvements to the roster.

Free agency follies

While the Bills have brought in players this offseason who should improve their production at a few key positions, including wide receiver DJ Moore and edge rusher Bradley Chubb, fans were once again left thirsting for more early in free agency. There were bigger fish on the market, or perhaps simply additional pieces in the same realm as Chubb and Moore, whom the Bills could have acquired had they had more cap space to do so. But to no avail, as they just didn’t have enough to go on a spending spree in 2026.

The biggest swing and miss for Beane and the Bills recently has been signing WR Joshua Palmer to a three-year, $36 million deal last year. Palmer is set to carry an $11.75 million cap hit this season, which is the fifth-highest on the team and represents 3.9% of the Bills’ cap. For a player who is no more than a WR3 with a floor of being the team’s fifth wide receiver, Palmer’s salary is an anchor for a team that has no room to work.

The good news is that Palmer’s dead cap charge is a manageable $4.8 million in 2027, which creates the possibility of Buffalo moving on from him next year. Still, it will cost them.

Another mistake was an early extension for Terrel Bernard, whose production cratered immediately after he inked a four-year, $50 million deal last March. Bernard appeared in just 12 games due to injuries in 2025, and even when he was healthy enough to be on the field, he was eventually surpassed by veteran Shaq Thompson in the pecking order by season’s end. Bernard finished the year with just 65 tackles.

There is hope Bernard can improve in first-year defensive coordinator Jim Leonhard’s new system, but if things remain stagnant with the former third-round pick, he has an $11.1 million cap hit in 2027 to go with a $15.3 million dead-cap charge. Buffalo could potentially get out of his deal in 2028, but for the foreseeable future, Bernard presumably isn’t going anywhere.

Looking ahead

Chicago Bears wide receiver DJ Moore (2) warms up prior to the game against the Las Vegas Raiders at Allegiant Stadium. | Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images

As the Bills move forward into 2027, Moore’s contract will become the albatross. For a player who will turn 30 and has already experienced a relatively steep statistical decline, Moore will account for $28.9 million against the cap, which is 8.96% of the team’s projected space next year, per Spotrac. That will prove to be an untenable situation created by the Bills giving up too much, both in terms of a second-round pick and future financial commitment, to obtain the veteran pass catcher’s services.

After the draft, I feel a bit better about the move than I did at the time it was made. Still, I maintain that the money involved in the trade just never seemed right.

Defensive tackle Ed Oliver could become another problem, as his 2027 cap hit sits at over $28 million. Oliver couldn’t stay on the field in 2025 and has a chance for a bounce-back season in the upcoming campaign.

The 28-year-old agreed to restructure his contract to help create $10.3 million in cap space in 2026 and could be set to do something similar next year. He could also be up for an extension depending on his ability to rebound. That may also help ease Buffalo’s cap situation by spreading the financial commitment over future years, added to his current deal.

Neither player is a candidate for release in 2027 if things go south this year, as doing so with Oliver would create $22.6 million in dead cap, and Moore would carry over $33 million in dead cap.

Any way you spin it, Beane’s past decisions have put the Bills in a near-impossible salary-cap situation, creating a slim margin for error for this team moving forward. If things go wrong, as far as injury or otherwise, at the top of its depth chart, Buffalo does not have a boatload of adequate depth at several key positions and could be put into a deep hole with no available spending to dig their way out if the aforementioned players or others underperform for whatever reason this year.

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