Reading between the lines for Bills draft takeaways from general manager Brandon Beane

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The calendar turned to April this morning and that means the 2025 NFL Draft is quickly approaching. In a little over three weeks, the Bills will hope to add another formative group to their roster that can help put them over the top over the next four years.

As the draft is a yearly tradition in April, so too are the Annual League Meetings about a month ahead of the draft. It’s a time for the league to decide on rule changes, but also an opportunity to hear from the head coaches and general managers of each team.

Bills general manager Brandon Beane and head coach Sean McDermott fielded several questions about their roster. What did some of their comments signal about their upcoming draft plans?

Reading between the lines, here’s what stood out from their recent comments.

Do the James Cook comments signal anything for the draft?

Before the NFL Scouting Combine kicked into gear in late February, the Bills had their work cut out for them. They had five key players on their rookie deals whose contracts expired after the 2025 season. Right around the same time, a significant member of that group, running back James Cook, let his feelings known about his wanting close to a top-of-market contract, with the insinuation that the asking price was $15 million per year. Whether coincidence or not, since that point, the Bills have executed long-term contract extensions for every other member of that group, getting wide receiver Khalil Shakir, linebacker Terrel Bernard, defensive end Greg Rousseau and, most recently, cornerback Christian Benford all under contract through the 2029 season.

Speaking on those situations, after Cook’s representatives made it known they had conversations with the Bills, Beane gave a piece of information about why the offseason went as it has with the other extensions.

“It didn’t lead to anything as far as closing in on a deal,” Beane said. “And so we moved on to the guys that, you know, we were more on the same page with.”

After that, Beane put it quite simply when speaking with reporters this weekend. After Benford’s contract extension was completed, the Bills GM said, “We’re on to the draft,” rather than focusing on other long-term contract extensions. Beane was careful to leave the door open to an agreement in the future with Cook, but it’s not coming anytime soon.

Considering the timing, the fact that the Bills now have several big money cap commitments moving forward and how the running back position is handled across the NFL, it begs the question of whether Cook’s valuation of himself and the Bills’ valuation of him will get close enough by March of next season.

But there is a twist to the entire discussion, as the NFL is about to see a massive influx of good, young running back prospects through the draft. Many consider the 2025 running back class to have an incredible depth to it, along with strong early-round options, which could dramatically alter running back rooms across the league. Is the combination of the strength of this class, along with Cook’s contract demands, a recipe for the Bills to select a running back at some point?

As it stands today, the Bills have three running backs all but guaranteed to be on the 2025 roster — Cook, Ray Davis and Ty Johnson. Johnson signed a two-year deal that is fully guaranteed only in the first year, and one the Bills can easily get out of in 2026 while saving over $2 million on the cap. If the Bills moved on from Cook and took the cap savings for Johnson, it would leave Davis as their lone runner. Davis looked very capable of a bigger role in his one spot start in 2024 against the Jets, but it’s a small sample size, and the Bills have always preferred a committee approach above all else.

With all that considered, you can certainly make a good case for the Bills to draft one. Selecting a running back in 2025 would give them the chance to get a player who, in most years, would have gone much earlier. A general rule of thumb for roster building is that it’s always a good idea to take advantage of the strength in a draft, because the value it presents provides a team with a potential key contributor down the line, and can give more flexibility in roster decisions moving forward.

With how the Bills’ roster is currently shaping up, the Bills have a roster spot or two of flexibility, and that’s even before considering that both defensive end Michael Hoecht and defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi won’t count against the 53-man roster to begin the year due to their six-game suspensions. That’s where the special teams piece comes in. If they can find a running back who can give some long-term offensive upside while carrying some residual special teams value, which McDermott mentioned several times this week as a priority to address, it would make the idea of carrying four running backs in 2025 much more palatable. All the while, it would give them plenty of insurance at the position in 2026 and beyond should they move on from Cook next offseason.

Are the odds of an early WR pick worsening?

