Buffalo Bills fans wanted to see general manager Brandon Beane make a splash this offseason to improve the team’s chances of finally making good on a push to reach the Super Bowl. Strapped for cash, Beane did what he could, picking up wide receiver D.J. Moore in a trade and taking a swing at Bradley Chubb to bolster the pass rush.
The quality of those moves is all about perspective. Glass-half-full members of the Mafia can see a route where these moves carry more promise than Beane’s past mistakes in free agency. Glass-half-empty fans just see more of the same, though.
It’s no secret that the Bills came away from the free agency period as one of the least-improved teams around the league. That’s not the end of the world for a perennial championship contender. But it certainly leaves the door open for criticism and concern, which is what ESPN’s Benjamin Solak found for Buffalo when ranking all 32 teams’ efforts in free agency this offseason.
Buffalo Bills’ D.J. Moore trade draws skepticism from ESPN’s Benjamin Solak
Solak ranked the Bills’ free agency class at No. 29, marking it as one of the least impressive among the NFL. The biggest reason for the Bills’ lowly standing in the exercise came down to Solak’s distrust of the trade for Moore.
“I've had a lower opinion than consensus on Moore going back to his Carolina days, and I continue to have my suspicions,” Solak wrote on Wednesday. “Moore is the best receiver rostered by the Bills, and his best days came with Joe Brady in Carolina. The bet is that he'll unlock a new level of play when catching passes from an elite quarterback like Josh Allen ... but I'm dubious.”
It’s certainly not lost on Bills Mafia that Beane and the Bills are taking a serious gamble with Moore. The eight-year veteran logged the most unproductive campaign of his career since his rookie season last year, despite the strides Chicago’s offense made in Year 1 under new head coach Ben Johnson. He flashed in his first postseason appearance, but the overall concern isn’t unfounded.
Solak isn’t wrong about the Bills placing their bets on Moore finding his groove back in Joe Brady’s offense. There’s reason for hope, if not just for that duo’s past successes together, but also simply because Josh Allen is the best quarterback Moore will have played with in his career so far. Unfortunately, Bills Mafia has seen that story before.
Curtis Samuel, Josh Palmer, and Elijah Moore were all offseason gambles Beane took that fell flat, despite what Brady and Allen collectively offer. Moore is certainly a higher pedigree player with more years of consistent success under his belt, and unlike that aforementioned trio, at least Moore will be fully capable of staying on the field to serve as a consistent figure in the offense.
Nonetheless, it’s been clear to many in Bills Mafia that the move for Moore isn’t enough to solve the debilitating issues the team has experienced at wide receiver. So, for it to stand tall as the most impactful move the front office has made so far, it’s not really much of a surprise that it doesn’t move the needle much for a national analyst such as Solak.