Bills general manager Brandon Beane has spent two years defending the pick. On Wednesday in Pittsford, he finally sounded like a man who believes the player is catching up to the projection Buffalo has for him.
Keon Coleman, the No. 33 overall selection of the 2024 NFL draft, enters 2026 as the most scrutinized skill player on the roster — and, according to Beane, the most changed one.
"If you know Keon through two years, right, and this is Year three, if you know him the way I know him and the way a lot of his teammates know him, you feel a guy who's really matured — like the light has come on, he understands some of the things he could've done better along the way," Beane told reporters Wednesday.
"I think back to when I was 21, 22, there's things
that I [feel like], gosh I probably should've done that a little bit better. So I like to remind everyone — was his first two years perfect? No," the GM said. "But, if you just talk to him and are around him, you feel a guy growing into his own, comfortable in his skin, and just like, I know that I can't do the same things that I did the first two years and expect to have success on the field or in the locker room with my teammates."
It was not about drops or route depth, but also about the locker room and Coleman as a member of the team.
"And his teammates see it. He dropped the first ball today, and I saw like three guys come over and dap him up. Josh [Allen] comes right back to him the next play — a much harder play — and he makes it," Beane added.
Coleman notably finished 2025 with 404 receiving yards and four touchdowns, a step backward from his rookie season, and he was a healthy scratch for multiple games while sliding down the depth chart.
Then came the outside noise. Owner Terry Pegula, in the middle of defending Beane, publicly mentioned that the coaching staff pushed to draft Coleman in the first place.
While the press and outside noise have been an intrepid challenge for a 23-year-old receiver to read about himself, Beane said Coleman didn't flinch.
"I'm very proud of where Keon is," Beane continued. "He could've taken the negativity from the press conference thing, the season, the benchings — whatever has happened to him, he has had a positive outlook on things. And I think not only myself, I think everybody in this organization is excited."
"Keon is very smart," new teammate D.J. Moore said to the media. "It means he's always giving a different viewpoint on how the plays can be ran and stuff like that. He always talking. Some of the things he says, you'd be like, 'Okay.' But then you'd be like, 'Dang, that really might be a good way to put things.'"
Offseason progress and development have been normal buzz around Coleman and his potential since being drafted, the issue has been seeing it translate into his performance during the season.
And 2026 is a critical one for the young receiver.
"He's still got to go out there and do it," Beane said. "And nothing is given. But I think he's done everything he could control up to this point."
Coleman already said it out loud
None of this is news to Coleman. He set the terms himself back in May.
"For me, it's make or break. If you s---, you might not be here, simple as that. I know what I'm capable of. So, if I fall anything short of that, I'm doing myself a disservice and my team," Coleman told reporters.
The fit in Joe Brady's offense
The complication is that the target tree got a lot more crowded. DJ Moore arrived to function as the every-down WR1 — a role Brady built around him once before in Carolina — and Khalil Shakir remains Allen's most reliable option inside. Dalton Kincaid is healthy.
Which leaves Coleman where he's always profiled best: the 6-foot-3 boundary X, the back-shoulder and red-zone specialist who forces safeties to respect the sideline. That's a real job on a team chasing a Super Bowl in Josh Allen's prime. It's just no longer a job that comes with patience attached.
Buffalo opens Sept. 13 against the Houston Texans. Beane has made his case for the maturity. Coleman has 17 games to make the case for the production.
Rewrote the Beane/Coleman maturity piece with every quote verb hyperlinked to its source presser.
This article originally appeared on Bills Wire: Brandon Beane, DJ Moore react to Keon Coleman's start at Bills camp
