OverDrive - Brandon Beane on the Bills' season outlook, Allen's imperative leadership and the team's winning culture

Episode Date: September 3, 2025

Buffalo Bills General Manager Brandon Beane joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines reaching the start of the season, the ceiling of the team, the Hard Knocks of training camp, Josh Allen leading the franchise at quarterback, the mindset against the Chiefs and more.

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Here's Brandon Bean. How are you doing, Brandon? I'm doing well. How are you guys doing today? We're doing well. Are the camera's still around, or have they shifted out of town? We can thank the good Lord. They've moved on.

We did our jobs. We got through it. And, yeah, all set for the season. Ready to roll, no cameras. Brandon, was that distracting at all? Like, for you, did you have to change your mindset? We were just talking about before you came on, like having them there, it felt like 24-7. Did you have to have a different mindset at how you did business?

Yes and no. The short answer is yes. I will say this. I went into it expecting the worst because that's just kind of my mentality. I know I've got to be kind of, you know, arm twisted to do this. And so because you're exactly right. you don't want to, you don't want to, like, not be yourself in whatever you're doing, whether you're in a meeting with a player, staff, whoever it is, you want to be authentic.

And naturally, if someone's waving a camera in your face, you're going to feel a certain way. So I do think because they've done it enough over the years they've come up with tricks, like in my office, it was two different mounted cameras, and you could, you kind of got used to, it and knowing that, you know, we did have some editing power like, hey, you can't have that conversation in there, things like that. And, you know, they also gave me a button. Hey, I got Terry Pagula calling me, and I really don't want even the audio on here. I can, I can flip it off. So I give them a lot of credit. They worked with us, got what they needed to get. And, you know, we tried to work with them as well, knowing they had a product they had

to produce for HBO right and you know it's it's obviously a you know insight to the way an organization is run and a lot of fans love it I love it you know hard knocks been great for a long time and I think the plan is you know to learn new things about every team that's involved in this and I guess I'll ask you that like what did you want so what would you hope the NFL community learned about the Buffalo Bills I think that uh that this culture is real it's um you You know, people talk about that. That word culture is thrown around a lot. And that, you know, the players on this team are good players, for sure,

like most all NFL players are. But these guys are genuinely good dudes, and they care about the fans. They care about each other. They care about their roles, whether it's signing autographs for kids, whether it's, you know, helping support animal adoptions, whatever subjects were covered, these guys were real. And I thought they did a good job on the show of finding some. Everyone obviously knows Josh, and people are going to, you know,

really tune in on the segments with him. But coming up with some of the other guys, the K.J. Hamlers, the Zach Davidson's, the Jimmy Charlos, Frank Gore, Jr., like, those are good stories, too. and I didn't, you know, I was hopeful that they would find, you know, some of those guys and people could really find themselves relating to their lives because some of these lives is very hard. You're, you get released, you got a wife, you got kids, whatever your situation is. Now you've got to go look for a new job and your wife's got to look for a new daycare,

a new place to get her hair done. And I think sometimes that story doesn't get told, yes, there's glamour in this life if you're, you know, if you're Josh Allen or some of these big people. But for a lot of these players, they're just trying to survive in the league and keep a job and keep the paychecks coming in. Brandon, we were just talking about Josh and we were also talking about the concept of Windows to Win championships. Our host here, Brian has got you guys winning it all this year. It was quite nice to hear that out of his mouth, a Green Bay Packers fan, but he picked you guys.

Like with Josh, do you guys talk about Windows to Win or if it's ending or if it's coming close to or are you just confident that when you throw him behind center, you're going to have a good chance to win every time? Well, it's a quarterback league, right? And that's the most important position in all of sports, no matter what sport there is. And if you're good there, you've got a chance. That's where it starts.

And going back to when we got here in 2017, you look back at the 17-year drought this club had been on. One of the main factors was they were, were not able to find a franchise quarterback and really it had been since Jim Kelly since they had sustained success and so that's the number one thing that you know my conversation with the Pagula's in the interview process is if we don't do that we're going to be you know in that in that rut it doesn't mean we can't make the playoffs while we find it doesn't mean we can't start building something but we will not be an every

year contender or, you know, you're not going to find yourself, you know, fighting for the division every year until you find that franchise piece. You look at every year's playoffs and most years, the final eight teams, most of them have some sort of a franchise quarterback. You can get a one-off here and their team got hot, a one-year wonder type things, but, you know, generally speaking, the final eight teams have good quarterback play. And so we do feel as long as Josh is playing, you know, kind of the way he has played, whether he's the MVP or not, that that gives us a chance, but it takes more than that. We've got to protect him.

We've got to be able to score points, and then we've got to be able to stop, you know, the AFC is loaded with quarterbacks. We've got to be able to stop those teams that we're going to see, you know, when we do make the playoffs. With Brandon being the GM of the Buffalo Bills, and, you know, you guys go to the playoffs every year, you win the AFC East every year, and see him. You run into one team every year, and we know who that is, and it's Kansas City. And you've had great regular season success against Kansas City, where you play them in Buffalo, Kansas City.

