Bills part ways with special teams coordinator despite Sean McDermott’s backing
The Buffalo Bills have decided to make a change at special teams coordinator.
According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, the team has decided to move on from Matthew Smiley:
The update to fire Smiley surfaced during Super Bowl 59 weekend… a bit of a news dump with the NFL world’s attention focused elsewhere.
The reason for that might be because of Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott’s commentary on Smiley at his end-of-season press conference. During that, McDermott directly said “yes” Smiley will return to the Bills in 2025.
“I’m confident that Coach Smiley is going to learn from those situations and plays that came up this year. He knows we can’t give up some of those plays that we gave up and we have to be better,” McDermott said.
What changed? We don’t know, but something certainly did.
McDermott was asked about Smiley at that presser because of the rough year the special teams unit had in 2024. At the top of the list is the difficult season kicker Tyler Bass had.
Now we wait for an update on who replaces Smiley.
Smiley first landed in Buffalo in 2017 as the team’s assistant special teams coordinator. In 2022, he was promoted to the full-time coordinator role.
Bills Wire will provide updates as information is made available.