This obviously isn’t Bills Depot, and thank God for that, but of all the coaching vacancies, the Buffalo Bills scared me the most. I wrote a couple weeks ago that if there was one place for Todd Haley to jump to, assuming he’s interested in becoming a head coach again, it was Buffalo. The relationship with GM Doug Whaley and OC Anthony Lynn. And though not as important as you think, the need for someone to breathe life into one of the league’s worst passing offenses.
But that thought and speculation may already be dead, 24 hours after the Bills officially canned Rex Ryan. The Buffalo News’ Vic Carucci reports the team has likely already settled on their OC, Lynn, to be the team’s next head coach.
“There’s every indication from within One Bills Drive that they’re settled on sticking with Anthony Lynn beyond the interim head coach status he has for Sunday’s season-finale against the New York Jets.”
As Carucci notes, Lynn has already been promoted throughout the ranks during the season. He began the year as the RBs coach, moved up to offensive coordinator when Greg Roman was let go, and will now serve as the head coach in Sunday’s finale against the New York Jets.
The other factor, per the report, is the level of control Whaley wants over the roster, controlling the final 53 man roster among other things. That is apparently limiting the number of interested candidates. But Lynn is reportedly fine with not having complete control, giving the front office all the more incentive to keep him around as their head coach.
There was certainly no guarantee Haley was ever going to take the job or even that the Bills were interested. But the connections were certainly there and had me at least worried. Haley could still be connected to other jobs, the Los Angeles Rams the most likely place, but it seems likely there will be no Haley/Whaley combo in 2017.
