Bills earn F-minus grade in team travel, GM Beane responds

INDIANAPOLIS — The Buffalo Bills haven’t often finished last in the league lately, but the team received an NFL-worst F-minus grade for team travel in the 2025 NFL Players Association’s team report cards.

The annual report cards were released Wednesday, with grades awarded based on the results of anonymous surveys of players who graded their teams during the 2024 season. The Bills’ overall report card ranked 23rd out of 32, with the Bills ranking last in just one of the 11 total categories. Buffalo did not score lower than a C in any other category.

The survey detailed that “35% of the Bills players feel they have a comfortable amount of personal space on team flights, ranking them 32 out of 32,” and that “players believe their team travel schedule is inefficient, a rank of 32 of 32 teams.” The report went on to say that “players feel that travel continues to be the worst part of their experience.”

In last year’s survey, Bills players expressed that coaches and other staff gets to sit in first-class seating, while players are made to sit in smaller seats.

At the NFL scouting combine on Wednesday, Bills general manager Brandon Beane detailed how the team devises seating arrangements.

“We put a lot of our players up [in first or business class] on the outbound [flights], we don’t put as many on the return, because depending on when we get back, some of the coaches are up there working on breaking down this film, getting ready for the next week,” Beane said. “So, if anyone’s complaining about not being up there, it couldn’t be on the outbound and maybe would be more on the return.”

The team uses different planes depending on the length of the trip, with bigger planes and more space provided on longer trips. The Bills also noted that coaches sometimes go straight from the plane to the team facility after prime-time games to prepare for the next game, and so accommodations are made in the interests of their comfort.

“Unfortunately, you can’t put every player up there, which could lead some to be frustrated,” Beane said. “But I would say that at the end of the day, we have open dialogue. This is something I can’t say [has] come to our attention. Sean [McDermott] does a great job of having leadership councils, talking about things that we want in the locker room or how we do things at training camp or sometimes even input on the schedule.”

Beane also took aim at the NFLPA’s use of anonymous surveys in his reaction to the Bills’ showing on the report card.

“My question is how many people actually completed this survey? This is the problem when you do anonymous surveys. Are we talking about six people, 12 people? You’re talking about we have 70-something players when you count our practice squad and beyond. So, it’s really hard to ascertain who gave the F-minus for their plane travel. Ultimately, we love feedback, but we’re not getting that in the building. So, that would be the most constructive way, for us, would be, so we could have that dialogue and explain this is the biggest plane we can get and it’s only going to fit so many people up front.”

The NFLPA does not share how many players voted from each team.