'One of the dumbest arguments I've heard' – Bills GM Brandon Beane offers fiery response to criticisms about Buffalo's 2025 NFL Draft haul
Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane woke up on Monday morning with a chip on his shoulder. One of the biggest criticisms, from the national media to the local media, about the Bills' 2025 NFL Draft haul was Buffalo's decision to not select a wide receiver until the seventh round (Maryland's Kaden Prather). ESPN's Mel Kiper, […]
Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane woke up on Monday morning with a chip on his shoulder.
One of the biggest criticisms, from the national media to the local media, about the Bills' 2025 NFL Draft haul was Buffalo's decision to not select a wide receiver until the seventh round (Maryland's Kaden Prather).
ESPN's Mel Kiper, for example, suggested that Buffalo "could regret not doing more" to give quarterback Josh Allen some more weapons in the draft.
Beane joined WGR 550 on Monday morning and he immediately voiced his feelings about the Bills' wide receiver situation.
"I was just listening to last few minutes of your show before I came on," said Beane. "It sounds like 2018 all over [again] with you guys. You guys were bitching in 2018 about Josh Allen, you guys wanted Josh Rosen. And now you guys are bitching that we don't have a receiver. I don't get it, like….hold on, let me talk. 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 receivers, but I don't understand it now. You just saw us lead the league in points. When you add [in] the postseason, no one scored more points than the Buffalo Bills, including the Super Bowl champions. So you just saw us do it without Stefon Diggs.
"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 got to have a show, and you got to have something to bitch about. But bitching about wide receiver is one of the dumbest arguments I've heard.
"Let's be realistic," continued Bean. "Our job, it's not fantasy football, [is not] to trot out the best receivers. We got Josh Allen. First thing you got to do is protect him. You can't have everything. You can't have Pro Bowl wide receivers and have 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. There's one ball. You can't give it to but so many people. So that's where I don't understand this narrative. I felt it a little bit from a couple of the reporters. 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."
I think Beane is spot on. Putting an NFL roster together is like piecing a puzzle together. It can be tough to make all the pieces fit within the constraints of the salary cap. Every NFL team is working under the same salary cap constraints, yet some front offices never "figure it out", while others seem to thrive on an annual basis.
Beane's primary objective this offseason was to find a way to get the Bills over the hump. And after last season, it's clear that upgrading the defense needed to be the most important objective for the Bills this offseason.
As Beane noted later on during his appearance on WGR 550, the Bills didn't purposefully avoid selecting a wide receiver early in the 2025 NFL Draft. There just wasn't one available that fit within the Bills' "best player available" approach. In other words, the Bills didn't act foolishly and reach for a wide receiver just because that's what fans and media wanted. Showing restraint is usually the best approach in the draft, and that's exactly what Beane and the Bills' front office did this past weekend.
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