The Buffalo Bills have hired Brandon Beane as their next general manager. Is doubling down on guys with Carolina Panthers roots a good idea for the Bills?
A little more than a week after the Buffalo Bills fired their former general manager Doug Whaley the day after the 2017 NFL Draft ended, Buffalo has found its guy in former Carolina Panthers front office executive Brandon Beane.
Beane looks to be the next up-and-coming general manager in the NFL. Though only 40 years old, Beane has spent nearly half of his life working for the Panthers organization. He had in recent years worked closely with Panthers general manager David Gettleman.
Though the timing of Whaley’s firing by the Pegula Family was both odd and cruel, bringing in a guy that new head coach Sean McDermott is familiar with is more logical. Clearly McDermott had his say on who the Bills drafted in Philadelphia two weekends ago.
We have our GM. Brandon Beane has been named the General Manager of the Buffalo Bills! pic.twitter.com/z81rG3mp8N
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) May 9, 2017
The defensive-minded head coach grabbed LSU Tigers cornerback Tre’Davious White in the first round and traded up to select East Carolina Pirates wide receiver Zay Jones early in the second round. These two picks were done to offset the offseason departures of cornerback Stephon Gilmore and wide receiver Robert Woods in unrestricted free agency.
If Beane is of the Gettleman school of team building, look for him to routinely double down when addressing team issues in future NFL Drafts. Gettleman needed to solve defensive tackle in 2013, so he drafted Star Lotulelei in the first-round out of Utah and Kawann Short in the second round out of Purdue. The Panthers did the same thing in 2017 by taking offensive weapons in succession by selecting Christian McCaffrey in the first round out of Stanford and Curtis Samuel in the second round out of Ohio State.
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Having a unified organization will be most crucial for the Bills to hopefully end their league-worst 17-year playoff drought some time soon. Beane will have his work cut out for him to turn Buffalo into a winner. If his working relationship is strong with McDermott, then maybe the Bills can do the improbable and make the AFC Playoffs before the end of the decade. That’s the plan in Orchard Park, right? Let’s at least hope it is.