Bills GM Blames Josh Allen’s $330M Contract for Crippling WR Roster as Amari Cooper Eyes Cowboys Move

A year ago, the Bills‘ receiving room was stacked—Stefon Diggs, Gabe Davis, Deonte Harty—talk about a trio ready to make noise. Fast forward to today, and it’s like someone hit the reset button. Diggs is gone, Davis took off to Jacksonville, and Harty’s out. The Bills brought in Curtis Samuel and Joshua Palmer to patch things up, but it’s clear: something was missing in that wide receiver room.

For this very reason, analysts predicted that the Bills would select a WR in the NFL draft. Fernando Schmude had the Bills grabbing Emeka Egbuka, calling him “a polished, high-upside addition to Buffalo’s passing game.” Mel Kiper Jr. thought they’d snag Adonai Mitchell, praising his “on-field reliability.” Charles Davis liked Brian Thomas Jr., projecting him as a “top-shelf target for Josh Allen.” What did the Bills do?

Oh, they didn’t draft a wide receiver in the NFL draft. Why? Well, recently, the Bills’ general manager, Brandon Beane, stopped by the Pat McAfee Show, where he was asked why the heck they didn’t draft a wideout. Beane addressed their decision, which sounded less like a draft strategy and more like justifying their own mistakes.

“Well, I mean you look at Look at Tom Brady,” the GM started, addressing the Patriots‘ dynasty without a top-tier WR1. “We were talking about some of these teams that won Super Bowls. Look at New England. How many great historic receivers did they have in their Super Bowl teams? But the Patriots were good up front. They had a good quarterback, they usually had some type of run game, whether it was Cory Dillon… There are a hundred different ways you can build it.” Well, that’s a valid argument,

In the early years of the Tom Brady era in New England, the Patriots didn’t feature any top-tier, elite wide receiver corps. In fact, the dynasty was built on a strong defense, a solid running game, and a clutch quarterback in Brady. Sure, Troy Brown and David Patten were solid. But they weren’t your superstar wideouts. But the Patriots still won three Super Bowls.

Fast forward a bit, New England got Julian Edelman, but still, the team wasn’t built on having a dominant wide receiver. But the result? Another hat-trick of Super Bowls. So, safe to say Brandon Beane surely had a point here. But let’s not kid ourselves—the Patriots actually won a bunch of Super Bowls without a strong receiving corps. As for the Bills? It’s a messy part, considering they’re yet to win a Super Bowl.

Cue the real reason behind the Bills ditching a wideout in the NFL draft. It’s Josh Allen’s monstrous $330 million contract extension. Because get this, if you’re keeping your MVP quarterback on the roster on a six-year $330 million deal, you gotta sacrifice other positions. And the Bills’ manager surely knows it. “But when you’re paying Josh Allen what you’re paying him, you got to make some concessions somewhere else,” Beane continued.

There you go. The Bills enhanced Allen’s contract—good for Allen, and definitely great for the Bills. But the gigantic contract extension that made Allen one of the highest-paid QBs affected the team’s receiving corps. In one way or another.

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