Rex Ryan Has a Hot Take On Where Bill Belichick Should Coach Next
After Sean McDermott’s tenure came to a screeching, overtime halt against the Denver Broncos, the franchise hit the reset button. Firing McDermott after nine seasons wasn’t just a personnel move; it was an admission that “good enough” is no longer good enough.
But if you thought the drama ended with the press release, you clearly haven’t been watching ESPN. Enter Rex Ryan, the former Bills coach turned TV analyst, who decided to throw a stick of dynamite into the conversation on Get Up. His solution for the Bills’ woes? Bringing in the very man who haunted their dreams for two decades: Bill Belichick.
Rex Ryan’s Radical Blueprint For the Bills
Ryan has never been accused of being subtle. On Monday morning, while Bills Mafia was arguably still nursing a collective hangover, Ryan laid out a scenario that sounds like fan fiction. His pitch: Hire Bill Belichick as head coach and bring back Brian Daboll—fresh off his firing from the New York Giants—to run the offense.
“I thought this could have happened three years ago,” Ryan said. “If you want to bring in Brian Daboll, bring him back as the offensive coordinator, with Belichick as the head coach… We’ll see how crazy I am.”
On paper, it’s the kind of “Dream Team” scenario that usually implodes, but the logic holds a terrifying amount of water. Daboll is the architect who helped mold Josh Allen from a raw, errant thrower into an MVP-caliber cyborg. Belichick, despite a bizarre 4-8 sabbatical season at North Carolina, is still the greatest defensive mind the game has ever seen.
Escaping the Playoff Mediocrity
Why go to such extremes? Because the Buffalo Bills are currently trapped in a very expensive purgatory. They aren’t bad—far from it. But they have found themselves stuck at a postseason Mendoza line.
In baseball, the Mendoza line defines the threshold of incompetence; in Buffalo, it’s a different kind of ceiling. It is the inability to stop a defense when it matters. It is giving up 30 points in an elimination game, repeatedly. It is having the best quarterback on the planet and watching him sit on the bench while the other team kicks a game-winning field goal.
McDermott went 98-50. He was safe. He was reliable. But in the NFL, safe gets you fired eventually. The Bills have consistently played above the average but below the championship standard. To break through that glass ceiling, you don’t need another “process” guy. You might need the guy who built the ceiling in the first place.
Can Belichick Still Command a Locker Room?
The elephant in the room is whether Belichick still has his fastball. His stint at UNC was, to put it politely, a disaster. A 4-8 record with the Tar Heels doesn’t exactly scream “NFL ready.” Plus, the optics of his relationship with Jordon Hudson and the tabloid fodder that followed him to Chapel Hill have chipped away at the aura of the mysterious, hoodie-wearing genius.
But Ryan isn’t buying the decline narrative. When asked if Belichick could handle the AFC East landscape, specifically his former player Mike Vrabel, Ryan dropped the quote of the morning: “He wouldn’t be intimidated by the devil.”
The Bills’ defense, which looked porous and confused against Denver, needs discipline. It needs a schematic edge. Belichick offers that. And if Daboll returns, the Bills could arguably fix their two biggest problems in one fell swoop.
The Josh Allen Window Is Closing
The urgency here isn’t about the coaches; it’s about the quarterback. Allen is approaching 30. The brand new Highmark Stadium will open soon. The Chiefs were vulnerable this year, and the Bills still couldn’t capitalize.
Hiring Belichick would be the ultimate “all-in” move. It would require Bills fans to swallow 20 years of bile and cheer for the man they despised. It would be awkward. It might be a disaster. But after watching another season end in heartbreak in the snowy chaos of an AFC Divisional round, maybe a deal with the devil is exactly what Buffalo needs.
As Ryan put it: “Get the guy that has proven he can go to the Super Bowl.” It’s a crazy idea. But in Buffalo, sane hasn’t worked for a long time.
