Brandon Beane may have been reckless Thursday. Many people seem to think that’s the case. The same people who have been begging Beane to be reckless for a year.
The rumblings have grown louder after the Buffalo Bills’ annual heartbreaking playoffs, urging the general manager to push all of his chips to the middle of the table to go all-in on winning a Super Bowl.
A sect of the Bills fan base and media has suddenly come to the thinking that Beane isn’t aggressive enough. Truthfully, it’s because Beane hasn’t been aggressive in trading for the position they want the Bills to pursue.
Twice they traded down for a wide receiver in a draft they wanted him to trade up. And the pick eventually made, Keon Coleman, spent most of his second season occupying the guest room of former coach Sean McDermott’s doghouse.
All that talk is conveniently absent of the fact Beane is among the most aggressive general managers in the NFL. He acquired five-time Pro Bowler Amari Cooper at the 2024 trade deadline, one of his four deadline deals since becoming general manager in 2017.
It’s also the same guy who flipped a first-round pick for Stefon Diggs in 2020 and signed future Hall of Famer Von Miller to a $120 million contract in 2022. Beane has also traded up in the first round of the draft five times, all without surrendering a future first-round pick.
His latest swing for the fence was acquiring wide receiver D.J. Moore and a 2026 fifth-round pick from the Chicago Bears in return for a second rounder this year.
“One of my downfalls is I probably get a little aggressive,” Beane said at the NFL scouting combine last month. “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, they’ll at least grab me before I do it and say, ‘Are you sure about this?’ Because it’s going to cost us your third round or whatever pick it’s going to cost us.”
Trading for Moore may be one of Beane’s more aggressive moves. Taking a player still owed $98 million over four years — with a $24.5 million guaranteed 2027 salary due next week — whose yards have gone from 1,364 to 966 to 682 over the last three seasons, all while being set to turn 29 in April.
It’s a risky decision and Beane’s future might be tethered to Moore’s production. But the trade (and compensation) may have a result of the upcoming draft.
Draftnicks believe the top of the draft lacks elite prospects. Even though it’s a deep receiver draft, there will be plenty available late in the first and through Day 2. This might be a year where the price to trade up in the first round is less costly than previous years, with teams preferring to stockpile picks in the middle rounds or acquire some for 2027, which is on track to produce more top-end prospects.
Teams like the Bills, who are in win-now mode, are often more interested in an established player short-term. The NFL seems to be capitalizing quickly by inflating trade demands and free-agent prices.
The Bills showed interest in pending Indianapolis Colts free agent Alec Pierce and monitored the A.J. Brown situation in Philadelphia. Buffalo likely got a feel for what Pierce was looking for and the Eagles were reportedly seeking first- and second-round picks this year.
Pierce is one of the NFL’s premier deep threats, but is coming off his first 1,000-yard season. Brown is better than Moore, but he’ll be 29 before training camp and it took less than a year after winning a Super Bowl to become discontent.
So if the Kansas City Chiefs landed four draft picks from the Los Angeles Rams for cornerback Trent McDuffie, the Las Vegas Raiders are asking for a Micah Parsons-esque haul for defensive end Maxx Crosby — who isn’t as good — and the Bills overpaid for Moore, imagine what a true top-flight receiver would cost.
The path from free agency to the draft was always to focus on upgrading receiver and pass rusher. The smartest route would be acquiring one through trade or free agency and focusing their top draft pick on the other.
The draft is more fertile for defensive ends than the veteran market. And the draft capital spent on Moore still wouldn’t have been enough to jump into the top half of the first round for top receiver prospect Carnell Tate — who may go in the top-10 — even in a buyer-friendly market.
Banking on a rookie receiver to contribute in a major way is risky also. If Beane didn’t land Moore, a combination of, say, 32-year-old Mike Evans and a rookie doesn’t seem tantalizing.
Perhaps Moore won’t pan out, maybe he’s declining. But it’s probably wise to pause on giving Beane’s tenure a toe tag before Moore plays a game for the Bills, or before we see what he does in free agency and the draft.
But the “Beane isn’t aggressive” narrative should be retired. It just doesn’t fit.