'My chip is deeper:' Our 1 on 1 with Bills GM Brandon Beane
What an offseason it's been. DJ Moore, Bradley Chubb, the 2026 draft. The Buffalo Bills boss details his thinking behind all roster construction. And, yes. He knows there's pressure to win it all.
ORCHARD PARK, NY — Emotions have been spiking to histrionic extremes. From the moment one football shifted from the hands of a Buffalo Bills wide receiver into the hands of a Denver Broncos defensive back, and this team lost in OT, it’s been loud. Very loud. Right through the firing of one longtime head coach and the hiring of a new one. But it’s those emotions that also make pro football unlike any sport in the country.
Especially in title-starved Western New York.
Because here’s the funny thing.
On the most important point, Brandon Beane is one of you. Beane agrees with his constituents 100 percent. The president of football operations central to everything inside this building views a trip to the Super Bowl as the full expectation this 2026 NFL season. It’s all he thinks about. The last time we sat in this room, Beane used knifing language to drive this point home. He had just hired Joe Brady as head coach. I brought up the fan reaction. “If I’m wrong, the moving company will be at my house,” he said then. He knew he’d regret choosing anyone else to appease the outside. It wasn’t about winning a press conference. “It’s about winning games over there,” he said, pointing toward the new stadium.
Win, and fans will cheer.
Winning is all that matters for a team that’s been in the playoffs eight of the last nine years.
Then, it was time for Beane to work on this roster.
It’s been three months. Now that free agency and the draft have passed, Go Long sat down with Beane again to discuss all changes to personnel. Among topics discussed:
DJ Moore. A year ago, the GM strongly defended the WR room as constructed. This offseason, he wasted no time chasing a new No. 1. What changed? What made Moore the target?
Draft philosophy. As suggested ‘round here, the Bills could’ve hunted down a premium talent at the top of the draft. Instead, they traded down. Why?
2026 draftees. Insight into what made T.J. Parker, Davison Igbinosun, Jude Bowry and Skyler Bell the Bills’ top four selections. Clemson pass rushers haven’t exactly panned out in the pros — what makes Parker different?
Cornerback. It was always more of a need than we thought and Igbinosun was the pick. One trait particularly stood out. (“If he walked in and Deion Sanders was at corner, and he was behind him, he would have the mindset: ‘I’m going to beat him out.’”)
Hits and misses. What are the draft lessons learned through both? (Hint: Finding the correct DNA is not easy.)
New vets on D. One specific game last year told Beane everything he needed to know about Bradley Chubb. (“Character is revealed not when things are going well. True character is revealed when things aren’t.”) The Bills welcome CJ Gardner-Johnson’s energy and hope its contagious. Dee Alford’s rise in the sport is unique.
Keon Coleman. Turns out, Beane wasn’t BS’ing when he (repeatedly) backed the former 33rd overall pick. Teams reached out on the receiver’s availability and the Bills shut those talks down. Who’s the Keon Coleman that Beane sees others may not?
Most of all, we get a peek inside the GM’s mind. This marks his 10th year at the helm. Such a year… to year… to year climb takes a toll. But more than ever, he’s refusing to shut it off at home. He’s still the Dad who refused to let his kids win in sports.
Nor is Beane oblivious to criticism outside of these walls.
You’ll want to stick around for his perspective on it all.
One objective stays at the forefront of mind.
Go Long subscribers can access our hourlong Q&A conversation below.
We are fueled completely by you.
You’re able to take a deep breath now. It’s been nonstop. I was going to say since the season ended, but it really has been since training camp.
Beane: They call this the “offseason.” It’s really not. There’s a lot of names for it. I just call it the “roster-building season” once the season’s over. That always starts with staff changes. If you change a coordinator or whatever. Obviously this year we had a change of head coach, which meant a full staff change. But it’s nonstop when the season ends. Definitely through the draft. At this point, other than rookie camp, you get your weekends back, which is nice. So you’re at least back to Monday through Friday life for a little bit. We try to really get this team — while they’re here training, plus making sure if we need to swap anybody out and we feel like somebody’s not working or they’re not what we thought they were — let’s make sure we get this 90-man roster as deep and competitive as we can.
