Bills GM Brandon Beane Knows When He’s Getting Too Aggressive
Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane answered questions from the media at the NFL Combine in Indianapolis on Tuesday afternoon.
On visiting Georgia:
I mean, Georgia is a great visit (for scouting) when you go down there. They treat our scouts great, and Kirby lets you … you go to some schools and they’ll, after individual period or after a certain part of practice or when they get a team (period), they don’t let you go and Kirby’s practices are fun. He’s on the bullhorn. He’s letting them have it. That’s usually one of the things I ask when I’m interviewing some of the Georgia players. How many times does Kirby cuss your butt out every day? But no, that’s a great visit. There’s a lot of great visits, some are not. I’m not sure there’s a better one than what Kirby does and in the scouting community, we’re all very appreciative of the visit time that we get in Georgia.
On Josh Allen and Brian Daboll:
I think those two click because, you know, Josh has thick skin and we’ve seen Brian, like Brian, he’s he’s from Buffalo. He’s a blue collar, he’s going to let you know that he loves you, and he’s also going to let you know that you screwed up. And so, I think that’s why Brian and Josh really connected and, you know, was a big part of Josh’s early ascension as a Bill to where he’s at. And I know their relationship continued even as Brian went to New York and I’m sure it’ll continue now that Brian’s in Tennessee, but I’m sure you’re asking it because of (Titans quarterback) Cam Ward or whatever, and I think Brian, he’ll be a great asset for Cam. I would tell him to make sure he got a thick skin, and it’s all coming from a good place, but Brian’s very smart, and if Cam Ward will listen, he’ll develop him.
On the Combine’s importance:
I just, to me personally, and everyone’s got their own way to do this, I want every opportunity I can to be in front of as many prospects as we can get in front of. And so whether that’s the Senior Bowl, the combine, the 30 visits, any chance at pro days that we can get 15 minutes here, 20 minutes there, because I can tell you from my experiences … Sometimes I’ve felt one way about a player, the first interaction, and felt differently the second interaction, wherever that may be. And so I just think for me in our team as many exposures as we can get, sometimes that’s just breaking bread, sometimes that is on the whiteboard, sometimes just watching plays and you just pick up so many things. We were showing a player last night, you, some good plays and then we went to a bad play and he owned up to it. But he had a chance to point to a coach or a teammate, and he didn’t, and that just kind of told us how he how he operates.
On the impact of NIL and the transfer portal on player evaluation:
It’s added another dimension. You’re always trying to, you know, back in the day, if a guy transferred one time, you kind of asked what happened, like, ‘Did you get run out of this school or whatever?’ We interviewed a player last night, and I was like, “Why’d you stay here four years?” Like, you know, what happened?” You do ask those questions, and sometimes you ask them about, “Did you leave just because of the money? Did you leave for other reasons?” You kind of just want to know. And at the same time, our scouts, one of their jobs is talking to individuals at each program and trying to put together that puzzle of who this person is, how they tick, are they simply motivated just for money or is the money a side benefit to they really still love playing a game for the love of the game?
On the upcoming season:
Every year, it’s ‘We’re zero and zero at this point,’ and that’s how you view it, whether you won the Super Bowl or whether you won two games. When we come here, it’s not usually like, hey, we own the AFC East or whatever. I know we had a run there. We’ve got a new team that we have to build and everybody’s zero and zero, and so right now we’re in that quote-unquote roster building season, free agency, and the draft over the next two months. And so it’s really just focusing on with our new coaches, getting everyone on the same page of what we want the 2026 Buffalo Bills to be.
On trading up and down in the Draft:
I think that’s every year in the draft whether you’re picking at one or 26, you know, like we are this year, you’re weighing how valuable you have graded the asset of each player that you’ve got in the first round. And I think it’s one of those ones as the board is sliding down, getting closer to you, if you feel like there’s a player that, let’s just say you’ve got a grade that you would say that’s a top 10 grade and you’re at pick 18 to 20, and you’re going, ‘Man, there’s a big drop from there.’ That’s when you start to get aggressive and say, “I need to go up and use some assets.” On the flip side of that, if you don’t see that and your board is starting to get wiped out and you’re at pick 22, 23, and you’re like, “Man, I don’t have any first round grades left, I’m really in the second.” That’s the point where you start saying, “What assets can we gain to go back?” So it’s really important to build your board right the next couple of months and let it speak to you what you need to do.
People would tell you I have a lot of downfalls, but one of my downfalls is I probably get a little aggressive, and I know that, and I try to put people around me to strap me down to the desk and if they think I’m getting out of line, to at least grab me before I do it and say, “Are you sure about this? Because it’s gonna cost us your third round or whatever pick it’s gonna cost us.”