Buffalo Bills general manager Brandon Beane met with the media for over an hour Thursday, closing the book on the 2024 season before turning his attention to the NFL Combine and beyond.
Beane detailed his thoughts on the team’s season-ending loss in the AFC Championship to the Chiefs, assessed where the team’s roster is at now and what’s in store for the offseason.
Here’s what we learned:
“Keep kicking the door”
Beane spent nearly 90 minutes answering questions from the local media on a wide range of topics. The first few were directed toward how he views Buffalo’s latest postseason defeat against a familiar opponent.
Sunday’s AFC Championship loss marked the fourth time in the last five seasons that the Bills were eliminated by the Kansas City Chiefs, who are playing for their third consecutive Super Bowl win next week. For Buffalo, it’s the double-edged sword of not being able to reach a Super Bowl and also having the same team prevent them from reaching their goal.
“Until you do it, you’re always going to get questioned, right? It is what it is. We know that, we’re aware of that,” Beane said. “I can promise you, we haven’t slept a lot since that game. And we hurt, and we feel bad for the fans that hurt, and everyone… It’s hard to come up short.”
The GM used the words “reset” and “recalibrate” to describe how they will begin their approach to the offseason. There won’t be any massive overhauls or rash decisions made. Instead, a continuation of belief that they will find a way to make the one or two plays needed to get over the hump in the AFC.
“This team did a lot of really good things this season,” Beane said. “When you look holistically at what we’ve done year after year after year, I think a lot of people would sign up for that. Is it what we want, the final result? No.”
Beane added that the entire staff is committed to examining how their process can be better each season and looking at how the team can be the best version of itself in the critical moments of the postseason.
“We’re going to keep fighting, and I’m determined we’ll get there,” he said.