It looks like Buffalo Bills general manager Doug Whaley will keep his job with the organization, but his press conference Monday sent a message that he isn’t very tuned in to the team’s decision-making process.
Bills GM Doug Whaley says he had no idea Rex Ryan was in danger of losing job
At Doug Whaley’s season-end press conference he revealed how little power he actually has as the Bills general manager.
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“I wasn’t privy to any part of Rex Ryan being fired until I was told by [Bills owner] Terry Pegula,” Whaley told reporters. “We usually have those discussions at the year-end evaluation along with all the players, all our staff, all my staff. I wasn’t privy to that conversation so I can’t answer that.”
SB Nation’s Thomas George reported that Rex Ryan asked ownership that, if the plan was to fire him, to do it as soon as possible rather than wait until after the season. But the ownership’s choice to make that decision while leaving the team’s general manager entirely in the dark seems baffling.
“I look at it this way. I’m the GM of the football operation and I was told by my boss that I will no longer be working with a certain person,” Whaley said. “My role is not to figure out why, my role is to go forward and put this organization in the best possible position to win football games. So I didn’t ask.”
When asked if he had any input whatsoever in the organization’s decision to move on from Ryan, Whaley replied only with “No.” When asked if he knew that Ryan was in danger of being fired, he again replied, “No.”
Following the firing of Ryan, the team appointed offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn as the interim head coach. That was another decision that Whaley said he didn’t have control over, and he told reporters Monday that Lynn was appointed after Ryan recommended him for the job in a conversation with Pegula.
Whaley’s answers to the questions left reporters in Buffalo confused about the actual responsibilities of his job, and asking questions straight out of Office Space:
Whaley first joined the Bills as an assistant general manager in 2010 when Chan Gailey was the team’s head coach. He was promoted to general manager in 2013, pairing with Doug Marrone and later Rex Ryan. Buffalo’s next permanent head coach will be the fourth to work with Whaley during his seven years with the Bills and the third to be paired with him as general manager.
But it certainly doesn’t seem like Whaley’s opinion on the team’s head coach matters much to ownership.
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