I was trying to put myself in your shoes. It’s been a decade. These have been heartbreaking playoff losses. I know the schedule keeps rolling, one thing into the next, but that can’t be easy. The other day, I’m sitting in my living room and we’ve got this robin that keeps bashing its head on our window. We’ve tried everything and it’s still bashing. I’m thinking, “I wonder if Brandon feels like that.” You’ve been right on the doorstep. How do you handle that emotion through all this?
Beane: Listen, as a competitor, you always want to win. And if I shoot a bad round of golf, it’s like, “Alright, what did I do wrong? What could I do better? Where do we need to focus on? What do we need to practice? What do we need to do?” The only way to go is be honest about it and then keep moving and try to find ways. You’ve got to be better, so you’re hopefully helping to make your group better. And that’s the challenge to all of our staffs — whether it’s the trainers, equipment guys, the scouts. All of us. To win a title, everyone’s got to be on accord. Yeah, you’ve got to get a bounce of a ball here or there. And sometimes maybe it could have been just that, but you’ve got to control what you can control and try and compartmentalize that. I internalize it as my chip is deeper, my hunger is burning even more. And not that I was ever not working long hours. But I find myself, even at home, I struggle to turn it off. Even more now than when I took the job.
What does that look like? How so?
Beane: You’re constantly trying to find an inch here, an inch there to help put your team over the top. And you become wiser on things. And so you say, “You know what? I need to spend a little more time with this person. Even though that’s not necessarily in my daily calendar to do that, that can help this team.” Anything that can help this team. “You know what? I need to get on the phone. Even though I’m at home, I need to get on the phone with a couple of people — I didn’t have time (earlier) today — to discuss some things.” You can sit for hours. But where I find myself going into Season 10. It’s like this thing, “work smarter, not harder.” I do want to work smart, but I think it’s the competitive drive. Joe’s been using it, and I agree with it, to the team: competitive stamina. Keeping that going.
Listen, no one’s more angry that we haven’t got it done at myself than me. And I’ll always be that way. I don’t need outside motivation. I don’t need that. If we go in there right now and we play ping-pong, I’m going to try and whip your ass. And if you beat me, I’m going to try and figure out what you did and how you beat me. And I’m going to tell you to get your ass back over here soon and we’re going to come back at it until I can beat you. And so as long as Terry Pegula and the Pegula family allows me to do this job, that’s what it’s going to be.
Philosophically into this draft, obviously everybody’s trying to get inside your head. How are you approaching this? We’ll get into DJ Moore. You used your second-round pick on a wide receiver before the game of musical chairs started. But you could have gone the other direction. If you have X amount of first round grades, I don’t know how many did you have?
Beane: I’m not going to say the number, but it wasn’t enough.
You could say, “Do I package these picks to get that one premium player who might be the difference? Who might have star potential?” Howie Roseman and the Eagles did that this year with Makai Lemon, and he’s done it in the past.” You traded back three times and take T.J. Parker. Then you come up to take a corner. What went into that decision to not move up the board for one of those guys and matriculate the way you did?
Beane: Part of it is the assets you’re going in with and where do you have to move and who is that guy? We don’t have a second. So you have a late third. To move 10 spots, it’s probably going to cost you your third, fourth, fifth. We’ve got more holes. That one player, he can’t play corner, he can’t provide a rush, you can’t do it all.
You could trade a first next year. Go to that extreme.
Beane: Yeah, you can do all that stuff. There’s all different ways and there’s no right or wrong way. It’s just how we view this draft and where this roster is. And again, that’s the decision that I believe was best for this team. When you make moves to go back, you still don’t know exactly what’s going to be there. You have some ranges where you think the grade-level of players will be, based on how you’ve built your board. And that was the calculus in making these moves. Understanding the board. Understanding the league and where we thought the value of this draft would be. And we thought there was value in the middle rounds of this draft. And so when we started on Saturday, we had five picks in the fourth and fifth round, including the first pick of the day. We started the draft with three picks in the top 126, and we turned that into five picks in the top 126. And so the reason we thought that is some of the players that we’re able to come away with.
