The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Bills GM Brandon Beane

Episode Date: May 28, 2024

Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane talks with Robert Mays about the state of his franchise, his priorities for the team’s transition and what the front office has been trying to achieve in an eventful offseason. Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Special show for you guys today. Bill's general manager, Brandon Bean, is going to join us. We had a wide-ranging conversation a couple weeks ago about just the state of the franchise in Buffalo. Obviously, a team in transition with them moving on from some veterans, got cheaper at some positions, pretty crucial offseason where they think they had to ask themselves some big sweeping questions. We got into all of that.

I've always really appreciated talking to Brandon about just the ideas behind team building, some of the perspective that he has. He's somebody that's pretty open, transparent, thoughtful about a lot of these ideas. So excited for you guys to hear the conversation. Let's get to it. Joining us now, it is the general manager of the Buffalo Bills, Brandon Bean. Brandon, really appreciate you taking the time to do this with us. Glad to do it, Robert.

Hope all is well. I'm doing very well. It's that point in the calendar. I'm about to go on vacation. You still have about a month before you get to get away. So the fact that you're spending some of that precious time with me is much appreciated. I was just watching your post-draft press conference this morning. And you used a term that I think has been pretty prevalent in how people have talked about you guys this spring.

And it's a team in transition. And I wanted to ask you, as you're looking at moving from one phase of the franchise to the next, what is your kind of main set of priorities as you think about what that next phase should look like? Yeah, well, listen, it still starts with the quarterback, okay? How do we build this around the quarterback? You see every team's comp, you know, piling up picks or doing what they've got to do to try to get their guy. And, you know, you probably saw some teams that got themselves in position for the draft

but weren't able to get in front of, you know, someone else that wanted. So we all know that that's where it starts. And so with Josh, where are the economics of that? Where are we at in the cycle of his contract? How do we continue to build around him and keep the cap so that it's, you know, we had to make some tough cap decisions this year. You know, sometimes you're releasing players because, you know, they're just not good enough, but sometimes the even harder decisions are when you're like, damn, like this guy,

he can still play. I just can't afford him any longer at his level or you got to let a three agent walk. So we're just trying to, you know, this year we walked in, you know, to the league year with, you know, and 50 million over. I can't remember what it was. But, you know, so we still want to be able to spend and be flexible. And so looking at it long term so that we're not walking into every year in a buying and having to, I don't want to walk in. every single year and it'd be like 20, 24. All right, we got to cut five to seven guys just so we can operate. Like there's going to be years of that. But we also said, you know what? There are some areas where our roster is aging. Let's infuse some youth. There's obviously a cost benefit to that. And then where else do we need to make changes with maybe some younger veterans, some cheaper

veterans, some one-year deal, some proven opportunities that fit within our structure. So nothing crazy, just kind of an infusion of youth, some changing of the guard. We, you know, we did move on from quite a few guys that wore the sea on the chest last year. So starting to identify on our roster, who are some up-and-coming captains that we say, hey, these guys have those ability. They've just been deferring to the senior statesman of the team. And so challenging those guys, who's going to be the next group of leaders on offense, defense, special teams. Obviously, number 17 is the tip of the spear. But beyond that, what's your next group of leaders look like?

I was going to ask you that because when you look at what you've been over the last seven years, it really does feel like Jordan and Micah specifically kind of embodied with this era of Bill's football felt like. So as you're trying to bridge that leadership gap, you think it's more about stoking something with guys. you already have on the roster, rather than having to look outside for people to give you that injection of kind of veteran presence and veteran direction? Yeah. I mean, I think the first place you should always look is at your own roster. You know, there's been a statement before I've heard the answer is on your roster.

And it's not always the case, but what you don't want to do is overlook someone that was just waiting for the right opportunity. and you brought someone in, you paid him more, you did whatever, and stymie their opportunity. They go elsewhere and they thrive and you're like, damn, I had that guy right under my nose and he never got that opportunity. So we do think there are players on this roster. You know, a year ago, you don't want to see, you never want to see a player like Tremaine Evans walk, but the business is the business. We were very excited for Tremaine. And if he doesn't walk, does Torel Bernard have a chance to show what he can,

can do, which you did last year. So we think there are more guys in the wings that given the right opportunity. Do they have to do it? Do they have to prove it? Just like Thorel did a year ago, yes. And so some of that can be a little uneasy for people. So definitely for fans on the outside, but there can even be an easiness in the building. Like what is, you know, maybe not everyone is sold on this player. But, you know, you always want to look there. You're looking at your now in my seat, but you're also looking at the economics and the roster building, you know, for the next two or three years as well. I wonder who in the building do you feel like the outside perception doesn't necessarily line up with the way that you see that guy? You know, I don't know. I think it changes. You know, I think I would rather, I think last year, I think, you know, outside the building, people questioned our right tap on Spencer Brown going to the year.

