Bills owner Terry Pegula caused a stir when he singled out receiver Keon Coleman as a coaching-staff draft selection in the press conference just after firing former head coach Sean McDermott.
Since then, new head coach Joe Brady, General Manager Brandon Beane, and quarterback Josh Allen have all come to Coleman’s defense as the young wideout heads into his third season.
In his Tuesday press conference at this year’s scouting combine, Beane was asked what Buffalo needs to see from Coleman in order to trust him.
“I think we need to see Keon have the offseason he had a year ago, which was excellent,” Beane said. “We couldn’t have asked for anything more. He came to Phase I, Phase II, all that stuff, dialed in, ready to go. You could tell he’d been working out and then, a lot of the people here were at training camp. He had an excellent camp. Let’s do that again. And then not, you know, some of the things we’ve talked about is just, it’s the maturity, it’s the off the field, that can get in the way.
“I’ve been in this league 28 this will be 29 seasons. I’ve seen that many times get in the way of people’s opportunities to grow and not only on the field, but expand their net worth off the field. And so that is kind of the challenge to Keon. Can you go back and do what you did all offseason and your training camp? And you know, if you remember, he had a great game, game one against Baltimore. Don’t let some of the maturity issues off the field affect the product on the field. If he does that, he’ll have every chance. I know we’ve got some new coaches, and they’re excited to meet him and get to work with him, and were aware of him in the draft process a couple years ago. And so they kind of want to, you know, try to start mold them in the way they see and envision him for our team.”
Coleman, the No. 33 overall pick of the 2024 draft, caught 38 passes for 404 yards with four touchdowns in 13 games with six starts in 2025. That came after his rookie season, in which he caught 29 passes for 556 yards with four TDs in 13 games.
