Kemuel Stewart

Last Off-season, Buffalo Bills GM Brandon Beane strongly defended his roster-building strategy calling criticism regarding the team’s lack of elite wide receivers “one of the dumbest arguments I’ve heard.”

Beane pointed to the 2024 season, where the Bills finished with the second-highest scoring average in the league, as proof that their system worked, even without a clear, household-name WR1. He clarified that his job is not “fantasy football” to “trot out the best receivers,” but to win games.

It’s honestly the mentality of a team, to quote the great poet Rick Ross, “suffering from success.”

The Bills made it all the way to the 2025 AFC Championship Game verses the Kansas City Chiefs, however, fell short of the Super Bowl because of the offense constantly stalling out on key downs.

However, when you look at other NFL teams, like the Seattle Seahawks, and Philadelphia Eagles, besides less than dominant Quarterback Play, they continue to make playing in the Post Season less Quarterback-centric and more team-centric.

In the National Football League, Championships are typically secured by teams that minimize errors and establish consistent execution across the roster, rather than relying on a quarterback to consistently overcome a high-risk, high-error environment.

The counterargument is often: “That doesn’t matter, because in big games Josh Allen turns into Donovan McNabb,” or “The Buffalo Bills are cursed.”

However, neither claim is true.

The Buffalo Bills are not cursed, and Josh Allen is not Donovan McNabb. NcNabb, who, incidentally, is tied with Jim Kelly for the most playoff wins without a Super Bowl appearance. Factually, Josh Allen has eight playoff wins.

More importantly, the Bills have never made the roster moves required to become a true championship-caliber team.

They’ve been safe.
Respectable.
Patient.

This is the exact same problem the Green Bay Packers had for years. When general managers refuse to fully invest in what it takes to push a team to the next level, it leads to postseason inconsistency. Even with elite quarterback play.
Sean McVay, head coach of the Los Angeles Rams, famously says, “We attack success; we don’t fear failure.” That philosophy led the Rams to a Super Bowl victory in 2022. However, the cost of chasing that level of success showed up the very next year, when they missed the playoffs in 2023 after finishing 5–12.

That’s the cost of doing business.

The Bills have consistently avoided paying that cost, and as a result, year after year, they suffer heartbreaking losses in the postseason.

Brandon Beane’s mentality is that the Bills are good enough and simply need to continue building, get healthy, and trust that things will change in the postseason. In all honesty, since releasing Stefon Diggs, the Bills have not been good enough. Especially while teams around them, like the New England Patriots, Denver Broncos and Houston Texans, continue to make aggressive moves to progressively improve each season.