and I think we had a very confident thing barring his health, which he had coming off a surgery the year before, been a little injured. This was a guy that, you know, did not play his last year of college football because of COVID. He was at Northern Iowa. It was canceled. So, and he's coming from, you know, a smaller level,

a lower level play. And then he battled injuries. And so he's a guy that we felt internally. I mentioned, you know, Terrell Bernard, things like that. There's, I think there's other guys on our roster, you know, Connor McGovern's moving to center. There's probably some uneasiness on the outside. Mitch Morris has been great here. He's just, he's been awesome and watching what he did for our team, you know, for the years he was here.

You're not just going to walk into replace him. But when we signed Connor McGovern a year ago, we said, hey, this guy can play center and guard, if there's a point we have to move on from Mitch and Conner's here, you know, he would definitely be in the mix. So I think there's probably people like, all right, how is that going to look? We saw I played a guard, but how does that translate

moving to center? When this offseason started and you guys moved on from Jordan, Mitch, Tray White, I was wondering if you were going to try to take all of your cap medicine this year and really clear the decks for 2025 and beyond. And that's not exactly what happened. You know, you move somebody around,

you gave Dawson Knox a new deal. So I'm just curious, can you just walk me through your approach to the cap for this year and 2025 and how you were trying to balance those things? Yeah, I mean, I've told people here all the time. I don't ever want to go into a year and say, hey, we're just going to strip it down. We're going to hit the reset button. That's not the goal. Things happen along the way.

And you can never 100 percent say that you wouldn't walk into that situation. but we want to compete for it. We're trying to, this team is built to go out and compete. We've won the division four years in a row. We want to fight and win that thing again, because that's the easiest path of the playoffs. And you're guaranteed at least one home game. Gives you your best chance, you know, to get to the big game,

which we're still trying to get to. So we want to compete this year. We want to be in it. We're our goals have not changed. It's just there's some different players at different positions. You know, we did make a lot of draft picks this year. We drafted 10 guys and we're going to need some of those guys to play right away, whether they start, whether they're a key backup or help us on special teams.

There's some guys that we believe we found each day of the draft that can, you know, get a jersey, be one of our 48, you know, dressed on Sundays, barring them, you know, staying healthy and doing what we think. they'll do. But also adding some draft picks for next year. We know we talked about the cap earlier. What's the most cost control is drafted players. And so we're going into the next year right now with a one,

two-twos, a three, two-fours, a couple of sixes, and hopefully one to two cop picks mid-round, you know, depending on how that all shakes out with playtime, you know, with the guys we lost versus the, versus the guys we signed. So we want to also be ready for next year to continue to get some more youth in here. And the college draft is super important for us to maintain relevance and to continue to compete for AFC East titles and again, everything that we want to get to.

I won't bring up the compics thing. I know that's still a sore subject over there for you guys. I won't pick it that wound. Yeah, so frustrated. Looking at the way that you guys have handled the cap over the last couple years, you've zeroed out Josh a couple times and restructured that to get some space. You've done it with other players. And it seems like you might be able to do that again next year, whether it's Josh, Ed Oliver, Dan Dawkins, I think is somebody that that would make sense potentially. What are the limits of that?

As you're pushing money into future years and as more teams around the league seem to be embracing that, what are the upper limits of how often and how aggressive you can be in using that as a strategy? Yeah, I don't think you want to go all in. I think you can. You've seen teams do it. I don't think you just want to max the credit card. That's really what it does. If you take every guy, like you name those guys and there's probably some other ones with maybe that we could create, but maybe it's less. You know, if you max your card at some point, that payment's come and do and it's not going to be pretty.

