Daggummit. Philip Rivers won’t be the Buffalo Bills head coach next year.
Always an unlikely candidate to be hired, the eight-time Pro Bowl quarterback withdrew his name from consideration for the job Monday. Still, simply interviewing Rivers shows the Bills are willing to go outside the box to find Sean McDermott’s replacement.
It doesn’t get much more outside the box than interviewing a quarterback fresh off returning for a three-game stint following a five-year hiatus from playing. But owner Terry Pegula has always done things a bit differently in hiring coaches for both the Bills and Buffalo Sabres.
Pegula has hired notable names — Dan Bylsma and Rex Ryan — and obscure names like Ralph Krueger. None of them had much success for either franchise. He’s even gotten nostalgic in hiring retreads Ted Nolan and Lindy Ruff for the Sabres.
Even McDermott wasn’t a hot candidate when hired in 2017. He was a year removed from having the NFL’s top defense en route to a Super Bowl trip, as the Carolina Panthers went 6-10 and had the 21st-ranked defense.
That one worked. McDermott has undoubtedly been the best of Pegula’s nine hires between the two franchises.
“There is no frontrunner,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said. “Old, young, former coach, first-time coach — we’re opening every door. We got to find the right guy for this team to help get us over the hump.”
The Bills have to wait until after the Super Bowl to even interview the hottest coordinator on the market, Seattle’s Klint Kubiak, something they may not want to do. But the Bills still may buck NFL norms with the coach they hire.
Two of the frontrunners for the job — along with 36-year-old Joe Brady — are Denver Broncos 31-year-old pass game coordinator and quarterbacks coach Davis Webb and Jacksonville Jaguars 30-year-old offensive coordinator Grant Udinski.
The Bills interviewed Udinski Sunday in Florida and met with Webb virtually Monday, a league source told GNN Sports. Buffalo also interviewed 35-year-old Los Angeles Rams pass game coordinator Nathan Scheelhaase Monday.
Udinski would be the youngest head coach in NFL history, nearly a year younger than current record holder, Sean McVay, who was 30 years, 354 days, when he was hired by the Rams in 2017. The league is getting younger, with head coaches 47.7 on average in 2025, down from 53.4 in 2015.
Not only are Webb and Udinski young, but neither have been play-callers. Webb is responsible for coordinating which passing plays Broncos head coach and play-caller Sean Payton wants to use, while Udinski has a big hand in the game-planning for head coach Liam Coen, who calls plays for the Jaguars.
That is another growing trend in the NFL, as seven coaches this year didn’t have play-calling experience before being hired. The year before McVay was hired there were only two active coaches without play-calling experience.
But McVay’s success and an influx of head coaches who retain play-calling duties — 17 total this year — has made other teams more willing to take the risk.
Udinski got his first NFL job with the Panthers in 2020 — overlapping with Brady — and was hired as assistant to the head coach and special projects under Minnesota Vikings coach Kevin O’Connell, who was a non-play-calling offensive coordinator for Jay Gruden in Washington and McVay in Los Angeles.
He worked his way up to assistant offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach before being hired as offensive coordinator by Coen when he was hired as offensive coordinator. And Udinski guided quarterback Trevor Lawrence to a career-high 29 touchdown passes in his first season in Jacksonville.
“I’ve never really met anyone like him,” Lawrence said in December. “The way he approaches the preparation process, the attention to detail, just the game-planning in general. Just the things that he thinks about, the conversations we have throughout the whole week — it’s a very, very detailed process. There’s no stones that are left unturned in his approach.”
Webb may have already called plays for the Bills had he accepted an offer to become quarterbacks coach in 2022, a job that eventually went to Brady. Instead Webb followed Brian Daboll to the New York Giants to play one more season before being hired by the Broncos in 2023.
He has plenty of experience with top-flight quarterbacks, serving as a backup to Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech. A third-round pick of the Giants, Webb backed up Eli Manning as a rookie and Sam Darnold with the Jets in 2018.
Webb signed to the Bills practice squad in 2019, developing a close relationship with quarterback Josh Allen over three seasons. When the Bills acquired Stefon Diggs in 2020, it was Webb who met virtually with the wide receiver to teach him the offense and again in-person before Diggs’ first training camp with the Bills.
After seeing Manning organize offseason players-only workouts, Webb did the same for the Bills in 2020. In his second season with Denver, he was tasked with developing first-round pick Bo Nix, who had 54 touchdowns in his first two seasons.
“He’s done a great job with Bo,” Daboll said before a Week 7 game. “… Davis is one of my favorite guys I had a chance to work with in my time in Buffalo and (with the Giants). He’s doing a great job.”
It’s already risky hiring a coordinator who has never been a head coach, let alone hiring one who has never had full command of an offense. McVay and O’Connell have excelled as first-timers in both, but Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel — who canceled his interview with the Bills Friday — was a strong play-caller but struggled as an overall head coach.
Both are likely to get a chance eventually, it’s just a matter of who is willing to take a shot first.
“He’s in this new generation,” Payton said of Webb in 2024. “I like that there is energy in how he presents in a room. He has every one of his high school, college and pro gameplans downloaded into files, PDFs, that I would have no idea how to get to, and he can upload. He’s someone that when we install throughout the week, he’s punching into his computer. So his meetings are extremely organized.”
NOTES: Webb also met with the Las Vegas Raiders about their head coaching job Monday. … Scheelhaase had an in-person interview with the Cleveland Browns for their vacancy. … Udinski withdrew from consideration for the Browns and has a new deal in place with Jacksonville if he’s not hired by the Bills.