In the wake of firing Rex Ryan as their head coach last week, the Bills announced that they were putting the search for Ryan’s replacement in the hands of General Manager Doug Whaley.
What owners Terry and Kim Pegula did not do was fill Whaley in on the reasons why they felt they needed to make a change. During a Monday press conference, Whaley said that he was not “privy to the details” of the conversation between Ryan and ownership and that his input was never solicited before the decision was made to send Ryan packing.
“I was told by my boss that I will no longer be working with Rex,” Whaley said.
It seems a bit curious to pass on getting the G.M.'s opinion about firing a coach and then putting him in charge of the search for the next guy, but the Pegulas weren’t at the press conference to explain. Whaley did say that he was speaking on behalf of ownership, although there clearly are some pieces of information they prefer that their spokesman not have at his disposal.
Whaley denied that the job is interim head coach Anthony Lynn’s to lose and said that he’s open to anything as the search unfolds, including an arrangement that leaves him without control of the 53-man roster. According to Whaley, the final choice on a hire will be made by the Pegulas but that he’ll be the one bringing his preferred choice to them for approval. That will be a big change from how he described Ryan’s hiring in 2015, which, per Whaley, was a committee approach.
Whaley didn’t share what he thought about Ryan at the time, so we don’t know what he thought when the previous coach was hired or fired. Things should be different this time around, although we only have Whaley’s word for it thus far.