Yesterday, the Bills announced they fired head coach Chan Gailey. Gailey spent three years as head coach of the Bills and he compiled a 16-32 record. Worse yet, Gailey’s Bills were 1-19 against teams with winning records.
Today, the Bills have followed up the coaching change by announcing that Ralph Wilson has given up “organizational” control of the team to Russ Brandon. Brandon will become the third ever president of the team – a title only Ralph Wilson and Tom Donahoe have held before.
Brandon met with Wilson in Detroit yesterday. Wilson told Brandon he was “passing the torch to run this franchise in totality. . . with zero restrictions.” In a press conference, Brandon was forthright and admitted the Bills “brand has been tarnished.”
Brandon continued “I can promise you with will be a forward thinking, aggressive, attacking organization heading into the future.” In a completely shocking move, Brandon announced that the Bills will be committed to building a football analytics department. This, if it happens, will be quite a departure from the past.
Finally, Brandon committed to identifying and hiring “world-class people to bring into this organization. But, most importantly, I will empower people to do their jobs.”
Ralph Wilson released a statement on today’s announcing:
“Russ Brandon has drone a tremendous job in his 16 years with our organization and is very highly respected throughout the National Football League. He has proven to be extremely successful with each new level of responsibility he has been given and has earned this opportunity. Russ is a proven leader, and he will now have full authority over the entire Buffalo Bills operation. I have granted him full autonomy to run the organization as he feels is best.”
The Bills are presenting the changes announced today as a big deal, a significant departure from how things have been done over the past decade. The first real test of this will be the hire of the next head coach.