Now, time proves. The answer to the test is in the coming years. Was there one player that we think would have made this vast difference that could have covered up our need at a multitude of positions? Not only just for this season, but for years to come. We have to constantly be looking at not only what do we need now but what do we need in ‘27, ‘28? Whose contracts are we no longer going to be able to afford? Whose career arc is starting to go the other way? Who has injury issues that people on the outside may not even know that we’re not sure if they have more than two years left to play. So that’s the game I’ve got to play here in trading a bunch of future assets. To me — as long as we have Josh Allen — we want to go into every year with a legit chance to compete for a championship. And you know, I think we could jeopardize that if we got too crazy. I’ll trade anything. I ain’t afraid to do that. To me, I don’t want to be reckless. And that’s the balance you’re weighing. I want to be aggressive. I always want to be aggressive, but I don’t want to cross that line to being reckless.
You have been aggressive. You did something before anybody in the NFL did anything at wide receiver with DJ Moore. Trading the second for the fifth. Paying him $27.5 million a year. This is a big-time move. What made him your target?
Beane: I thought DJ, he’s a guy we followed all the way back from the draft process. A guy I checked into at the trade deadline last year. And of course when you’re looking at options and you’re talking through, Joe Brady quickly reminds you, “Yeah, he had one of his better years with me in Carolina.” He really loved DJ. So he knows his makeup, his wiring even better than I know it to be because mine is from what I understand of him and from the people I know in Carolina and from the people through the draft process at Maryland. But his skillset, he’s been a No. 1. Some people may say “His production dropped. He’s not a No. 1.” There’s probably 1As, 1Bs. Where is he in that? I don’t know. I’m not going to worry about that. What I know is he’s a player that still has plenty of talent. His production dropped, but you don’t see a drop in his speed, in his athleticism, his hands, his ability to run routes. And I would emphasize if you watched a lot of his targets a lot of his production came in “got to have it” moments. The ball seemed to go his way. And so all of that told me that this guy can still help us now. And it’s not like it’s a one-year rental. He can help us now and for the foreseeable future.
You can look at his numbers and you can look at his age (29) and think he’s a declining player. But when you really look at it, he was kind of getting phased out. Maybe the ball was a little inaccurate those first three quarters of the game. How deep did you dive into, “Where is DJ Moore right now at his point of his career?” Because wide receivers — when they kind of tilt past 30 — you don’t know where it’s going to go.
Beane: We watched a ton of his play when he’s not even getting the ball. What does he look like? Was he open? Is he beating routes or is he now struggling to beat press coverage? All the things that you’re going to ask him to do. We saw no decline in his play. We know he’s football smart. We know his DNA. We know he loves ball. We know he’s a great teammate. He checked a lot of boxes. And then when you look at what your options are in free agency, and then you look at how things stack in February and early March on your draft board. At that time, it’s not a final draft board, but you do take inventory of your draft board at all positions as you look across your board where you want to improve your roster. I felt like at Pick 60, there’s not going to be a guy like DJ Moore hanging around. And not only that, we got a fifth-round back for it that, again, we thought there was going to be value in this draft still in the fifth round. Time will tell, but it made too much sense when you put it all together to not make the move for DJ.
The way one of his wide receiver coaches explained his game was that he’s “unconventional” as a wide receiver because he can do a million different things and that works well with an unconventional quarterback. With Josh. Is there something to that?
Beane: There probably is. You can use him on screens. You can use him vertically. You can use him all over the field. It’s not like teams can do one thing and necessarily take what he does best away. And the longer he has that skillset, the more teams will have to gameplan against him. And that’s what you want. When you look at a player, one of the first things you ask about a skill player is — and skill can be rushers, too — “Is this a guy that we have to gameplan for? Is this a gameplan guy?” You have to know when DJ Moore is in the game and where he’s at on the field. You’re only going to have so many of those on your roster, but we think we added a guy that opposing teams are going to have to say, “We need to know where he’s at.”