Since the day the Bills traded Stefon Diggs, they have lacked a true, definable top receiver on the roster. They’ve had different individual players step up as the top target in games throughout the 2024 year, but lacked that true go-to player when the game is on the line. Beane wasn’t asked about adding a go-to target. He was only asked if he felt the Bills needed to add another one.

“Needs? I wouldn’t say needs, but we’ll look for competition,” Beane said. “But I mean, I would say our offense did pretty good last year. I think when you look across the board, I don’t have all the metrics of, you know, offensive points, scoring all that stuff, but I think what Joe Brady and Josh [Allen] and our offensive team did was pretty good.”

“There’s still time to add more players, but am I sitting here going, man, we’ve got a hole there? No.”

When you juxtapose this answer with how Beane discussed searching for other positions, there was a slightly different tone to it. And it does add up when you think about it logically. The Bills have three receivers signed for the long term, all of which are guaranteed to be on the roster through the 2026 season, at least. Shakir and Joshua Palmer have legitimate compensation that will call for an enhanced role on offense, and the Bills will want to give Keon Coleman every opportunity in the near future to build off a solid rookie year. On top of all that, the receiver class in 2025 is not nearly as strong as it has been in recent drafts. Considering the Shakir and Palmer investments, it might be a year too soon to use a significant early draft resource on a receiver.

However, there are two caveats. First, there may be one early-round exception for one prospect in particular. Matthew Golden out of Texas encompasses many of the things that would benefit the Bills as the receiver who would complete their room. Golden has the speed to be a vertical threat, he can separate well on intermediate and deep routes, and he can be based at the Z receiver position while possessing the versatility to line up at other receiver spots. But that profile is attractive across the league, and especially in a weaker receiver class, the chance Golden is on the board at No. 30 does not seem likely. The other potential first-round receivers, Tetairoa McMillan, Luther Burden III and Emeka Egbuka, duplicate the skills of some of the Bills’ receiver investments.

Second, that doesn’t prevent the Bills from taking a developmental receiver with some special teams ability — maybe as a return specialist — at some point on Day 3. The lean should still be to find a Z receiver with some speed, the type of player the Bills don’t have on their roster at the moment. They usually keep five receivers on the roster, and right now, only four (Shakir, Palmer, Coleman and Curtis Samuel) are roster locks at the moment. So while the need to draft a receiver hasn’t disappeared, listening to how the Bills responded to that notion might just mean they’re good with where they’re at for 2025, within reason.

Get ready — Beane might be active on draft day

As the 2025 NFL Draft gets closer, this year appears to be a throwback one for the Bills to their earlier roster-building days. They’re still picking near the end of the first round, just as they have the past several years, but they have more draft capital heading into this year’s selection process than they have since 2019 and earlier.

Some years have had the same number of picks for the Bills as this year, but many of those drafts were backloaded with later picks on Day 3. They also haven’t had more than two selections over the first two rounds in many years. In 2025, the Bills have three selections in the first two rounds. They have an extremely early fourth-round pick and another late fourth-round selection. On top of that, they have four selections in a nine-pick span over the late fifth round into the top pick in the sixth round. What does all of this mean? The Bills are in a much stronger position to be extremely active over the three-day draft.

“I do like the ammo that we’re going into the draft with, that we’re going to try and play the board and move up and back where we think it makes the most sense,” Beane said. “So today, I can’t tell you exactly where I feel what rounds we’re going to feel that way, and sometimes you even have a feeling, and then all of a sudden there’s a run on a position, and you’re like, ‘Damn, we better move up or we ain’t going to get one.’”

Beane is known to wheel and deal on draft day, usually in moves up the board, even in years with far less draft capital. The Bills also likely don’t have 10 roster spots for rookies readily available. During the draft, keep an eye on positions of need where players start to come off the board over a 5-10 pick span. If it only cost them one of their Day 3 picks to move up and secure a player they like at a need position, Beane likely wouldn’t think twice. The odds that they move up at least once in a few weeks appear relatively high.

(Top photo of Brandon Beane: Kirby Lee / Imagn Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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