ORCHARD PARK – If you were on social media Thursday and Friday, which I’m sure the vast majority of you reading this likely were, you can attest that the consensus regarding the start of the Buffalo Bills’ draft process was that it was an utter disaster.
In fact, be honest and raise your hand because many of you were probably contributing to the vitriol that was howling like the lake effect snowstorms that blow through Orchard Park.
Yeah, it has become a favorite pastime among the Bills’ passionate but sometimes irrational fan base, hating on president/general manager Brandon Beane, mostly because Buffalo’s neverending Super Bowl quest is still a thing, but also because he didn’t get fired along with former coach Sean McDermott three months ago.
Trade out of the first round and not make a pick? What an idiot! Pick edge rusher TJ Parker at the top of the second round? Are you kidding! Trade up from the top of the third round back into the bottom of the second to select cornerback Davison Igbinosun? Folding tables were being crushed all around western New York, and not in the usual fun way.
The Bills have the second-most victories of any NFL team since 2017, and they’ve made eight playoff appearances in Beane’s first nine years with the organization including being the only team in the NFL currently on a seven-year postseason appearance streak, but that doesn’t buy you much in these Super Bowl or you suck days we live in. Win the big one, or you’re a bum.
Like every other man who has been in charge of an NFL personnel department, Beane has had some nice hits in the draft including a few home runs, and he’s had his share of popouts, groundouts and strikeouts. The draft is an inexact science, and no matter how many thousands of hours teams spend scouting, testing, interviewing, and film reviewing prospects, you never really know how they’re going to transition from college to the NFL.
Case in point: JaMarcus Russell was the No. 1 overall pick in 2007; Tom Brady was a sixth-round pick in 1999. Every team makes great picks, and every team makes egregious mistakes.
It’s true that Beane has fallen short in picking enough big-time players who have gone on to earn All-Pro recognition. No doubt, other teams have done a better job in that area, but while it’s not an excuse, that endeavor is undeniably tougher when he never picks early in the first round where the bulk of the future All-Pros live in every draft, a place where Bills fans should be happy not to ever be on the clock.
Could he have improved his odds of finding a future All-Pro had he stayed put Thursday and made his original pick at No. 26? Maybe. But in a draft that was panned by the consensus of analysts as being underwhelming, the chances of that weren’t great.
So, by executing three trades within about a half hour and eventually working himself completely out of the round, rather than go ballistic because there wasn’t a pick to be paraded out, the fan base could have taken a step back and considered how much useable draft capital he added by doing that.
Maybe if wide receiver KC Concepcion hadn’t gone two picks earlier to Cleveland at No. 24, Beane would have done things differently. Maybe not, we’ll never know because he’ll never say. What seems clear is that he had targeted Clemson edge rusher TJ Parker and would have taken him at 26, but he knew he was most likely going to be available early in the second round, which he ultimately was.
In the process, by moving down nine spots Beane picked up two additional picks in the fourth and fifth rounds, and improved Buffalo’s third-round pick from No. 91 to No. 66.
Now, making a slight trade up from 66 to No. 62 at the end of the second to take Ohio State cornerback Davison Igbinosun seemed a little sketchy, especially when the bigger need still felt like defensive tackle or linebacker, but lets give it a chance to breathe. Who knows, maybe Igbinosun beats out last year’s first-round pick, Max Hairston. At minimum, he should give them depth, something they certainly lacked at that position going into the draft.
“Going into the draft, I thought cornerback was our biggest need,” Beane said.
By the time the draft ended, Beane made seven trades and wound up with three more picks than he had when everything started on Thursday.
On Day 3, Beane kept moving around the board with minor trades, starting immediately when he swapped places with the Raiders at the very top of the fourth round and gained a 2027 seventh-rounder, then taking Boston College offensive lineman Jude Bowry.
With his back-to-back picks in the middle of the fourth round he addressed two clear-cut needs with speedy UConn wide receiver Skyler Bell at No. 125 and TCU inside linebacker Kaleb Elarms-Orr at No. 126.
He was supposed to have back-to-back picks in the fifth, but he traded the second to the Lions and picked up the last pick in the fifth at 181, plus No. 213 in the sixth. With the fifth that he kept, the choice was South Carolina safety Jalon Kilgore who has position flexibility and possible punt return usage.
At 181 he went with Penn State defensive tackle Zane Durant, another box that needed checking, though Durant’s 290-pound frame seems a bit redundant to Ed Oliver and TJ Sanders.
Unable to contain himself, Beane made yet another trade – one that elicited a loud groan from a weary press corps in the media room – as he sent 213 in the sixth round to the Bears in exchange for two seventh-rounders.
One of those picks will have a chance to make the team, Florida punter Tommy Doman. The others, Texas A&M offensive lineman Ar’Maj Reed-Adams and Missouri cornerback Toriano Pride Jr. will be longshots, but will have a chance to make the practice squad.
The work has been done, the picks have been made, and now we wait to see how it all works out. You’ll see a bunch of grades on each team’s draft class – a completely foolish exercise in every way – but we won’t know anything about these players until training camp gets rolling, and then the season actually begins.
In the meantime, Beane will continue to draw fire, some of it deserved, most of it not, and I guess it won’t end until there’s a parade in downtown Buffalo in a future February.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 37 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Bills draft outrage is loud but history says Brandon Beane deserves trust
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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