And just what I said earlier, trying not to walk into a year. or be on a two-year rut, heaven forbid, where we just got to eat medicine and totally, you know, we can't afford anything. It's, you know, I don't want it to be Josh Allen and then just all guys on rookie deals or one-year minimum type deals. We want to be able to have flexibility to fill in and add, you know, a year ago, we added a Leonard Floyd this time of year that was still out there. We want to be able to do things like that.

we'd be able to do that every year? Like, is our cap that way this year? No. But maybe next year it is, depending on who we resign between now and then, who we add in free agency, where the cap truly goes to, all those things. But we want flexibility. Don't want to, like I said earlier, I don't want to walk in every single year and go, man, how are we just going to get ready to get into the league here, much less be able to spend on, you know, a free agent or two? You guys had $31 million in that cap tied up in Stefan Diggs right now, which limits your flexibility. I'm just curious that doesn't provide you much wiggle room.

What do you feel like forced you or pushed you to make that move right now? Yeah, I mean, listen, I think there's a lot of things you weigh a player of his caliber. You weigh a lot of things on the situation. But ultimately,

we just talked about the cap. You make moves for, you know, I don't need to go through all the reasons why we just decided to go ahead and do that. I would say from a cap standpoint, we decided just to go ahead and eat it now. And we think we can compete and do what we need to do by eating it now. And then not walk in the next year and go, all right, because if we didn't, if we tried to come up with some way and split it up too many different ways, then now it's just like that albatross.

You're just hanging on your neck all year. You look at your cap and you're going, oh, man, look at how much money we still have dead. And listen, we we kind of waited that knowing with Trudevius White. You know, we did a June 1st deal and did not. We could have eaten all of his now. He was one where we, so we're just trying to pick and choose which ones make sense to push a little bit off, you know, whether it's signing a player with a couple of void gears, whether it's, you know, using one of our bullets of a June 1st release with Tradavius, but not trying to,

it go all the way that way, you know, whether it was Steph's deal or some of the other deals. So we've tried to have a balance. And that is looking at the spreadsheet and the balance sheet for what, what's 25 look like, what's 26, even how we do our voids. We've been the last couple of years trying to strategically not have those all come due in one year to where that can happen. You know, this void ends in 25, this one ends in 26, this one's in 27. we're all again, same thing. So we're looking at those with each one that we do because I'm super competitive, Robert.

And the last thing, I'm going to be ripping myself the minute we have to walk into a year and I feel like we got to play with one arm, tie behind our back because the cap is what it is. And so I am on Kevin Meagank, who runs our cap and does a great job. I'm on him all the time of how do we do this, how do we work this? Because we got Josh Allen and we want to compete every single year for a championship.

The skill sets at your receiving group right now are, it's such an interesting combination. Kiyan has a very specific thing that he does very well. Curtis has a very interesting skill set. What Khalil is within your offense. And I know you're conscious of that and how those pieces fit together. So as you're looking at that group as a whole, how do you feel like those skill sets are complementary to one another? Yeah, I mean, it's, I would say our receiver room right now is like basket robins. We got a lot of flavor.

And so we got some size guys in Kian, Claypool, you know, Tyrell Shavers that was here on a rookie, you know, our practice squad last year. But as far as complementary pieces, you're right, you got you got a big X, you know, in Kion. You got Shakir, who probably position one is slot, but can play outside. Samuel, you can play him outside in. You can hand him the ball in the backfield. Like there's a lot of different things you can do with him. And then we've added MBS. You know, he's obviously can play inside now.

And he's got a vertical presence, another size guy added to the group. We've got some other pieces as well. Matt Collins is another big guy. in our group that we added this offseason. Mac is big-time leader. It's not, you know, I don't know that he's played with a guy and, you know, with Josh. I know he's excited to play with a guy like that. Mack is a guy that brings an edge and a toughness and has played fourth down as well.

So we feel like we've added more size, different pieces. K.J. Hamler is here competing. You know, he's, he had the injury bug there a little bit, trying to see if we've really worked on him, kind of seeing if we can armor his body a little bit and show the durability. You see the speed. You do that. Just watching these guys out here run on air in phase two.

