3 reasons to love the Buffalo Bills trade for quarterback Case Keenum

The Buffalo Bills saw their backup quarterback from last season, Mitchell Trubisky, leave in free agency and join the Pittsburgh Steelers. This forced general manager Brandon Beane to come up with a plan on how to address an important part of the roster.

The Buffalo Bills have one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL in Josh Allen and he is a big reason that this team is a perennial playoff team and in the discussion among Super Bowl contenders next year. One of the reasons is he is such a unique player that creates problems for defenses as there aren’t many in the league that has his size and arm strength with his athleticism at the position.

When trying to find Josh Allen’s backup, the Bills were not going to find a player with the same skill set. However, the decision to trade for Case Keenum was a great move for Buffalo and the coaching staff should feel more confident if they were faced with the situation of being without Josh Allen for an extended period of time.

These are three reasons the trade for Case Keenum was a great move for the Buffalo Bills.

Buffalo Bills traded only a seventh-round pick for Case Keenum (along with a restructured contract)

The first reason is what the Buffalo Bills gave up, which was one of their two seventh round picks in next month’s NFL Draft. The Bills originally had nine picks in the 2022 NFL Draft with an extra seventh round pick acquired in the trade with the Atlanta Falcons that sent tight end Lee Smith to Atlanta.

The fact the Bills were able to trade only a seventh round pick to acquire a veteran quarterback like Case Keenum is a steal. The Bills have one of the deepest rosters so the chance that nine players were going to make the 53-man roster was unlikely so using that pick to address an important position, is a great move.

In addition to that, Buffalo was able to work out a restructured contract with Case Keenum. According to Field Yates, Keenum is now due a base salary of only $3.5 million which as Yates notes helps the Bills as they have made a number of moves this offseason and have limited cap space.

The addition of a veteran quarterback, with Keenum’s experience, at that salary, is a great move for Buffalo.

Protects the Football

The other thing teams want from their backup quarterback is the confidence that they can step in at a moment’s notice and not necessarily win the game but definitely not lose it. One easy way to lose games is by turning the ball over.

This is an area Keenum does a good job as he has only 48 career interceptions in 64 career starts and 76 total games. In fact, in those 64 starts, he has thrown two or more interceptions in only 10 games but has had 30 career starts with no interceptions.

This past season with the Cleveland Browns, Keenum had to start two games and threw three touchdowns to only one interception while the Browns went on to win both of those games. Case Keenum doesn’t have the ability to produce at the level of Josh Allen but if the need were to arise, he should give Buffalo a good chance in those games because of his ability to protect the football.

Relationship with Stefon Diggs

Another reason that this is a great deal for the Buffalo Bills is that Case Keenum already has a relationship with their top wide receiver, Stefon Diggs. The two players played together in 2017 with the Minnesota Vikings, when Keenum was primarily a starter and he threw 22 touchdowns to only seven interceptions and the Vikings would go 11-3 in his starts.

That season, Diggs was productive with 64 receptions, 849 receiving yards and eight touchdowns. However, there was not a bigger play than in the playoffs when Keenum found Stefon Diggs down the sideline in the closing seconds to give the Vikings the win in what is called “The Minneapolis Miracle”.

The reason this is important, and why this is a great trade, is that typically backup quarterbacks don’t get a lot of practice time with the starting offense during the season. However, if Case Keenum is forced into the starting lineup, he already has built that connection with the top wide receiver and there shouldn’t be as much of a learning curve.

The hope is that Case Keenum is not asked to play meaningful snaps this upcoming season but if he is needed, the Buffalo Bills should feel confident about who they have behind Josh Allen.