I don't think knocking Buddy down to advisor or soemthing would have sat well with Ralph. And I do believe that Ralph is looking at it like this. In exchange for giving up control there are a few things that I want. Maybe this is one of them and IS Reasonable cosidering the state of affairs and timeline to draft. Maybe Buddy has said I'll go along with that and if we're gonna get some gee whiz bang coach in here from college with analytics and what not that I don't know about well so be it. I'm leaving after the draft anyway and this is on Doug and Buddy to choose.
I personally am not convinced that Whaley is ready to take over. He seems very green to me. A little to soft spoken nice guy perhaps. That may be fine given the supporting cast he may have, or as has been proven in the past, could spell doom!
For example Russ and Marv probably relied on Overdorf and Littman too much.
OR now that Ralph is not involved the team is run in a far more appropriate manner and for better or worse they answer to Russ. Russ has infinite knowledge of how this entire organization operates. There may very well be pet peeves of his that he can now feel free to jetison whne he evaluates the evaluators. I think some of that comes out as we move forward.
I like Buddy. But then I like Russ too. I am most thankful that Ralph's hand other than this compromise, is no longer on the steering wheel. I also can only laugh at your "maybe buddy found his Jesus" He will want to leave a credible team behind him and I believe he is. That's in part evidenced by the fact that people are interested in the HC job. There's a team to work with here at this point. We are not the dogs that we have been for so long and the right coach WILL make the difference here. That and they know the old man's hand won't be on the phone everday asking them what they are going to do about this or that.
Sorry I have rambled off in so many directions but this is what happens as you age!
Go Bills!