One year ago, we sat here and talked about “everyone eats.” You believed you had enough weapons. Is this what you realized over the last 365 days? That you need that dude who people need to gameplan for? Nut-cutting time. January. Third down.
Beane: Yeah. You want guys that — when it’s third down — A, have the ability. And B, don’t shy away from it. They want the ball. To use a basketball term. They want the ball in their hands at the end of the game. We all know our quarterback thrives with the ball in his hands. You want to give him as many other weapons in “gotta have it” moments like what we saw the Bears doing. He thrives in that situation.
So at No. 35, you go TJ Parker. You passed on two nose tackles that some folks hypothesized, hand up, you might take. What made him the pick? What do you love most about TJ Parker?
Beane: He’s a three-down player. We think he has shown plenty of rush. His sack production was down this year, but that can be for a lot of reasons. You don’t want to overreact to that. We did a two-year study on a number of these rushers and D-Lineman in this draft — outside ‘backers now in our new system. And when you look at that, you saw a guy that can play three downs, can play the run, can help you get there. It’s like receiver. There’s some where these guys are, they’re like DPRs (designated pass rushers): super fast, get off the ball, maybe they’re a tick higher as a rusher, but they don’t provide three-down value. And we wouldn’t have shied away from some of those guys. But you have to get to third down before you can rush. And I think not only does TJ help you get to third down, he’s strong, he plays physical, can play through. He doesn’t always have to win by going around. He can win with some speed. But he’s got speed to power. He’s got a three-down skillset. No matter when he’s on the field, he can help you get off or ultimately create a turnover if you get a sack-fumble.
A military kid.
Beane: Yep, military family. His dad’s from North Carolina. He grew up in Alabama and said he was down to Auburn or Clemson. Those were his two. We did a lot of background on all these guys. But with him, we really felt good with the makeup, the character, the work habits. And feel like adding a guy like him, you can’t have enough players like that. A perfect guy here that we added this offseason is Bradley Chubb. And Chubb was a captain in Miami. So you’ve got a guy right there for this guy to learn from and grow and help acclimate to the NFL game.
I didn’t realize he had more TFLs than games played — 41 1/2 and he played in 39 games. But Bob McGinn at our site did a story once talking to a lot of scouts about the “Clemson Curse.” A lot of these pass rushers, and not just pass rushers. A lot of players coming through Clemson haven’t necessarily panned out in the pros. It’s not fair to TJ or anybody to pigeonhole and say…
Beane: You’ve got Dexter (Lawrence) and Wilkins and they’ve had some guys. The Terrell brother in Atlanta, we’ll see about the other one that just got taken there. There is definitely a Clemson label. And it does make you check any time something doesn’t work somewhere. But no, we feel like this young man has the DNA, the mindset that can be successful here.
You do need to do your own digging because — when he’s talking to NFL teams — Dabo Swinney tends to say a lot of really nice things about everybody.
Beane: They’re always recruiting. That’s their job. I would probably do the same thing.
When you get to know a guy, teams all do it differently. We’re hearing after the draft how secretive the Rams were with Ty Simpson, whereas other teams don’t give a damn. Bring him in on the visit, tell the world we like this guy and maybe people think it’s a fake. Or a fake on a fake. When you’re digging into somebody, do you concern yourself with outside perception and what teams might be thinking as you bring somebody in on a visit, as you’re talking to a guy a lot?
Beane: Listen, if there was a player that I’m like, “If anyone ties us to this player, we’re going to lose him” — for whatever reason — then, yeah, I understand the Ty Simpson thing. But us picking at 26, to me, we had plenty of ways we could go with that pick. We were truly trying to take the best player. The best player overall that we could take to help this team. And so it didn’t have to be on defense, it didn’t have to be on offense. And so truly at 26 in this draft, I couldn’t have told you before it started which way it was going to go. Because you don’t truly know how it’s going to fall. And there were guys that we’re like, “Maybe he could fall, maybe not” on the offensive side. Defensive side, same thing. You set your board and you let the board talk back to you as the picks are coming off of what you need to do and that’s where we made the decision to move back.
