Orlando, Fla. (WGR 550) - For the better part of the last year, most analysts believed the Buffalo Bills would receive a third-round compensatory selection in the 2024 NFL Draft after losing free agent linebacker Tremaine Edmunds to the Chicago Bears in free agency last offseason.
Count general manager Brandon Beane as another person who believed that.
However, the league announced earlier this month the Bills would get an additional fourth-round pick on Day 3 of the NFL Draft next month.
"It did surprise me," said Beane with reporters Sunday at the NFL’s annual meetings in Orlando.
"I think us and San Francisco [49ers], we got a raw deal."
The NFL uses a complicated formula to determine how many compensatory draft picks teams receive in a given year, and where those picks are slotted. Because Edmunds signed a four-year, $72 million contract with the Bears, it was widely believed the Bills would receive a third-round choice, the highest round a team can receive.
"I don’t want to give a full thing, but we had separate Zooms with the league, trying to go through how it was calculated, because, by even their accounts, as we were checking with them through the year, we clearly had a third-rounder," Beane said.
Beane added the Bills and 49ers set up the Zoom together with the league to plead their cases, but they were both ultimately denied.
"It was a major blow," he said. "We did our best, and they said, 'no deal.'"
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