Bills GM Brandon Beane Talks Attempts To Trade For Jaylen Waddle, Rashid Shaheed & Jakobi Meyers

In an interview with Adam Schein on Mad Dog Sports Radio, Bills GM Brandon Beane revisited the trade deadline where he tried to make a deal for a receiver to fortify the roster, but ultimately came up short. 

That ended up being an issue all year until the Bills were knocked out of the playoffs by the Broncos in the divisional round. Beane is still answering questions about what he could have done differently and defending how things turned out. 

Buffalo was linked to Jakobi Meyers, Rashid Shaheed and Dolphins WR Jaylen Waddle. Meyers ended up going from the Raiders to the Jaguars, who were in a similar spot as the Bills and got a boost from the deal to make the playoffs.

“I mean, listen, we were very active [at the deadline]. Meyers, he had a higher cap number than we had availability to do. And in speaking with those guys, they weren’t really interested in eating cap space, which, you know, they traded him in Jacksonville,” Beane said. “So when you, you know, when you’re trading for a player, we ran into that with Davante Adams going to the Jets, we checked on him. We ultimately made the trade for Amari Cooper a year ago. It’s got to work within our financials, and unless a team is willing to eat money, Cleveland had already converted Cooper down and so, you know, you’re able to do that. If a club’s not willing to do that, that can kind of limit, you know, the possibility of making that happen at the deadline.”

Shaheed was traded by the Saints to the Seahawks and has been a key piece in their Super Bowl run. As for Waddle, there was a ton of smoke around a potential rare intra-division deal between Miami and Buffalo that ended up falling apart. 

Reports at the time indicated the Bills were offering a first and a third-round pick, although the first was a year off in 2027 instead of 2026. 

“We talked about a lot of those guys. Shaheed with New Orleans, we were involved in that. Obviously he gets shipped to Seattle. And you’re right, in the division we talked to one or two of those teams about their players,” Beane added. “But at the end of the day, I know we had the strongest offer on one, I know that, but they ultimately decided not to pull the trigger. Maybe they decided it wasn’t enough or maybe they just decided they didn’t want to send him in the division, they would have to answer that.”

Beane was then asked whether he expected the deal to go through and was caught off guard by the outcome.

“Uhh, you know, I never really, I felt like we had the best offer from all my intel, which I did find out we did. But I don’t know the reason why they didn’t pull the trigger,” he said. “I don’t know if they got cold feet on trading the player altogether or if they just decided they needed more compensation. They never really countered back to us ‘hey if you do this, you can have him,’ so you never really know. Was he really available? Was he not? Or were you just going to have to go to a deal that was so unbelievable that there’s no way that they could turn it down? I don’t know. When you don’t get a counter back, it’s hard to know how willing or not they were to move the player.”

Meyers, 29, went undrafted in 2019 out of North Carolina State but eventually signed with the Patriots and made the 53-man roster as a rookie, plus both of the following seasons. 

The Patriots tendered Meyers as a restricted free agent in 2022 at the second-round level for $4 million. As an unrestricted free agent, he signed a three-year, $33 million contract with the Raiders in 2023.

From there, the Raiders traded Meyers to the Jaguars for a fourth and sixth-round pick during the 2025 season. Jacksonville then signed him to a three-year, $60 million extension. 

In 2025, Meyers appeared in 16 games for the Raiders and Jaguars and caught 75 passes on 110 targets for 835 yards and three touchdowns.

Shaheed, 27, went undrafted back in 2022 out of Weber State, where he was a four-time All-American as a kick returner. 

He caught on with the Saints and scored a 44-yard rushing touchdown in his NFL debut on his first carry. He then scored on a 54-yard touchdown pass on his first career reception.

Shaheed was tendered by the Saints as an exclusive rights-free agent before signing a new extension in lieu of a restricted free agent tender. He made $4.2 million in 2025 and is set to be an unrestricted free agent in 2026.

In 2015, Shaheed appeared in 18 games for the Saints and Seahawks. He caught 59 passes on 92 targets for 687 yards receiving and two touchdowns. He also rushed nine times for 69 yards, returned 23 punts for 339 yards (14.7 average) and a touchdown, and returned 15 kickoffs for 447 yards (29.8 average) and another touchdown. 

Waddle, 27, was a part-time starter at Alabama. He was a first-team All-American as a sophomore before suffering an ankle injury that cost him a good portion of the 2020 season. The Dolphins drafted Waddle with the No. 6 overall pick in the 2021 NFL Draft.

He signed a four-year, $27,085,991 contract with the Dolphins that included a $17,058,902 signing bonus as well as a fifth-year option. Miami exercised Waddle’s fifth-year option worth $15.591 million for the 2024 season. 

The Dolphins then signed Waddle to a three-year, $84.75 million extension ahead of the 2024 season. 

He’s due $17 million and $24 million over the next two years of the deal. 

In 2025, Waddle appeared in 16 games for the Dolphins and recorded 64 receptions on 100 targets for 910 yards and six touchdowns.