Sometimes, it’s staring at everybody and we don’t really realize it. Like cornerback. At Kansas City, Christian Benford goes down with another concussion. They go right after Kaiir Elam. At Denver, Tre’Davious White goes down and they go after Dane Jackson. And that’s after they go after Darnell Savage. And Tre White played 71 percent of your snaps originally. That wasn’t the plan. So this was a position of major need all along.
Beane: I was unaware that people were like, “What are they doing?” I mean, we’re adding good football players. But I’m not going to put a billboard out and say our No. 1 need is corner. But the position coming into the draft that I was most unnerved about, or keeping me up, was corner. We’ve had playoff losses for various reasons. We haven’t lost these games for the most part, for one thing or another. People may say you lost this game for an official’s call or the spot. Well, maybe if we did something else earlier different it doesn’t come down to that play or this play. If you go back and look, how many playoff games here were we playing with the corners that were the penciled-in starters at the beginning of the year? And what you can see is that very good quarterback play with bright offensive minds — which generally goes a long way in the playoffs — if you’ve got a weakness out there on the perimeter, those are the hardest people to hide. And you can probably hide one a little bit. You get two, you’ve got no chance to hide ‘em. And so that’s where you almost have to look at your third corner, he’s going to start games for you. He may play big games for you. Even if he’s not a starter, you need to have the best thing you can available because you can play a great season, you can go 14-3, but if you’re down one of your guys, that could be the reason you lost when you had everything else mapped out the way you wanted.
And Davison Igbinosun, he’s got some attitude. He said, “I tackle with my whole life.” It seems like he’s got an edge and you need that out there. Did you like that spunk to him?
Beane: Definitely. The DNA of him, you watch his play, you put him where you put him. But the DNA and doing the research, I was at Ohio State’s pro day, so I was able to firsthand talk to his coaches and people around the program. And we already had him on a 30 visit — I probably didn’t need that at that point, but we already had him scheduled. Let’s let the rest of the building meet him more. But what kept resonating is football character, football DNA. This guy eats, sleeps, breathes the sport and the competitiveness. If he walked in and Deion Sanders was at corner, and he was behind him, he would have the mindset: “I’m going to beat him out.” That’s going to be his mindset. And you don’t do anything to get in the way of that. Let the chips fall where they fall. Competition. Rising tides lift all boats. He’s going to add competition to our room and he’ll make Christian and Maxwell and everyone else in that room even better.
Was there a conversation there at the pro day with a coach? A story that resonated with you?
Beane: I talked to Coach Day a little bit about him. (Former Steelers GM) Kevin Colbert does some consulting at the program. I’ve been around him some and he really spoke very highly of his character and just affirmed a lot of things we heard from the scouts.
If you want to get creative on defense — wreak havoc, a lot of different moving parts — does it help to have a combative cornerback on the boundary?
Beane: At the end of the day, we weren’t just looking for one skillset. He is a bigger, longer cornerback. It wasn’t that, “Hey, we have to have this.” We put him where his value was. We were excited that he was available. But there were other corners who have a different skillset that were attractive also. Guys that we thought with the skillset they have could come in and be guys that, if you need them to start, you’re not going to have a significant drop-off. He kind of fell into that bucket.
Jermod McCoy fell obviously — with the bone plug. I’ve never heard of that. His knee, I imagine you guys looked into it pretty deep because he was sitting there as well. You weren’t alone. The entire league passed him over more than anyone expected. What is the process that goes into that? How do you weigh the pros and cons when you’ve got a really talented cornerback and this health unknown? This was a chance you did not take. You traded the pick to the Raiders.
