It’s starting to feel like a tradition: the ball drops in Times Square, ringing in a new year and a coaching search in Buffalo.
Eternal optimists — who else would sit in freezing temperatures to see this team play the then-winless Cleveland Browns — Bills fans have a right to feel frustrated right now. You have a general manager staying in his job and saying they’re “close” to the playoffs, but a veteran-heavy roster, tight salary cap space, a change at head coach and potentially another at quarterback.
Doug Whaley struggled to explain the team’s direction or the reasoning behind its moves Monday in a season ending press conference. He opened by saying he spoke for ownership and the team president but claimed he wasn’t “privy” to the decision behind Rex Ryan’s firing and even more incredibly said he hadn’t thought about whether he agreed with it. If Whaley couldn’t predict Ryan would be fired, he seems to be the only one in the building given how many leaks reported it would happen since hours before the Steelers game in Week 14.
If Whaley was to speak for ownership, he should have at least been coached to answer for them coherently. Instead, the press conference only prompted more questions to the point where Terry and Kim Pegula gave separate interviews to the Associated Press and WGR hours later, clearly to clean up a predictable media mess.
The Bills could have used a spokesman of Ryan’s caliber over the last week when trying to explain some of their decisions, first with firing the coach then with benching Tyrod Taylor for the final game.
That’s not to say the Bills should do whatever the media tells them to. Many writers, myself included, praised the Rex hire. Of course the media has an interest in working with coaches who say interesting things and Rex is at the top of that list.
But Ryan’s firing was predictable, given the lack of improvement by a Bills defense he inherited as one of the best in the league but fell to below-average for both of his two seasons. You can feel bad for Ryan after leaks undermined the end of his tenure but at least he’ll be paid well (Pegula has to pay the last three years of his five-year contract) to do nothing if he chooses to, but he could make even more money doing what he always did best, talking, on television.
Whether the Bills say anything about Whaley’s future and ultimatums like the one reported last year, he can’t be on steady footing. How willing would a hot coaching candidate be to work for an ownership on its third coach in four years, a general manager who could be fired in a year and with an uncertain quarterback situation.
National media reports, including CBS’ Jason La Canfora, suggest Lynn is the heavy favorite to succeed Ryan and bring former Jaguars head coach Gus Bradley as defensive coordinator, a position he held in Seattle.
Lynn did an admirable job with the Bills offense after Greg Roman’s Week 2 firing, finding creative ways to get LeSean McCoy the ball in space and keeping Taylor turnover-free. Given how he had to sit Taylor at the front office’s insistence to avoid a costly injury, one wonders how much power a head coach Lynn would have in bringing him back.
If the Bills are close, as Whaley claims, they’ll want a quarterback ready for Week 1 in 2017. Short of bringing Tony Romo to Buffalo, an expensive move and an unlikely one given better options like Denver and Houston available to him, the Bills would struggle to find anyone better for next year than Taylor.
But that brings up the key conflict: are the Bills a team for now or for the future? They’ve been trying to be both, but have remained neither for too long.
(Sports editor Sam Wilson may be contacted at samwilsonsp@gmail.com)