It'll just be how is he able to keep himself healthy. But a lot of different pieces, you know, different skill sets and just trying to balance those around. And I think people, the other thing, Robert, that people are, I think, you're just looking at is the people that line up in the wide receiver room. But our tight ends, they can catch the ball too. And so, you know, those guys are heavily involved in the passing game with Dawson and Dalton Kincaid. And so don't forget those guys, you know, when you, I mean, I would say, you know, if you look at the chiefs run, you know, they've done a good job. I would say

that thing's building around, I mean, it's actually to build around the home. But, you know, the receiver the court starts with with 87 and you better defend him before you worry about what else or he'll eat your lunch. And so we feel like we got some tight ends that are, you know, both assets in the passing game. Don't just look at who's in the receiver room as we go through this, this transition there. My only question about that, you look at Curtis and you look at Khalil, I think you can make an argument that both of them are best probably deployed from the slot, as you weigh that and you weigh the amount of opportunities you can give to one or the other, how did you consider that? Well, I think they have different. I think they do some of the same

things, but I think they're also different. I think Curtis can play outside. I think he'll be, fine. Is his best position a slot? Maybe, maybe we're still getting a good feel for him there, but I can, I can show you plays where he's won. As a matter of fact, we played him this year. he beat Christian Benford on the outside. It was a good throw and catch by their quarterback, how to over the shoulder,

you know, one-on-one route. So I think he's got that skill set to do both. We feel like he can line up in there and Shakir could also go outside. We've had Shakir play out there. He did at Summit, Boise, too. And then there's other guys, you know,

adding MBS and Claypool and some of those other guys. So I just think it gives Joe Brady different ways, different packages. When those guys are in the huddle, where are they going to line up? Yeah, that's a good point. There's no way to know. I mean, that's the benefit is that you can line them up all over the place. And that is what it feels like you have now.

And I think you can do that with James Cookies are starting running back. Like, you know, who says James has got a line up there in the back. You can line up somewhere else. So I think that's just how we're viewing it is how many different weapons, no matter what room they're in, no matter what their primary position slot outside is, that Joe can line them up in a lot of different spaces to get mashups that we think are favor.

Josh's growth from what he was as a prospect to what he is now, I think that's going to be a scenario and a timeline that a lot of people are going to hold up in the future as the best case scenario for projecting players. What do you think is the main lesson that you have learned from what makes a jump like his possible? I think it starts, well, first off, what is his physical seal?

What is the athletic ceiling? Where is that at? What is he great at now? What is he athletically? You see the talent, but it's not, it hasn't arrived yet. And then what is the DNA? You know, and again, the guy we saw as a guy that was not heavily recruited. Obviously, he went to junior college,

wrote all the emails to get Craig Bowling and the Wyoming to take him. And, you know, the guy wanted to play at Fresno and they didn't want anything to do with him. He ends up Wyoming and does what he does. But I think, I don't think you're ever going to remove that chip from Josh. And because that stayed, listen, after we took him, even in the pre-draft process, people were crushing him. And I don't think there's anything you could do to take that chip off his shoulder. So I think that, you know, a guy that's got a chip, a guy that's got the DNA to work, obviously the physical talents, and then the mental part of the game. Like, are they able to mentally, you know, just really take in large volumes of information process quickly?

I think all of that stuff we saw in the pre-jraft process, the testing that we put them through not only the senior bowl, but we dug really deep. on each of these quarterbacks when we went and worked them out privately and Josh blew us away from a mental standpoint of what he could take in the volume of information he could take in like that

and how quickly he could spit it back out from a processing stand whether it was on the field or in the meeting room. I'm curious that the interplay between what you guys do in the building and what a lot of these guys are doing with their private quarterback coaches. Obviously Josh work with Jordan Palmer that he's talked about how that has been really helpful in some of the mechanical things

that he does. Are you in touch with them and his team at all? Like, what is the communication like between those two sides? I would say early on, we were, you know, and I think Jordan does a great job. Like, if I need to send someone out to a quarterback room, I'm sure there's some good ones, but, you know, I'd probably be the first guy I talked to if we had somebody else. He's telling you owes me $20 if he gets somebody off of this. No, I think we had a lot of communication for, you know, between, uh, Davel, you know, myself, Jordan.

And I know sometimes Jordan was over here, Sean talked to him. So I'm like, there was a lot early on. But I think as, as Josh has matured and understood what he's need, he goes out and throws with Jordan when he feels he needs to, but, you know, that's maybe not as much as he did coming out, trying to get his feet right, get every, you know, the release right, all the things that he was really working on those first few years after, after each, you know, after each of his first seasons ended. So, um, I think that's always changing. That's always evolving. Josh is always looking at different things, um, how people, the mechanics of the throw. Like, he's very interested in

all that stuff. He's constantly looking at things. He's constantly working on it. He's, he's talked to other people about release points and, um, things like that. So he's a guy that just like we are, he's always looking for the latest and greatest. What's new? How can I, you know,

I don't think, I don't think Josh Allen is satisfied where he's at. I think he still wants to see if there's, can he go to another level? I don't know, but I think he's turning over every stone, I would say, to see if that's possible.

