Brandon Beane won’t be doing it.
The Buffalo Bills’ General Manager and President of Football Operations, Brandon Beane, is nearing his nine-year milestone with the team. What seems like an eternity in NFL terms has resulted in one of the most impressive winning records among professional sports teams. For much of those nine years, Beane has collaborated closely with Sean McDermott. Due to their long-standing partnership (a period in Bills history often called “The McBeane Era”), it’s understandable that it’s hard to distinguish which aspects of the team’s personnel approach were attributed to Brandon Beane and which were due to Sean McDermott.
Following McDermott’s dismissal and the appointment of former offensive coordinator and internal candidate Joe Brady (along with the reorganization that made the new head coach report directly to Beane), the chance to isolate the variable has emerged in conversations about the Buffalo Bills’ personnel changes. How different would the team be now that the general manager and head coach were no longer both reporting to the owner? Would a vision centered solely on Brandon Beane differ from the one he had with Sean McDermott?
Regarding a conventional two-gap nose tackle and the backup quarterback role, the response seems to be a clear “no.”
Two specific personnel strategies that some Bills fans keep revisiting each offseason are: 1. Will the Bills address their historically weak run defense by selecting a traditional two-gapper defensive tackle, someone who can not only add size to a front that includes undersized Ed Oliver but also allow linebackers to flow to the ball more effectively, and 2. Will the Bills opt for a cost-effective rookie backup quarterback instead of pursuing free agents like Mitchell Trubisky, Kyle Allen (who is now with the team), and Case Keenum? If there was ever a time when the answers to these questions would have confirmed a pure Brandon Beane approach, without any input from the head coach, it vanished after the 2026 NFL Draft concluded.
The Bills entered this particular offseason with perceived weaknesses at both positions. In March, 2025 backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky moved to the Tennessee Titans, signing a two-year, $10.5 million contract, and the Bills responded by signing Kyle Allen to a two-year, $4.1 million deal. Former starting one-technique defensive tackle DaQuan Jones is still unsigned as of now following the expiration of his contract, and Brandon Beane has publicly stated that 2025 fourth-round pick Deone Walker (who wasn’t a two-gapping player during college or his rookie season) would start at nose tackle if the team were to play today. No free agent signings occurred at defensive tackle, and the only player selected this year was 6’1″, 290-pound sixth-round pick Zane Durant (who Beane has indicated could see snaps at the nose alongside 2024 third-round selection DeWayne Carter).
Although the Bills might still sign unrestricted free agent D.J. Reader (which would mean only half of this article remains accurate going forward), the best way to characterize these two personnel developments is “Beane-Biblical.” We (including myself) can all save time and avoid unnecessary debate as long as Beane continues to handle personnel decisions by assuming that the absence of a traditional two-gapping nose tackle and the lack of any draft picks used on backup quarterback (except for a fifth-round selection on Jake Fromm in 2020 when he served as a “quarantine quarterback” isolated from the rest of the team during the COVID season) is intentional, not an oversight. These are key elements of Brandon Beane’s approach, which can generally be relied upon, unless there’s an unusual circumstance.
If they intended to do it, they would have already done so.
…and that’s how the cookie crumbles. This is Bruce Nolan with Buffalo Rumblings. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram.@BruceExclusiveand check for new episodes of “The Bruce Exclusive” every Thursday on the Rumblings Cast Network —See more on my LinkTree!
