Matthew Smiley out as Special Teams coach

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, TBBills Fan said:

McD said he would be back.  

 

I for one am glad he is gone

 

 Don't believe what you hear, or think you hear, in a press conference. No one is under oath.

1 hour ago, stlbills13 said:

Biggest football news of the day

 

McD did it to upstage the Super Bowl. Boss move.

[SoonerBillsFan]

27 minutes ago, ProcessTruster said:

Exactly.  

 

Frankly, special teams hardly matter anymore.  Kickoffs are pretty much gone.  Punters punt to avoid returns and and very good at it.   FGs are whatever.   Just not a lot there anymore.   This is why McBeanes don't pay the Siran Neals of the world anymore.   Kind of a waste of cap dollars.   

 

So I guess I sorta couldn't give a crap who the ST coach is. 

Personally I say no kickoff, each team gets it at their own 20.  FG's  also suck.  Ban all kickers!!!

[MWK]

9 minutes ago, nosejob said:

I think Tasker should take one for the team.

Maybe Jim Kelly can come on as the QBs coach!

[PromoTheRobot]

1 hour ago, RiotAct said:

Good riddance!

 

I guess McD showing the utmost confidence in him during his end-of-season press conference last week was the kiss of death 😂

 

Fan theory: McDermott was giving Smiley a chance to get another job by making it sound like he was wanted here.

1 hour ago, Brand J said:

“Teflon” Sean 😆

Winning a lot does that.

1 hour ago, LabattBlue said:

Didn’t McD just say that he is coming back and will learn from his mistakes?

Yeah? So?

[ngbills]

Super Bowl!

[PromoTheRobot]

14 minutes ago, MWK said:

Still stuck with McDermott but at least he fired this loser. Now just don’t go and promote the assistant special teams coach again.

Yeah. Stuck with winning. 🙄

[4BillsintheBurgh]

Danny Crossman is available.. 😁

[ColoradoBills]

26 minutes ago, JohnNord said:

He wasn’t a sacrificial lamb… just bad at his job for 2 years straight.  

 

It had to be done.  His STs had nothing "special" about them.

Go get Jeff Banks from Texas or Mike Reed from Clemson.

They are the best in college football.

[Toledo Bill]

28 minutes ago, MWK said:

Maybe Jim Kelly can come on as the QBs coach!

Great, beers and shots at team meetings 

[Gugny]

Did I miss something?

 

Here is a list of games that we lost because of poor ST play:

 

1.

 

The End

 

I actually thought we had some nice starting position for the majority of the season. 
 

McDermott is what McDermott does … mama said it’s always someone else’s fault. 

[Ridgewaycynic2013]

35 minutes ago, 4BillsintheBurgh said:

Danny Crossman is available.. 😁

For all the foul ups, bleeps, and blunders by ST the last few years, you might as well hire Danny Elfman.  At least the soundtrack would be appropriate. 🤨

Edited yesterday at 07:42 PM by Ridgewaycynic2013

[Doc Brown]

1 minute ago, Gugny said:

Did I miss something?

 

Here is a list of games that we lost because of poor ST play:

 

1.

 

The End

 

I actually thought we had some nice starting position for the majority of the season. 
 

McDermott is what McDermott does … mama said it’s always someone else’s fault. 

I'd put a considerable amount of blame on the Special Teams in losses to the Jets in 2023, the Broncos in 2023, and the Rams game this past year on special teams blunders.  You can't have that.

[Simstim]

Not unhappy with that. Every edge helps, and Smiley was not one of the good points.

[Augie]

2 hours ago, frostbitmic said:

I can't say that move angers me.

 

Well, then I don’t think you are doing it right.  🤷‍♂️

[BuffaloBillyG]

1 hour ago, JohnNord said:

Darren Rizzi?  

 

1 hour ago, boco357 said:

Maybe Rizzi from New Orleans?  Since Moore seems to be getting job

Denver is his next stop. Reunion with Sean Payton.

[LabattBlue]

50 minutes ago, PromoTheRobot said:

Yeah? So?

It is not puzzling that a WEEK after he says Smiley will be back and learn from his mistakes, that he is fired?

[zow2]

It seems like Whenever there was a creative special teams play successfully done in Bills games, it was the opponent.

 

The best ST plays i can remember are Bass hitting the GW field goal vs Miami and is that really the doing of a ST coach?  and also the onsides kick recovery vs Baltimore… and there may have been one vs Detroit i can’t recall.

[paulmm3]

He's apparently a nice guy but it's a performance business and our special teams has been horrible. I absolutely support changing special teams coordinators here

[Nitro]

The guy was bad.  ST lost games that the Bills should have won.  

[GuardianAngel]

9 minutes ago, LabattBlue said:

It is not puzzling that a WEEK after he says Smiley will be back and learn from his mistakes, that he is fired?

 

It is and it isn't, at least to me. For me there are three possible reasons as to why he said Smiley would retain his job and then fire him a week later.

Reason 1.) It was coach speak. This staff has always been tight lipped about the internal going ons so there is no way that Mcdermott would say anything other than an affirming or incredibly vague answer. And he gave both a strangely vague answer and a pretty hard affirmative which to me falls in line with what he says/does. Very much par for the course with McD and how he goes about things. This seems the most likely to me.

Reason 2.) McD was in on keeping Smiley but the rest of the staff/leadership wasn't. I don't know who exactly has the power over coaching hires, whether that's McD or Beane or both, but even if they didn't have control over the hires they might have enough of a voice to push McD's hand about it. This seems unlikely as I believe it would add unnecessary friction.

Reason 3.) This is my personal headcannon. McD said "...I'm confident that Coach Smiley is going to learn from those situations and plays that came up this year."... What if in his post season autopsies he gets to Smiley and he clearly hasn't learned any lessons? McD just said he was confident in you to learn from your mistakes and here you are, continuing to make them? Begone!... Totally unlikely to have happened but it'd be funny.