New Bills general manager Brandon Beane doesn't seem to imagine a scenario where he'd need to use it, but he does have final say over the team's 53-man roster.
Team owner Terry Pegula confirmed what NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport noted a few days prior. Beane, who worked his way up through an eclectic mix of jobs in the NFL world, will have veto power should he and new head coach Sean McDermott be unable to agree on a roster decision.
"Brandon's going to have the 53," Pegula told reporters Friday at Beane's introduction. "[He] and Sean will obviously collaborate on any decisions, but he's got the 53."
Collaboration has been the theme of this year's hiring cycle. The 49ers, after years of unhappily entangled GMs and coaches, hired a pair -- John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan -- with deep ties and history together.
The Bills are gambling on the fact that Beane and McDermott, who worked together for years in Carolina, will be able to find a similar harmony.
"When we started this process ... we put together four or five lists of potential candidates, cross-referenced them and Sean was one of the individuals [who had a list]," Pegula said. "Brandon's name showed up on most of the lists, if not all of them, so from that, we picked -- and from discussions with people outside of the organization -- we picked the candidates we wanted to interview. But Sean's involvement was no more than writing a name on a piece of paper, which he wrote seven or eight names."
Beane waxed poetic about McDermott, noting that the coach got his kids into wrestling while in Carolina and that they talked frequently.
"It definitely was huge," he said. "Knowing Sean, Sean got to Carolina in 2011, and obviously he had a great career in Philly, but he's a great man, we built a good trusting relationship in Carolina. You can never predict the future. So it's not like Sean and I said hey, 'we're both going to leave the same year.' You don't know what the opportunities are going to be. But I trust Sean. And I think Sean trusts me. I think you're going to see a heck of a partnership between the two of us."
The end of the Rex Ryan/Doug Whaley era was anything but a productive partnership. An awkward tap dance that included shuffling quarterbacks and fired coordinators made for an uncomfortable and underperforming unit in 2016.
Should the Bills return to the playoffs any time soon, it will be on the backs of a GM and coach working together.
