A column by CHUCK POLLOCK, Wellsville Sun Senior Sports Columnist

(This is the first of a two-part series on Bills general manager Brandon Beane’s press conference on the 2024 campaign)

Heading into his eighth season as general manager of the Bills, opinions vary about Brandon Beane.

To me, he’s had decent success as a signer of free agents and trade acquisitions, but he’s been below average as a drafter.

Oh, he’s had some luck in later rounds — Matt Milano, Khalil Shakir, Christian Benford, Taron Johnson and Damar Hamlin. And the same is true of free agents: Mitch Morse, Connor McGovern, DaQuan Jones, David Edwards and Mack Hollins etc.

All of them are starters except  Ty Johnson who contributes as a third-down back.

BEANE’S draft picks, not so much.

It’s not without irony that his very first selection as GM was brilliant. Surrounded by skeptics, Beane traded up five spots in 2018’s opening round — from 12th to seventh — to take Wyoming quarterback Josh Allen. Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnold went before him, Josh Rosen, now out of the league, went just after Allen and the last pick of the opening round was Lamar Jackson, with whom he’s battling for the NFL MVP, both of them securely in the Top Five of league quarterbacks.
But, after that inspired selection, Beane’s success rate has been pedestrian, at best.

The NFL draft standard is that the first three rounds are when you have to pick starters … at least two each season.

After Allen and excluding this year’s three rookies, Beane has selected 16 players in the first three rounds, nine have been starters. Not a good percentage.

Of his five choices in the first round — Buffalo had none in 2020 due to the Stefon Diggs trade with Minnesota — the success-rate has been iffy at best. Already, 2022’s Kaiir Elam is viewed as a likely bust while major questions have been raised about tight end Dalton Kincaid’s strength and skills after being taken No. 1 in 2023. Some observers rave about Ed Oliver, but 2019’s top pick, has been a mediocre defensive tackle, averaging two stops per game with one interception and eight forced fumbles in six seasons. His only upside averages are five sacks and 12 quarterback hits per season.

Defensive end  Greg Rousseau, 2021’s top pick, after a slow start has shown some potential as a pass rusher. And middle linebacker Tremaine Edmunds, taken after a second fist-round trade-up following the selection of Allen in 2018, was traded to Chicago after three seasons when Buffalo couldn’t afford to keep him.

Beane’s best second-round pick, by far, was James Cook in 2022. He’s morphed into one of the league’s elite running backs and guard O’Cyrus Torrence (2023) and edge A.J. Epenesa (2020) have become solid starters.

In the third round, tackle Spencer Brown (2021) has improved every year, Terrel Bernard (2022) has been a pleasant surprise at middle linebacker and Dorian Williams, a versatile linebacker, has seen impressive action with injuries to Milano and Bernard. Running back Zack Moss (2020)was traded to Indianapolis and running back Devin Singletary (2019) and defensive tackle Harrison Phillips (2018) signed with the Giants and Vikings, respectively, as free  agents.

LAST THURSDAY, Beane gave his seventh season assessment in a 70-minute Q&A.

(What holes emerged in the AFC Championship loss to the Chiefs?)

As you face the better competition (they) try to attack our weaknesses with their strengths and with the (salary) cap, you’re not going to be strong in all spots. In that game, there are some areas when we didn’t play as well in a certain position or maybe they found something. There’s definitely some areas, and I don’t want to go into specifics right now … it’s so fresh. There is an evaluation now but you don’t want to cut it off, you want to think holistically because this player or position group didn’t play as well as they’d like to … to just throw it all out and say it wasn’t good.”

(What was the reaction to ending the season to another tough loss?)

“Until you do it (make or win the Super Bowl) you’re always going to get questioned. But I don’t think it takes away from the success, though, and not just look at it in a vacuum. You look around and you might be a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in x-number of years … this team went 17 seasons. Ultimately, the further you go, the more it stings … there’s more eyes on you, there’s more people watching playoff games each season. Yes, we’ve now been to the AFC Championship twice, we’ve had years where we fell short in the divisional round, but we’re right there. We’re not getting blown out  … just look at our championship games. In 2020, we were excited to be there for the opportunity. I could feel, by the start of the third quarter that game was starting to slip away. But if you tell me next year, we’re in the AFC Championship Game down three with three (and-a-half) minutes to go and we’ve got No. 17 (Allen), I’ll sign up for that again and take our chances. You’ve got to do a lot of things very well to be in that position. We’re not losing to different teams every year. (The Chiefs) have taken down a lot of very good teams. We had them here last year and the game came down to we miss a kick … it’s a play here, a play there, so you have to be careful to just say ‘They can’t win the big game.’ We do have to do that and we’re going to continue to try to do that … I can tell you we haven’t slept a lot since that game. We hurt and we feel bad for the fans that hurt. But, the last five years, this team has averageed 13 or 14 wins, so I do want to make sure we balance the scale even though we have not gotten to the big game yet.”

(In the offseason, do you game-plan to beat the Chiefs?)

“It always starts in your division because that’s your ticket to the post season and if you don’t take care of business in your division then maybe you don’t get the opportunity to play the Chiefs. We’ll always pay attention to the Jets, Patriots and Dolphins. How do we match up? Are we stronger than them? Where are they stronger than us. How will we to win those games? It stats there. When we get past that, who are the perennial contenders and, of course, the Chiefs are right there every single year … seven straight AFC Championship Games, three straight Super Bowl (victory) opportunities. They are one of the teams, after you get past the division teams. How do we stack up against them. We also play ’em every year … we win the division, they win the division, the way the scheduling works, you’re gonna play ’em.”

(Can a key acquisition turn the tables for Buffalo?)

“You’re never one player away, that’s a dangerous mindset to get into, I learned that when I was a younger person in this league and you see teams ‘I’m going to chase this player,’ ‘I’m going to chase this position,’ but you’re never one player away. (The Bills) have championship ability, I believe that. Sometimes you leave the season and say, “I don’t know if we gave ourselves a chance.’ But ultimately (in our case) it’s down to a few plays.’ One or two plays can change the outcome of a game which ultimately changes the outcome of a season. It sucks, it hurts but I’m not in the mood of thinking you have to blow it all up … “I don’t think that’s rational. That’s not how I see this. This is not a team with a bunch of 33- or 34-year-olds that you just need to reset. Maybe some areas or a position or a player here and there. But this team did a lot of really good things this season and when you look at what we’ve done year, after year, after year, I think a lot of people would sign up for that. I’ve heard it told to me by a lot of people that have been in this league longer than I have, ‘Keep kicking the door and you’re going to knock it down.’ That’s my mentality, it’s our mentality … we are not giving in. We’re frustrated, we want to win. All (losing) is doing is making our chip (on the shoulder) bigger. We’ll reset, recalibrate and not make any rash decisions and shape what the next team will look like. It will be a new team … what hurts is, there’s no guarantee you get back to the championship game. There’ll be a whole new team, there will be some returners, but you lose some players (to free agency) players retire …” 

(NEXT: More from Beane on the 2024 season)

(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)