The Bills actually have one of the highest amount of players under contract for 2026 at 40. 9 of them are on IR currently so it is easy to forget them.
Knox, Samuel, Rapp, and Ty Johnson are almost certainly not returning on their current contract. Maybe Bass as well.
Starters that will need to be resigned or replaced are LG, C, DE, LB and Safety. DT and CB we already drafted replacements this year. I think you may be counting K and P as starters that need replacement - those positions don’t require a large investment. In any case, the roster status is not that dire that we couldn’t afford to make a trade without crippling ourselves.
We will never know what conversations were had. If I was Beane I probably would have tried really hard to land someone to try and improve the roster, even marginally, this year when the path to a Super Bowl seems less daunting than any year I can remember during the Allen era.