What we learned from the Bills at the 2025 NFL combine: Big-swing potential and contract talks
Inside the "business" of James Cook and Matt Milano's return to the Bills in 2025.
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The Bills 2024 season ended only a month ago, finishing with the closest they’ve ever been to getting to the Super Bowl under head coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane. Even though the season is still fresh, the NFL world going through the 2025 NFL Scouting Combine means the Bills and the entire league are on the fast track to critical offseason decisions to shape their next go at a championship.
The fast track is real. The new league year begins in only two weeks on March 12, with the window to speak with free agents starting on March 10. With those rapidly approaching dates, those seminal choices Beane makes will be flying in furiously.
The Bills have already made their first big decision, extending wide receiver Khalil Shakir through the 2029 season, though Shakir wasn’t even due to be a free agent until 2026. With more pressing decisions on the horizon over the next two weeks, Beane and McDermott spoke with reporters at length about the state of their roster.
Here’s what we learned from the Bills at the NFL Combine.
If there’s a big swing this offseason, DE is a strong contender
Heading into the offseason, the Bills are in an extremely healthy place from many viewpoints. The team was wildly successful in 2024 and narrowly missed a spot in the Super Bowl. They don’t have more than a few upcoming free agents, with the vast majority of their starting lineup back in 2025. And they have actionable cap space, with the means to get more, if they so choose, without being forced to remove any other players from their roster. It’s why, coming into the NFL Combine, the most intriguing thing about the Bills was if they would have played down the notion of going after a big-name, impact player, whether in free agency or through the trade market. While talking in Indianapolis, they certainly didn’t seem like a team trying to temper expectations that something bigger, should the right move come along, could happen this offseason.Though with a lack of impactful free agents that both fit the timeline of what they’re looking for and at a position of need, the trade market could wind up being the Bills’ best means to landing a potential star player who could push them closer to the Super Bowl. To do so, the team would likely need to part ways with an asset Beane has held in high regard since becoming the GM — their first-round pick. The Bills have long held the philosophy that drafting, developing and re-signing their own was their best means for sustained success, so moving a first is always a difficult premise for the GM. However, Beane was eager to answer if he would actually part ways with their first-round pick.
“Anything that’s right that can help our team, yes. Yes. I would not flinch. I say this on the golf course. I’m a lot of things, but scared ain’t one of ’em,” Beane declared. “Anything that can help our roster that can fit and not cripple us in another way, yes, we would definitely do it.”
The last part of his answer is interesting but can be taken in a lot of different ways. If the Bills trade for an established player, the accompanying new contract would take away cap space and this could be an issue if that player was at a position that already had a lot of future cap dollars tied up. But that doesn’t rule out trading for one particular position because they don’t have anything stapled down past 2025. That position is the one that has made the most sense for a big move like this one all along — defensive end.
From a cap perspective, the Bills have only four defensive ends signed for the 2025 season — Greg Rousseau, A.J. Epenesa, Von Miller and Javon Solomon. Rousseau is a free agent following the 2025 season, as is his fellow starter Epenesa. Miller, if he remains in Buffalo in 2025, will almost assuredly be a cap casualty in 2026 because they can save over $17 million on their cap that year to do so. Solomon is merely on a rookie deal, and isn’t a worrying factor to the salary cap. Because that defensive end slate would be cleaned out, and the Bills would have had to face the difficult decision of whether or not to pay Rousseau long-term, it could effectively make their Rousseau decision for them if they could acquire a star pass rusher.
Rousseau received some positive reviews from Beane this week, though plenty of caveats were mixed in. To Beane, Rousseau was one of their most consistent defensive linemen and still is on the ascent as a player. But at the same time, the GM would like Rousseau to get the quarterback down and become a double-digit sack guy, something he has never done in his first four seasons. Without ever seeing it, regardless of his all-around skill set, paying him what he’d likely command on the open market could be a scary proposition.
Furthermore, the Bills have talked for a long time about how important having a defensive line able to get pressure on the quarterback is to their overall success. Beane brought up his Carolina years and how deep they were in that group when their team was most successful. It’s the reason why, in 2022, the Bills made the bold signing of Von Miller to try and put that group over the top for the first time since McDermott and Beane arrived. Miller worked for a while until his torn ACL zapped that every down asset, likely for the rest of his Bills career if it continues into 2025. Unfortunately for them, getting pressure on the opposing quarterback is in a familiar, stagnant position. They’re not getting that consistent heat on the quarterback, and now, four years into Rousseau’s career, he hasn’t hit the maximum potential they were hoping for within his rookie contract. There have been inconsistent flashes of brilliance but nothing to warrant what Rousseau could get as a free agent.
