Buffalo’s new front office has quickly taken the initial steps necessary to help mold the team’s roster into what they believe in time can be a consistent winner.
Buffalo Bills Insider Chris Brown provides teh details. Here is his report:
They often stand in small clusters together along the sidelines during practice. GM Brandon Beane, flanked by Assistant GM Joe Schoen. Vice President of Player Personnel Brian Gaine at times will make it a trio of onlookers. Other times they’ll go to their own corner of the field and observe the players on their newly inherited roster alone.
All three men are less than a month on the job in Buffalo and have a lot of catching up to do with respect to their NFL counterparts. They also have a heavy lift to get the Bills roster shaped in the image they and their head coach have in mind.
For the fourth time in the last seven seasons the offense has a new coordinator. For the sixth time in the last seven seasons the defense has a new play caller. Changes were necessary, but with those changes comes different player requirements. Different skill sets are needed. Specific player strengths are more highly valued. More players may need to be carried as certain positions than the year before.
Many of these needs have been identified by head coach Sean McDermott, in his four-plus months at One Bills Drive. Now the task becomes blending in the personnel expertise of Buffalo’s front office with the conclusions drawn by Buffalo’s head coach, and finding a way to check those needs off in an abbreviated offseason.
A shortened timeline and a thinned free agent market are anything but daunting to a personnel department that boasts more than 50 years of experience between their top three executives.
“It’s going great,” Beane told Buffalobills.com of his department’s meetings thus far. “I meet with my staff and we talk about a short list, who’s out there, who’s not. Then Sean and I talk about areas of weakness on our roster, not necessarily players, but positions where we’re looking to upgrade and fill spots.
“Then I meet with my staff, we talk about it, we look at it, we put the tape on… and even Sean and I the other day flipped the tape on one more time before making a decision on a player.”
The date on the calendar for Buffalo’s newly assembled personnel department didn’t change the process of roster building, it just may have left them with fewer options right now. It’s both circumstance and fact, but it won’t discourage Beane and his personnel department from working to accomplish the task at hand.
Helping in that regard is the parallel approach that both McDermott and Beane share in building a roster.
“(Our meetings) have been healthy,” McDermott said. “They’ve been productive. The neat part about it is we’re aligned philosophically on how we want this to look and Brandon has put together his staff and I’ve been impressed with the caliber of the staff that he’s been able to put together. Very impressed.
“Our days will continue to go forward, and we’ll continue to get some things looking like the way we know we want them to look throughout the building.”
Knowing McDermott has largely been working to build that philosophy in Orchard Park with his coaching staff since he was hired in mid-January, Beane has made a point to ease some of the personnel burden on his head coach. Entering year one of his NFL head coaching tenure, McDermott’s time is precious.
That’s why Beane brings any and all discussions on personnel matters to a head with his own staff before engaging his head coach in a final decision.
“Sean’s time is important as is all of our time,” Beane said. “So I meet with my guys and we hash it out and then when I narrow it down to the one or two players that I think could really help us, now I talk with Sean and we’ll talk fit. We might even bring (defensive coordinator) Leslie (Frazier) in or (offensive coordinator) Rick Dennison in to talk fit and scheme and then Sean and I will decide if it’s a good move and make a call.”
In an ideal world Buffalo’s personnel department would capably address every perceived weakness or area lacking depth on the roster. But even for driven men like Beane and McDermott, who do not change their expectations based on the circumstances surrounding them, it is a tall order.
Their path to success is a proven one from their days together in Carolina. But both men are smart enough to know that rushing to achieve success will only delay the process.
It’s the reason many of their personnel decisions work to strike a balance between making the roster as good as it can be now, while also casting an eye toward the future.
“I would say its 50-50,” McDermott said of their roster building. “There are short term decisions and there are long term decisions. From a leadership standpoint, I know Brandon and I make decisions with that in mind all the time.
“There’s always a pressure from a coach’s standpoint where I think most of the coaches out there would feel the pressure to get the immediate fix. And sometimes that’s a Band-Aid, and I’m not really into that approach. I’m in to what’s best for this organization, both in the short and long term, but I’m into sustaining that success for many years to come as well for this city and these fans.”
Patience is largely in short supply among Buffalo’s fan base, which has been starved for a winning team capable of earning a playoff berth.
Beane and McDermott certainly want to win as well, and sooner rather than later. But trying to rush success rarely works, and even in the rare instances when it does work, it doesn’t last.
Perennial success is the goal and Buffalo’s front office hierarchy is committed to a brick-by-brick approach.
“It takes time,” said McDermott. “You look at all the different aspects of building a roster, it’s not just the guys that are on the team. You have to look at draft picks. What draft picks we have for next year. Do we have all of them? Are we one short? How that looks, and then salary cap. So there are a lot of facets of building a football team that can not only be successful, but also sustain success. So that’s a constant conversation that happens daily.”
Knowing the personnel and coaching departments are energized, focused and in sync with one another should only serve to move that process along in steadfast fashion.
“Just the day-to-day operation is really exciting because you’re talking about some dynamic minds that have great experience, and it’s no different with the coaching staff,” McDermott said. “It’s a melting pot really, of guys from different successful operations and that’s been fun to be around. I know it’s made me better.”
Buffalo’s new decision makers will likely never be done molding and shaping the roster, but every single change made will hold firm to the premise of moving the team forward no matter how incremental it might be.
“Brandon and I, and Joe were sitting in my office last night talking about what’s next,” said McDermott. “Just trying to find what I like to term ‘six inches.’ It’s about any way we can improve. It could be what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, or the roster.”