Bills GM Brandon Beane slots in amongst league’s best in NFL executive ranking

Continuity at the general manager post was something the Buffalo Bills long lacked before hiring Brandon Beane.

The role was long a revolving door of retreads, false hope, and Russ Brandon; Tom Donahoe was named general manager of the team in 2001 after longtime executive John Butler departed the organization, becoming the first of what would be five lead executives for Buffalo in 15 years.

Donahoe was fired after the 2005 season and was replaced by Marv Levy, the all-time winningest coach in Bills history who, on top of being 80 years old at the time, had no prior executive experience. Levy stepped down after two years and was replaced by an even less qualified candidate—director of non-football operations Russ Brandon, an Upstate New York native who got his start in professional sports as a baseball executive. He was promoted to CEO after two years and was replaced by Buddy Nix, who was also replaced after two years, this time by assistant Doug Whaley. He manned the post for four seasons before being fired after the 2017 NFL Draft; he was ultimately replaced by Beane, who was then the assistant general manager of the Carolina Panthers.

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The constant executive turnover prevented Buffalo from ever effectively getting its feet underneath it; its roster was a constant hodgepodge of players targeted and acquired by different general managers, with the team never being able to consistently field a cohesive lineup constructed with one singular vision in mind. Knowing this, it’s not surprising that the team went 17 consecutive seasons without a postseason berth from 2000–2016.

Beane has been given the necessary time to craft the roster to his liking and it’s, thus far, paid off; the team has qualified for the postseason in six of his seven seasons at the helm, with the executive being responsible for the acquisition of quarterback Josh Allen, who may go down as one of—if not the—best and most beloved player in franchise history.

Beane has transformed Buffalo from an NFL bottom-dweller into a perennial contender and is, thus, justifiably viewed as one of the league’s best general managers. This sentiment has been echoed by NBC Sports writer Patrick Daugherty, who recently slotted Beane in at eighth amongst his peers in an article ranking the best GMs in the NFL.

“By any reasonable measure, this is a wildly successful front office,” Daugherty wrote. “Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott have one losing season in seven years and successfully traded up for a franchise player. They have won at least one playoff game four seasons running. But you don’t get judged by reasonable measures when you have Josh Allen in his prime. It’s about Super Bowls, and the Bills haven’t sniffed one since 2020. That’s despite ‘all-in’ team building that produced top-heavy rosters, an approach that finally had to be curtailed with an offseason release-a-thon. 

“. . . Although this is now a “post-hype” roster, it is still a strong AFC East favorite, one likely to win another playoff game. It’s just a question of how much longer that remains enough for Beane and McDermott as the clock ticks on Allen’s wrecking-ball years.”

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It’s perhaps a bit unfair to describe the Bills’ recent rosters as “top-heavy,” as a team being headlined by objective superstars at several positions does not necessarily mean they don’t have depth throughout the roster. One could reasonably make an argument that the depth of the roster has been one of its greatest strengths in recent years; the team has remained competitive—and has won four-straight division titles—despite consistently dealing with injuries throughout the roster (primarily in the secondary and at linebacker), a testament to its general depth.

That said, the writer is correct in their assessment of Buffalo’s roster not being as stout now as it once was; Beane, on several occasions, has described his team as one “in transition,” taking the 2024 offseason to better position the Bills for the future as opposed to going “all-in” yet again. How he builds on this foundation and rounds out the ‘next core’ around Allen may ultimately define his legacy.

Brett Veach of the Kansas City Chiefs, John Lynch of the San Francisco 49ers, Howie Roseman of the Philadelphia Eagles, Les Snead of the Los Angeles Rams, Eric DeCosta of the Baltimore Ravens, and Brad Holmes of the Detroit Lions are the only executives who slot in above Beane on the list. It’s difficult to argue with any of these names; Beane will look to usurp a few of them as he further tweaks Buffalo’s roster in the coming years.