Beane: You meet on these guys medically every year. You’re mitigating risk in everything you do. Every player comes with risk. Risk that they’re not good enough. Risk that they don’t love it enough. Risk that, in this case, there’s medical concerns. How much is the risk? Is the risk a one-year risk? Is the risk that he’ll never — and I’m talking about any player — is the risk that the player will not make four years of a deal. OK, well, some guys won’t make four years of a deal because they’re not good enough. So you’re weighing all that and you put players on the board. And sometimes there’s guys who medically you have to take off. Sometimes there’s guys medically you lower on your board, which in this case, Vegas showed that they lowered him on the board. He’s a very high talent. Every pick has some type of risk.
I’m not a doctor. We have excellent doctors and we trust what these guys say and their opinions. I don’t want to get into a specific player. But with any player, we make determinations where we’re comfortable with the risk of that player. And you’re also weighing that player’s risk vs. what else is on the board at the time. And saying, “You know what? That player has this risk, this player’s on the board.” So you do that with every pick. But even if you get to a medical decision in the draft of, “Hey, we dropped this player because of this. Talent-wise, what we saw in film is here, but what our docs may be telling us is maybe the talent is down closer to here,” for this position of wide receiver or whatever you want to go to.
But you’re going to bed that night before Day 3 of the draft knowing it’s going to be Jude Bowery?
Beane: We had a list of names in a similar vein, but I would say from a position premium like that, we kept coming back to him. We had our scouts look at the names that we were considering at various positions. He was the top tackle we were considering. There were positions with other players. I had them all send us a note overnight of which player they were most convicted on and why. And then we talked about it as well. And there was a lot of sentiment. Not all. There was a lot of sentiment that Bowry made the most sense. Especially when you consider the premium of the position. Joe Brady brought up a good point about the Pittsburgh game last year. And if you don’t have viable tackles, it’s hard to run your offense. And he felt very confident with “Vandy” and Alec doing that last year. We obviously lost Vandy. We still do believe in Grable and Lundt’s an up-and-coming player. But I think, for Bowery, what fired us up is the versatility to also go inside and compete at guard. So we like his skillset and he doesn’t necessarily have to come in here and start right away. But we do think in time he could potentially have the skillset to compete to start.
And who are we to argue with Steve Smith if he likes a receiver? I’m not going to cross that gentleman. But he loves Skyler Bell. You’re watching all these receivers over the last X amount of months, but when did he pop? When did you see something in Skyler that made you stop what you’re doing.
Beane: Skyler is one of those guys that kept growing on me and our group. Really felt like his skillset was a great addition to what we needed to do. And we were excited that he was available there and was not sure he would still be there at that point. But it was a quick decision as the picks are coming, as they’re winding down to you that if he’s there, he would be the guy. You love that he can play outside, can play inside. He’s got run after catch, contested catches. There’s a lot of different ways you can use him. He’s football smart. If you want to be able to play multiple positions and you have the physical skill set, you’ve got to mentally make sure you can do it as well.
You just watch his play. He plays with an attitude. He’s not afraid of the moment. Very productive. You’re never going to shy away from production like that.
I think he’s the second-highest wide receiver you’ve ever drafted. You could say you traded a pick for Stefon Diggs and a pick for DJ Moore.
Beane: Everyone conveniently forgets, speaking of aggressive, that’s another. Diggs is another aggressive move. We’ve made a lot of aggressive moves.
When you look back at all of your drafts — what worked, what didn’t work — what is one lesson you learned from a hit and one lesson you learned from a miss?
Beane: From a hit, it’s to trust your instincts. Trust where you value the player. Even if you’re hearing outside noise that this player isn’t good enough or shouldn’t be drafted high, trust your instincts. Do that. And when someone’s trying to tell you who they are from a DNA standpoint, that’s where we’ve missed on guys. It’s not that they physically couldn’t do the job. It’s, “How much do they love football?” and being convinced from contacts at a school. When the play doesn’t show you they necessarily always love ball, it’s inconsistent. But I can think of a player where we’re convinced that the light is on now. It kind of came on late for them. You’re getting the right guy. But you still haven’t really seen that. So you’re taking a chance on a guy — someone’s telling you that. So that’s probably a miss that you go back on and say, “Well, we’re taking someone’s word for it.”
