BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) – Bills general manager Brandon Beane got defensive about going defensive in the NFL draft during a phone call with a local sports talk radio show Monday morning.
Beane appeared to shock the WGR 550 hosts by opening his call with sharp criticism of the segment that aired while he was on hold awaiting his timeslot, reminding them of their similar critique seven years prior when he selected quarterback Josh Allen.
“You guys were b****ing in 2018 about Josh Allen — you guys wanted Josh Rosen. And now you guys are b****ing that we don’t have a receiver,” Beane told hosts Jeremy White and Joe DiBiase. “I don’t get it.”
The Bills selected defensive players with their first five picks in the draft, doing so for just the second time in franchise history. The team addressed needs at defensive back (1st and 5th round), defensive tackle (2nd and 4th round), and defensive end (3rd round) before picking an offensive player, reinforcing a defense that ranked 21st last season in yards per play allowed.
Some fans and observers felt the team leaned too hard into defense and didn’t do enough to help Allen and the offense in the draft, only adding a block-first tight end in the fifth round, a tackle in the sixth, and finally a receiver in the seventh.
Beane, a former Executive of the Year who is normally composed and jocular with the media, did not seem to appreciate that sentiment, especially coming off a season when Allen was named MVP and the team’s “everyone eats” manta that took hold after the departure of top receiver Stefon Diggs produced the second-highest scoring offense in the NFL.
“We just scored 30 points in a row for eight straight games. A year ago, I get you guys asking why we didn’t have receiver, but I don’t understand it now,” Beane said. “You just saw us lead the league in points when you add the postseason; no one scored more points than the Buffalo Bills, including the Super Bowl champions. You just saw us do it without Stefon Diggs. Same group. How is this group not better than last year’s group? Our job is to score points and win games. Where do we need to get better? Defense. We did that. So I get it, you gotta have a show, and you gotta have something to b**** about, but b****ing about wide receiver is one of the dumbest arguments I’ve heard.”
Beane’s frustrations were seemingly building prior to Monday.
“Let’s be realistic. Our job is not fantasy football, to trot out the best receivers,” he said. “Josh Allen, the first thing you have to do is protect him. You can’t have Pro Bowl wide receivers and a Pro Bowl offensive line and an All-Pro quarterback and three great running backs. You gotta pick. Sure, I’d love to play fantasy football, but there’s one football, Jeremy. There’s one ball. You can’t give it to so many people. That’s where I’m like, I don’t understand this narrative. I felt it a little bit from some of the reporters in the thing. Like, our job is to score points. It doesn’t matter what receivers, what quarterback — if you score points at the level we scored, that is winning football.”
Beane went on to say that he would not have had a problem drafting a wide receiver in the first or second round had the team’s draft board fallen that way.
“We weren’t dodging receiver,” he said. “We were going in, hey, we had the guys stacked where it was. I didn’t think it was the deepest class, I’ll say that. But, yeah, if it woulda worked out, I woulda gladly done it. I’m trying to make sure we’ve got the best team, not the best receiving corps.”
The Bills’ top four receivers entering the draft appeared set, but upgradable. Khalil Shakir led the Bills with 76 catches for 821 yards and was rewarded with a contract extension in February. He ranked 27th in the league in receptions and 40th in receiving yards.
Keon Coleman caught only 29 passes as a rookie but should be an ascending player after being drafted 33rd overall. Josh Palmer was added from the Chargers in free agency, and veteran Curtis Samuel finished the season well after being slowed by injury. Tight end Dalton Kincaid, a first-round pick in 2023, is also among the team’s pass catchers.
Yet, Beane repeated at the end of the interview that he wouldn’t have hesitated to add at the position had the draft board fallen that way.
“You can only feed so many guys. You can get frustration. It’s a position where you see it across the league. There are teams where, people would argue, are definitely better than our receiving corps — but they don’t score as many points, and they don’t have the same success. Some of them don’t protect well. Some of them don’t run the ball well. We want to be multi-dimensional in how we do things. We want to be able to protect, we want to run the ball, we want to be able to play in December and January, and that’s the point I was making about fantasy football.
“And again, I’m all about — if we could’ve got a guy in the first round or second round or wherever … we would’ve added him in a minute. But not at the point of reaching to a lower value when I got a higher-value player, especially a D-lineman sitting up there.”