Two weeks removed from their playoff exit in the AFC Championship Game, the Buffalo Bills have decided to move on from special teams coordinator Matthew Smiley, a team source told The Athletic.
The decision is a course reversal for the franchise, given their stance a little over a week ago. Four days after their season ended, Bills head coach Sean McDermott told reporters that Smiley would return for the 2025 season.
Smiley’s 2024 season was a tumultuous one for the Bills as their special teams units committed several situational blunders that vastly overshadowed some of its better moments.
“I’m confident that Coach Smiley is going to learn from those situations and plays that came up this year,” McDermott said on January 30, before confirming — at least then — that Smiley would return.
With more time to reflect, the Bills ultimately decided to part ways.
Among other moments in 2024, the mistakes included a blocked punt for a touchdown against the Rams, only having nine players on the field on the game-ending punt block attempt in the same game and allowing a successful fake punt conversion in the playoffs to known special teams trickster Sean Payton and the Broncos.
The 2024 errors were a compilation of how the 2023 season ended, as the Bills saw their long-term kicker Tyler Bass go through one of the worst stretches of his career and a fake punt attempt gone wrong in an AFC Divisional round loss to the Chiefs.
Smiley had been in the lead role over the last three seasons, taking over after several years with the organization. Before being named the special teams coordinator, Smiley, who arrived in Buffalo in 2017 as part of McDermott’s original coaching staff, served as the assistant special teams coordinator from 2017 through 2021.
The Bills, who have long lauded special teams as a critical piece of building the back end of their roster, will now look for a new lead voice. The upcoming special teams coordinator will be the Bills’ fourth since McDermott arrived in 2017, succeeding Smiley (2022-2024), Heath Farwell (2019-2021) and Danny Crossman (2017-2018).
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