Like you’re talking about with Dabo, they’re going to sell their program. They’re going to sell their player.
Trust your instinct. The instinct was, “Well, we still haven’t seen it.” But you kind of take that shot.
This must be more difficult than ever. These guys are surrounded by agents at what, age 16, 17. They’re getting paid. You’ve got to figure out who genuinely loves this violent sport. Because you’re going to face adversity at some point out there. Who can handle it? Who can’t? Is it harder than ever with NIL, guys getting paid? You’ve got to sit down with somebody, look them in the eyes. How do you figure that out?
Beane: The hardest part of college scouting in general is the DNA, the person, what you’re getting and then if they go to multiple schools. Because a player leaves and sometimes it’s still good at that school that they left. A lot of times it’s not. And maybe it’s sour grapes from them. Maybe that’s truly who the kid was there, but he did mature at the next school. So you’re trying to put pieces together and that’s the hardest part. Like I was just saying, trust your instinct. But you’ve got to do the work on the DNA. And I feel very confident in our scouting staff and our eyes as a group of what the player can and can’t do and from a physical skillset. As I said, I think the biggest part is, “What is the DNA inside here? What is the drive? Do they love football and they would be playing it for nothing? Or is it just more about what comes with football?” And maybe they were already content with the NIL money. Maybe they’ve already hit their peak because they’ve lost some of that drive and that’s what you’re trying to put together and you’re never going to bat a thousand. You know that going in. But you hope you have way more hits than misses.
This seems like a theme in free agency, too. You mentioned Bradley Chubb was a captain. Dee Alford went D-II, CFL and was working the night shift at FedEx. C.J. Gardner-Johnson. Is that something you were looking for and what do you see these three bringing a reconfigured defense?
Beane: Leadership definitely from Bradley. You feel presence. You feel leadership right away. You felt that on the visit with him. A guy who’s very comfortable in his skin. Not pretentious and you’ve seen him have the C on his chest before. Character is revealed not when things are going well. True character is revealed when things aren’t. And you watch him on that Dolphins team and he wreaked havoc against us down there last year when we lost that game. They didn’t have anything to play for. Their GM had just been fired. They traded some players and he went out there and balled out and ultimately helped them defeat us. So you put that in a room.
Dee Alford’s a guy who’s from a small school in Tennessee — Tusculum. And then no offers, no nothing. CFL. Working in FedEx during COVID. That’ll never erase from that young man’s mind — what he did to get there. That guy’s got a chip, whether he made 5 million a year or 25 million a year. And so you can’t have enough of that. I don’t think Dee’s going to get up and give a big speech or anything. But his competitiveness, his grit, his toughness.
And then CJ, we’re all familiar with CJ around the league. Not every stop has been perfect. But you’re adding a dog. And when I say a dog, it’s no fear, tough, attitude. I do think there’s leadership in there. You’re hoping you’re getting a more mature version of that, of knowing how to harness. Because when guys have that edge? He oozes competitive dog. When they have that edge, and they can reign it in the right way, it’s contagious, it’s infectious. And so that’s the hope with signing a guy like him.
Do you see that dog in Keon Coleman? Into Year 3?
Beane: I think so. I see a guy who’s not trying to tell it to you, but he’s just showing it to you with his actions. I see a calm, confident… I know it wasn’t good enough in the past. And it wasn’t not good enough on the field. Off the field led to lack of opportunities and production on the field. And so I see a guy who knows what’s at stake, who wants the respect and trust of his teammates and his coaches. And the fans. He wants that. He’s a human. He doesn’t want to be hearing about himself on social media or the media. I see a guy who’s driven and is out to prove something. We want to help him do that.
Even then, part of me was thinking, “He’s going to get traded.” You were consistent every step of the way all offseason. There’s the Seattle game. Bullying Riq Woolen, a 6-4 corner. He’s blocking him, posterizing him. But in your head, what’s your vision? What do you see Keon Coleman doing at his best at wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills?
