Former NFL Exec: If Bills Win Arms Race for Playmaker ‘Forget Stopping Them’

The Buffalo Bills are already Super Bowl favorites, but in the arms race to get to the big game and win, one key move could put them over the top according to former NFL executive Joe Banner. The former Eagles and Browns executive made a recent appearance on Heavy’s The Matt Lombardo Show, and suggested that signing Odell Beckham Jr. would make the Bills offense unstoppable and put them over the top in the AFC.

“The only thing I’m wondering is if either of those teams [Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills] gets OBJ, and they both could use a third receiver, to me, they then become the favorite versus the other [in the AFC],” Banner said during the appearance. “And I usually don’t, once you’ve got a good wide receiving corps, I usually don’t think of an addition like that making such a huge difference. But he, if healthy, and if he can play like he did at the end of last year, and you add him to the existing weapons on either of those teams, I just can’t even imagine what a defensive coordinator is thinking as he looks at the tape, and how he even comes up with a game plan that he even thinks has a chance to slow them down. Forget stopping them, that’s off the table, but even slowing them down, I just I just don’t even know how you’d start to go about doing that.”

That, of course, includes the catch. If Beckham ends up with the Kansas City Chiefs, then suddenly the odds could shift away from the Bills in the AFC. Of course, there’s also the chance he ends up on an NFC team and none of this impacts the Bills until the Super Bowl.

The Bills are at least considering the move, according to general manager Brandon Beane. It’s worth noting that there are salary cap constraints that may require some creativity.

“OBJ’s a heck of a talent,” Beane told reporters, per NFL.com. “You know where he was drafted, obviously he had the great catch and he might have been the MVP of that Super Bowl, does he not tear the ACL. But he’s a heck of a player, everyone in this room knows who OBJ is. … And you know me, if we think he can help this team, we’d be crazy not to at least look into it.”

Beane also gave more details on just how seriously they’re looking into it during a radio appearance. “We’ve talked a little to his agent. We will see where it goes,” Beane said Thursday on Sirius XM’s Mad Dog Radio.

Overall, Odell Beckham Jr.’s resume speaks for itself. He’s gone over 1,000 yards five times in his career. Beckham has 531 catches for 7,367 yards and 56 touchdowns over the course of eight seasons, averaging more than 1,300 yards and nearly 10 touchdowns per 17 games.

But Beckham has also been able to perform at a high level under pressure in the post-season. During the Rams Super Bowl run last year, Beckham was targeted 26 times and caught 21 passes for 288 yards and two touchdowns during the four-game run to the Lombardi Trophy.