I think you go to a neutral-site game in October, November, you're going to win that game. It's the smallest of margins in the playoffs, though. Like, are you a believer in the clutch gene? Is that what's what the separator is between Mahomes, the Chiefs, and everyone else, including yourselves? Or how do you change that where you, you, you, you, apply the regular season success in winning and make it happen against Kansas City in the playoffs well I mean I think most times we've played them regular season or postseason you know big games like that unless someone's just

turning the ball over and it turns into a blowout which has not been the case when we when we played each other it's going to come down to usually three four place you know game-changing place and you go back to even some of the games we won in the regular season. We won there, Vaughn's first year. We were down, and late in the game, Vaughn gets a sack, we get the punt, and we go down and score, they get the ball, and Vaughn gets another pressure, Taryn Johnson gets in their set. Like, it's your best players have to make a big play or two here or there. I think it's more than just regular season versus postseason. We obviously have to produce that.

but it's not like we're dominating them in the regular season, and then we get to the postseason. And it's not like we're not playing well. It's two teams that know each other well, that are well-coached, high-level quarterback play, good defense in general. And at the end of the day, we have to find a way to make one or two of those plays that we haven't made in some of those games. But you don't need to blow things up.

You don't need to change things. Again, you know, I would trade a couple of those plays we made that I just referred to in a regular season game to happen in postseason game. But to this point, we haven't done it. But, you know, we're not giving into that. The past is the past. Nobody controls that. We're focused, you know, our eyes are on this season. And listen, nothing's guaranteed.

You know, we're just trying to truly focus on the Ravens well before we're talking about winning a dozen. division or, you know, potentially facing, you know, a team like the Chiefs in the postseason later this year. Yeah, we were buzzing about that, you know, Sunday night start the season week one Ravens bills and, you know, you guys can't control the scheduling. The NFL will do that in conjunction with TV partners. But do you like that idea? Like hit the ground running against a powerhouse. Baltimore is a great team too. Like how beneficial, if at all, can this be for your team to start week one at home against an opponent like that? Yeah, I mean, it's as tough a match as you can get.

I mean, I think we won like 27 to 25, and same thing. Ball, I mean, what we just talked about in Kansas City. Those guys, you know, we lost to them over there. They made more plays than we did. You know, they came here and ball bounces, you know, our way on a couple fumbles. You know, they're tight in, drop the two-point play that he's going to catch 99 out of 100 times. Sometimes you can't explain things, I'm sure they would say that on the, hey, they had every right. And some of the same things that we've said when we've lost, you know, to the chiefs in the playoffs.

And so, you know, we always expect when we go against a team like Baltimore that it's going to be a knockdown dragout. And, you know, if both teams protect the ball, it's, I'll bet you it comes down to, you know, three or four plays again. who makes those plays. But, you know, I don't get called up in who we play week one versus week 10. Every game is truly its own game because of injuries happen. You know, people do all these preseason predictions. Well, tell me who's in the lineup for us and tell me who's in the lineup for them. And I can probably give you a better idea.

And again, you guys know as well as I do, you follow it. What your team looks like in September is rarely what it looks like, you know, by Thanksgiving and into December that's you're trying to kind of you're starting the road now of a long journey but we got to make sure win or lose this game that we continue to build this team and make sure it's it's the right type of team that can a win a division and be have success in the postseason brandon before we get you out here i got to ask you about the new stadium like is there going to be any technology where fans don't possibly have to show up to shovel snow like is there going to be like heated steps where it just melts and goes away or is that still going to

be a factor for the fans that maybe have to come and shovel snow yeah i mean that's buffalo tradition why would we want to get rid of that that's all right all right those mafia but you know it is going to be better in all in all seriousness you know 60% of the seats are being covered and i do know there is going to be some areas that are heated i'm not as intimately knowledge you know with everything of that to your point but it will it will be better i know they've got some things in place and you know the other thing is we're going to have more than one tunnel so even the stuff you have to get off the field right now you can only get so much equipment in and out of one tunnel that one's going to have you know multiple tunnels so you'll be able to have more

equipment at the same time getting it off and removing it but uh yeah it's uh it's not a dome so uh it's not that we can completely avoid it, but I'm excited about it and think, you know, when you turn on the TV to watch the Buffalo Bills play, I think you want to see that outside. I think every fan wants to see that. And I think that's one of the, you know, exciting things about our style of football and what we're all about here in Buffalo. Yeah. Let's get a banner up first week next year.

That's what we're planning here in Toronto for you guys. And it starts on Sunday night. It's going to be a great season. Best of luck as always, and we always appreciate you taking time for us. Thank you, Brandon. You got it. Enjoy it, guys. We'll talk to you down the road.

You got it. There's Brandon B and GM of the Bills. The newest tracks. Mystical, magical, and the next big thing. Baby, what was that? And your first place to hear it all. I heart new music. Your digital station for brand new drops, fresh vines, and tomorrow's bangers.

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