All eyes will be on Brandon Beane as free agency approaches and fans will be watching how he helps turn the Buffalo Bills into a better team than they already are. Even though the Bills are a top contending team in the league, they have a great amount of improvements. It’s Beane’s job to deliver a strong offseason.
However, one thing that Beane can’t control is what other teams (specifically rivals) do. The Bills could have a great offseason in free agency and in the draft, but so could their rivals just within the AFC East.
The New England Patriots have taken back the AFC East from the Bills (for right now anyways) and going into this offseason, they will have over $42 million to spend in free agency according to Over The Cap, which is scary to think about as Bills fans. Seeing the Pats having immediate success with Mike Vrabel and now having resources to get even better is not a pleasant setup for Buffalo.
Bills must hope Patriots don't land pending free agent star edge rusher
Dalton Wasserman from Pro Football Focus (PFF) talked about how one move that could take the Patriots “to the next level” is acquiring Bengals’ star pass rusher Trey Hendrickson. He is a pending free agent and if he hits the open market, he will be coveted and the Bills better hope he doesn’t land in the AFC East that isn’t with them.
"The Patriots put together arguably the best interior pass rush in the NFL this season. However, their edge defender unit ranked 29th in PFF pass-rush grade and 32nd in pass-rush win rate. Cincinnati’s Trey Hendrickson has been one of the best pure pass rushers in the NFL for five seasons." said Wasserman.
New England’s defense is already solid enough and then potentially getting Hendrickson would be an absolute nightmare for the Bills. Let’s not forget, New England’s defense only gave up one true touchdown to the Seahawks in the Super Bowl. They weren’t the problem and quite frankly, it’s the biggest strength of their team.
So, if Hendrickson and the Patriots were going to pair up with each other, the Bills would then be forced to not only game plan for players like Drake Maye and TreVeyon Henderson on offense, but now they would have to plan for Hendrickson, Milton Williams, and Christian Barmore. That just simply isn’t fair.
Now, that’s of course if the Bengals let Hendrickson hit the open free agent market. Maybe there is a chance that he does return to Cincinnati, but with all of the drama that happened with him last offseason and there not being a long-term solution for both parties, you could easily make the case that Hendrickson is on his way out. If that is the case, Bills fans just better hope that he doesn’t land in Foxborough.