The headline of the conversation around a defensive end will begin with Cleveland’s Myles Garrett. Until that situation has a resolution, you’d have to believe the Bills, given all of the signs pointing toward him being the potential missing piece, should consider doing what they can to secure the player, pay him and then figure out the other starting defensive end position with someone not named Rousseau past 2025. It certainly doesn’t have to be Garrett exclusively. The Bills can’t be waiting around forever for the Browns to engage in those talks, especially with free agency and other opportunities around the corner. But if there was a big move for them to make this offseason, there are a lot of indicators pointing at an edge rusher, with Garrett being the prize of all prizes.
Bills expecting Matt Milano back for 2025
Although it’s not as widely talked about as the Von Miller situation this offseason, some observers have wondered if starting linebacker Matt Milano could be a cap casualty with the post-June 1st designation. With Milano having two long-term injuries over the last two years, the natural connection is how the Bills handled the Tre’Davious White situation last offseason. But there are some key differences.First, Milano’s second long-term injury is not close to White’s in 2023. White had a torn Achilles in 2023, which has dramatically altered the careers of many players after they suffered it with a long rehab after it. Milano’s injury ahead of the 2024 season was a torn biceps, which he rehabbed during the year and was able to return by the end. And while White was still rehabbing into the 2024 offseason, Milano is through any procedures or rehabs he encountered with his injury for the entire offseason.
Second, it made more sense to use a post-June 1 designation on White’s contract than Milano’s. While Milano’s deal would eventually yield close to the same amount of cap savings that White’s deal did last year, there is a key difference. White’s dead cap hit for the following year, in this case, the 2025 salary cap, was a little over $4 million. Milano’s deferred cap charges, which would hit the Bills in 2026, would account for $11 million of dead cap. That’s a massive difference, even with rising salary caps.
Beane spoke to the upward trajectory Milano played with late in the year, before giving a vote of confidence to the longtime starter for the upcoming year.
“With Matt’s situation, we expect Matt back at this point,” Beane said. “And I’m excited that he’s healthy and not having to have a surgery or a rehab situation.”
Although the “at this point,” gives them some wiggle room, it would logically make the most sense for Milano to be back on the Bills in 2025.
A lot of talk about “business” as it relates to James Cook
With the news of Shakir’s extension hitting today, it brought running back James Cook’s $15 million per year insinuation to the limelight. The Bills just rewarded one player in Cook’s draft class with a new deal. It’s a much more complex decision than the one the Bills made with Shakir, because while the extension was reportedly worth around $15 million per year, that’s more of a bargain by wide receiver standards and would be close to setting the market for running backs. Both McDermott and Beane spoke to how much they believed in Cook, and how much they’ve seen him grow over the last three years on the field, but both of the primary Bills decision makers referred to the “business” as it pertained to Cook’s situation.“The business part is going to take care of itself,” McDermott said.
“I want James here, like a lot of guys. The business is the business,” Beane said.
Any reference to “the business” is often vague, and it’s not a great sign that Beane lumped Cook in with a lot of players they’d like to retain. However, it is clear they believe in the running back. Beane discussed how valuable having a three-down weapon who can both carry the ball and line up out wide can be for a team, and then later said he believed in Cook’s ability to be a three-down asset despite not having to do so often in 2024.
Ultimately, there is a slight disconnect on Cook’s value at the moment, given that Beane said, “Just because we’re not on the same page today doesn’t mean we wouldn’t be tomorrow, in two weeks, two months, two years.” The Bills may need to see Cook have the bigger role and workload to warrant the weightier contract, especially at the running back position that doesn’t often get lucrative long-term extensions. They do seem open to the idea because they view Cook as a unique player, even if it goes against the conventional spending wisdom of previous NFL years.
A vote of confidence plus a challenge for Cole Bishop
If there was one thing that seemed abundantly clear from both McDermott and Beane, it’s that they were excited to see 2024 second-round pick Cole Bishop in what could be an even more significant role this upcoming season. McDermott said they’ll be counting on Bishop to make an impact in 2025, while Beane said Bishop will “have every chance” to be the starter. But McDermott also took the chance to send a motivating challenge to Bishop, which always has a way of getting to the players. It’s been a tactic of McDermott with young players for years.“I think more than anything… similar to a lot of the players going from year one to year two, what does he come back looking like? Does he come back looking like he just busted his tail in the time when he was away from us, and he was a mad man and getting himself ready to go and really kick some tail out there, and he has a mastery of the defense, he’s coming back and now he’s not thinking and he’s just playing? We’ll know. It doesn’t take long to know when a guy walks back in the building if he’s worked or not.”
Along the same lines, as much respect and admiration the Bills have for 2024 starting safety Damar Hamlin, there was a sense of finality when they were asked about his future with the Bills at the NFL Combine. They did leave the door open by saying the business would have to make sense for both Hamlin and the Bills. However, reading between the lines, it would almost certainly have to be for a below-market deal with the expectation that he’ll be the backup to Bishop in 2025. Odds are that Hamlin will want a starting job, and that some team will provide him a better opportunity and pay day than what the Bills can this offseason.