Scene: Interior office, Orchard Park, New York. A phone rings. Buffalo Bills offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn, busily assembling the game plan for Sunday's game against the New York Jets, is startled. He checks the number, sees that it's from the team's front office and answers.
Hello?
Hey, Anthony!
Yes?
Hey, we like the job you've done this year as offensive coordinator, so we're calling to let you know we just fired Rex Ryan and we'd like you to be the head coach this week. Sort of a one-week tryout, see how it goes and maybe we talk next week about whether it makes sense for you to get the job full time. No promises, though. We're definitely planning to talk to other people as well.
Great. Well, I'll do my best.
Right. One more thing, though: You can't use the quarterback.
Come again?
Yeah, if Tyrod Taylor gets hurt, we're on the hook for $30.75 million, and we're not 100 percent sure we want him anymore, so let's just be safe and roll EJ Manuel out there against the Jets' defensive line and get into the offseason and see what's what. Mmmkay?
Yeah, I'm gonna have to call you back ...
That isn't the exact transcript of the conversation that took place Tuesday between Lynn and his Buffalo Bills bosses. But based on what we know about what's going on up there, it sounds as if it might not be too far off. The Bills appear to have something of a toxic mess on their hands, and while it may well have been time for Rex Ryan to go, finding a replacement might not be as easy as they think, and it starts with the quarterback situation.
The Bills gave Taylor a contract "extension" prior to this season, but in reality they have the option to get out of it without further pain if they decide they don't think he's their franchise quarterback. Taylor's performance has not been as consistently excellent as a team would like from its franchise quarterback, but he has shown a lot more good than either of the guys behind him ever have. If the Bills move on from Taylor, they have EJ Manuel, Cardale Jones and an unpredictable, overpriced quarterback market that's going to include the volatile likes of Jay Cutler, Colin Kaepernick, Tony Romo and ... if they're lucky ... Kirk Cousins. They also have the option of using their first-round pick in 2017 on a quarterback in a draft that appears weak at that position -- a strategy that produced Manuel a couple of coaches ago.
The Buffalo front office's uncertainty over Taylor, whose play has tailed off disappointingly in the latter part of this season, is a major red flag to coaching candidates who might be interested in the Bills' job. It shows not only that you may not have a player to build around at the most important position, but also that the people who are hiring you can't necessarily be trusted to stick to a plan. It appears that the next coach of the Bills will have to be comfortable working with general manager Doug Whaley and team president Russ Brandon on issues critical to the future success of a franchise that has now missed the playoffs 17 years in a row. It further appears that the next coach of the Bills will have to be all right with a lot of uncertainty at the quarterback position.
Now, something similar can be said about the other two jobs that are open right now. Not every Los Angeles Rams coaching candidate is guaranteed to love Jared Goff. And not every Jacksonville Jaguars coaching candidate is going to be super excited about working with Blake Bortles. Teams that change head coaches very often have a lot of roster uncertainty, and that often includes quarterback.
But in Buffalo, it's a little bit different. At least Goff was a No. 1 pick, and Bortles was a No. 3 overall pick who has shown at least some ability to play in the NFL. Taylor was a career backup in Baltimore and an experiment for Buffalo all along. He has had some fine moments as an NFL starter, but he's still a big question mark who's going to be 28 when the 2017 season starts. And the other options on the current Buffalo roster are a failed first-round pick and a wild-card project. That's a level of quarterback uncertainty that makes the Rams' and the Jaguars' situations look downright solid.
Someone will coach the Bills, there's no doubt of that. There are only 32 of these jobs in the world, and there are plenty of qualified candidates who will jump at the job to have one. But the Bills might not have the easiest time in the world getting the person they want for the job. There's more toxic uncertainty over this job than there is over many of the others that have or will come open this year. And it all starts at the quarterback position, where it appears the Bills have no idea what they're going to do.