Last one I have for you, it's been seven years since you took this job, which is kind of crazy to think about, But it's been seven years. As you look back on that time, what would you say is the biggest lesson you've learned about team building, about what the job takes as you kind of take that all in? Yes. I think I kind of knew a little bit, but you just don't know. It's people.

You know, it's really the people that you have in your organization from your staff, your players, your coaches, how you treat them and how you form. that bond and the people build your team. And yes, you have to have talented players. But if you don't have the right support team, if you don't have the right people pouring into your players, whether as a coach, trainer, a strength coach, your equipment guys, like knowing they're going to have every single thing, every right cleat. I mean, there's so many different things, the right people on our scouting staff that understand what type of people we want in our building. And I just, everything I come back to is, is having the right people on your team. And it's, it's every level.

And it never, it is constantly. Like there's always things. We all know when you're dealing with people, you're dealing with various things, life, egos. But getting these people on the same page for a common bond gives you the best chance. And you're constantly having to have your door open and to. and talk to people, you can't hide in your office. Not that that's my style, but it's, I'm a, I'm a social person.

I'm a walk around the building. But I think you have to really be in touch with your full, anyone that is, quote, unquote, touching your players that's involved with your players. You better have, as the, is the GM, and I assume Sean would say the same thing. And coach, you better have a good feel for how they do things because they can be talking to your quarterback or your rookie draft pick or whatever. and you never know who's got their ear. And you want to make sure everyone understands what you want,

what you expect, and that they are about the team, about the logo. And that's what we literally were talking about the other day with a staffing thing. As long as at the end of the day, it's not personal and it's about the logo, then that's the right decision. If you could go back and do one thing differently over those seven years, what do you think it would be?

One thing different. Oh, my God. I don't know. I get mad at myself all the time for stupid shit that I do. What's a recent one then? Yeah, it's like anything. You're always looking, you know, you always look back every year and you evaluate the year and you say, man, did I have enough death here? did I, you know, I would say, you know, one of the first lessons that I learned that I screwed up was when, you know, for those teams drafting a rookie quarterback, you know, I didn't have someone here with the right experience veteran for Josh Delino.

And early on, Josh was kind of struggling a little bit going through his thing. And I realized it and it was stupid to me to not have done it. But I got Derek Anderson in here around week five or six. And I should have had that before. And I knew D.A. Like, you know what I mean? He did such great things for Cam. And it didn't have, it didn't just have to be D8.

But there was some, you know, we were looking at some young guys to give him a chance. But really, we put all our assets into Josh Allen. I got too cute. And that's probably. the first big, you dumbass, I said to myself. But I've had many others that I've said to myself, and it's not going to stop. I'm my own worst grid.

And then the secondary benefit is that he knew Dable. So then when Brian came in, the fact that he and D.A. had a relationship, and he could kind of translate for Josh, that even gives you another advantage with him being in the building. Yeah, no doubt, no doubt. No, it's, it was great. Like I said, I wish I had done it earlier.

I think it would have even helped Josh a little more his rookie year. But it was what it was. It was my, like I said, my dumb error early on. But I didn't double down and not do it. I walked up and walked in one day. I'm like, all right, enough with this stupidity.

Let's get DA on the phone and get his ass here. I think it had worked out okay. I think Josh's development ended up working out okay. Brandon Bean, sincerely appreciate the time, sir. I know you got a million things going on. so I will let you get back to it, but we will chat very soon. Thank you so much. You got it, Robert. Good to see you, buddy.

All right, that's all we got for today. Thank you so much to Brandon Bean for his time. Always great to chat with him. Later this week, Thursday, we'll have our next lingering questions show coming your way. We're doing the AFC North with my friend, Stephen Ruiz. A lot of really fascinating questions lingering from last year about the AFC North. We're going to talk about the end for Lamar in that offense and whether or not we should be worried about it.

What the heck happened to the Bengals defense? What are the Steelers outside of their quarterback position? It's trying to dig one layer deeper about the state of the roster and the quality of the roster. So really enjoyed chatting with Stephen. I hope you guys enjoyed that conversation as well. That would be the last show that we have outside of Football GM before I come back the week of June 3rd.

So hopefully we did enough to tide you guys over while I was out of the country. I'm excited to be back with you guys, chat in football, all summer. For now, that is all we've got. Sincerely appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.