Brandon Beane had just gotten out of the shower when he got the call from Patrick Collins, Josh Allen’s agent.
It was 10 p.m. Thursday. Beane was at home after a long day of training camp practice and meetings. He and Collins had spoken earlier in the day about the looming contract extension for the Bills’ star quarterback. Beane left the conversation thinking that the discussions were reaching a tipping point. Both sides had publicly said a deal didn’t need to get done before the season. They were confident they could work something out next offseason if need be, but Beane and Allen wanted talks to stop before the Bills played the Steelers in Week 1.
“I felt like at some point soon we were either really going to push to get this done or it was going to be a standstill,” Beane told The Athletic. “You can hit some points where you both just step away and say, ‘We’re not going to talk about this for a little while.’”
But this conversation with Collins didn’t lead to a standstill. Collins reiterated some of the points that were important to Allen and the agency. Beane expressed what was important to the Bills as an organization. Each side listed the things they needed to get through before Allen could sign on the dotted line.
“You look and say, ‘Man this is a pretty good list of things. But it’s doable,’ Beane said. “So we both said, ‘Do you want to take a shot?’ And we said, ‘Yes.’”
Beane then called Kevin Meganck, the Bills’ vice president of football administration. Meganck pulled up his materials, and Beane grabbed his computer and went to his home office.