Beane: He’s versatile. He can play outside and he can be a big slot. I think he can win, like that play against Riq Woolen. Above the rim, back shoulder. He can even get better at that. That would have happened more had things not transpired the way they did and his opportunities dropped. You have to handle all those things. Part of those reasons are why you have to make decisions and trade for a DJ Moore. The competition in the room has increased. But that makes everyone better. I think Keon will make DJ and Josh Palmer and Shakir and all those guys better and they’ll make him better. That’s what you want at all positions. So I don’t have any numbers or statistics. He’s going to fit into this group. He’s going to help us. He’s going to get a jersey. Whether he’s the starter, whether he’s the No. 1 backup, he’s football smart. He loves ball. He’s got good hands. We’ll find roles and jobs for him to help this team.
I did a pod with Stevie Johnson at the Super Bowl and he was telling Keon Coleman to reach out to him. Looks like he’s training with him. What has Keon been doing day-in and day-out? I imagine this is a relationship you’ve been smoothing over since early in the offseason.
Beane: I know he went out there with Stevie and worked with him and Stevie was obviously very successful in the league and a self-made man with where his draft status was (7th round) to the success he had in the league. But Keon worked last offseason. He came back here ready to roll. He had a dynamite camp. I just feel like the look is there and it’s never been his lack of willing to work. It’s not. That’s never been an issue. He worked last offseason. He refocused this offseason. He got through the mess of what the outside distractions were and he decided that he’s going to control what he can control. And you sense a young man growing up and maturing and that’s why you don’t want to trade a guy like that. We’re big into developing young men and watching him grow. We can all get better. I’m sure you’re a better writer today than you were three years ago or five years ago. I hope I’m doing a better job now than in 2020 or 2017, whatever year you want to pick. Because you’re constantly learning and, if you’re not, then you’re not doing your best. You’re not doing your job. We all have to constantly be learning it. I’m proud of Keon with where he’s at. He’s not making excuses. He’s just head down and doing his job and I’m rooting for him and I want to see him succeed. He still has to go do it.
We talked about it right here. You understand the expectations. People want the Super Bowl. It doesn’t seem like you’ve shied from it or that Joe has shied from it. How are you approaching that reality?
Beane: No one outside can put more pressure on me than me. No one. I want to win at everything I do. And like I said, if we go in there and play ping-pong on the table, I’m going to try to whip your ass. That’s just the way it is. You can ask my kids. I was not the Dad that let my kids win — right or wrong. That’s my mindset. I can’t change how I’m wired. And that’s why I said earlier that I struggle now more than ever turning it off because I want it so bad. Because when you’re that close, all you know to do is just keep your head down and keep that competitive drive to Joe’s term, competitive stamina, and keep kicking at that door. At some point, we’re going to kick it down. I hope to be a part of the Bills when that happens.
Like you said after hiring Joe: “If I’m wrong, I’ll fucking take my job and I’ll fucking go home.” You’re not hiding from it.
Beane: No, no, no. I am so grateful to be here for this team, for this fan base, for this owner and his family. And one thing I can promise you is that when my day’s done here, I’m going to be so thankful for the opportunity and you always want to make sure you left things better than when you got them, but I want to make sure that I bring a championship here and that I’m a part of helping us do that. And as long as my key card works, that’s what you’re going to get out of me.
ICYMI:
Here’s our post-draft chats with Brandon Beane from 2024 and 2025.
Great interview Ty. I’m not a Bills fan but love deep dives like this. Well done.
Great to read such a deep revealing interview with GM Beane. I was struck by his statement: "as long as we have Josh Allen we want to go into every year with a legit chance to compete for a championship ... I always want to be aggressive, but I don’t want to cross that line to being reckless".
Just once I'd love to hear Beane say he's decided to follow JA17 into the reckless zone and has acquired an elite WR who excels at freeform and will give Josh that clutch performer that's been missing in the postseason.