Gregg Williams was fired as the Bills’ head coach after the 2003 season, and since then he’s only been a defensive coordinator--until this week, when he became interim head coach of the Browns. But Williams claimed today that he’s had multiple offers to be a head coach since leaving Buffalo.
In his first press conference as the Browns’ interim head coach, Williams said today that he doesn’t see his current job as auditioning to be a head coach, because he’s already been given offers to be a head coach and turned them down.
“Since I left Buffalo, I’ve had 11 letters sent in to interview for head coaching jobs, and all of them behind the scenes I have, four of them I didn’t even have to show up, just sign the contract and come,” Williams said.
So why didn’t Williams take one of those four jobs? He said it’s about finding the right fit, and that other job offers he had were from organizations that had a different philosophy of what a head coach is supposed to be. Specifically, Williams said he wants to be a hands-on coach, and some teams want their head coach to delegate more.
“I’ve talked about all those other spots that have called me,” Williams said. “You know what is fun about sitting in a chair and being a head coach? Coaching football. Not coaching marketing, not coaching scouting, not coaching ticketing, not coaching analytics. Coaching football. So why would I not do that? And when people say you can’t do that and be the head coach, you don’t know.”
Suffice to say, a lot of people around the NFL will be extremely skeptical that Williams had four different offers to be a head coach and turned them all down only because he didn’t think they were the right fit. And the idea that four different NFL owners were willing to just hand the reins to Williams without even asking him to come in for an interview is ridiculous.
But Williams is a head coach now. Perhaps if he can win enough games he’ll have a real job offer to be a real head coach in 2019.