Bills GM Brandon Beane taking shots at Commanders over JD McKissic is hilarious

Between Brandon Scherff, Ereck Flowers, Landon Collins, Tim Settle and Matt Ioannidis, the Washington Commanders have lost a ton of talent in the early stages of free agency. That’s exactly what makes retaining JD McKissic so important.

Sure, running backs can be found anywhere, so it wouldn’t have been catastrophic if McKissic fulfilled his legal tampering agreement with Buffalo. But come on. He’s just as important to the locker room as he is to the offense and the reactions from his teammates after he spurned Buffalo prove that.

From a league-wide perspective, free agency has been a rollercoaster.

That’s due in large part to numerous players backing out of verbal agreements with teams. Like McKissic, the likes of Za’Darius Smith (Ravens) and Randy Gregory (Cowboys) all had unforeseen change of hearts at the eleventh hour.

Speaking strictly in terms of McKissic, the veteran RB’s decision to rejoin the Commanders drew the ire of Bills GM Brandon Beane.

During his Friday press conference, Beane expressed his disgust with how Washington handled the matter. The Bills executive even went as far as to hint he won’t be doing business with Washington in the future.

Bills general manager Brandon Beane isn’t happy with the Commanders over their handling of JD Mckissic.

Here’s what Beane told the media.

"“That was tough. Obviously, he was a guy we targeted and, in this business, in general, when you have an agreement, it’s good. But until there’s ink on the paper, and his agent did a great job. Doug Hendrickson and CJ LaBoy did a great job. There were some things that went down with the other organization, which is painful, but they chose to do what they did, and I couldn’t stop it.“I’ve had it before where the agent has agreed with you on something and then someone else calls and says, ‘Hey, what if I add a million dollars? Or what if I do this? What if I guarantee this?’ Once you have an agreement the agent’s supposed to say it’s over. And this agent did that. And this agent told the other club it’s over. But the other club didn’t back off.”"

Actually, Beane, that’s not how this works. Teams let their free agents test the free agent market all the time. You want to blame Washington for not initially extending an offer to McKissic, that’s fine, but league rules permit them to match or exceed any offer made to a potential suitor. That’s exactly what happened here.

Again, this all transpired before the start of the new league year.

What did Beane want the Commanders to do? Admit defeat and let their most important offensive weapon leave without making a counter offer? McKissic was on the record about wanting to return to Washington. As soon as the front office matched Buffalo’s two-year offer, there was only going to be one outcome.

If Beane wants to be mad at anybody, it should be McKissic’s agent for not relaying Buffalo’s offer before the player verbally obliged. Blaming Washington for wanting their player back is a sad look as is admitting your relationship with a team is damaged over a backup running back, but that’s neither here nor there.

Beane should know the NFL offseason isn’t an ethics-driven business. Deshaun Watson missed a year while weathering 22 allegations of sexual assault and misconduct and just got to hand pick is next team while getting a fully-guaranteed five-year, $230 million contract from Cleveland.

We know that’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but Beane assuming the McKissic deal was done and dusted because the player verbally agreed is a pretty extreme case of naivety. Stop whining like you didn’t just sign Von Miller to add to what is maybe the most talented roster in the AFC.

Find something better to complain about.