Bills rumors: Insider floats Brian Daboll as name to watch for Buffalo’s HC opening

Could Brian Daboll be an NFL head coach by the time the 2026 season begins? Despite a disastrous stint with the New York Giants, it appears so.

According to The Athletic’s Dianna Russini, Daboll, who the Giants fired in November, could potentially replace his former boss, Sean McDermott, as the Buffalo Bills’ next head coach.

“Talking to NFL executives around the league about Buffalo’s next head coach options, the name that keeps coming up is a familiar one, a Buffalo native and someone Josh Allen loves: Brian Daboll,” Russini posted on X, formerly Twitter.

On the surface, the move makes sense to keep Allen, the 2024 NFL MVP, happy and keep some connection to an otherwise successful and competitive stint with McDermott. However, Daboll’s 20-40-1 tenure as the Giants head coach could prove disqualifying.

Taking the job ahead of the 2022 season after four years as the Bills’ offensive coordinator and effectively Allen’s tutor, Daboll posted his best season as a head coach in his first year; he and the Giants went 9-7-1 and made the playoffs, where they beat the Minnesota Vikings on the road before being routed 38-7 by NFC East rivals, the Philadelphia Eagles in the divisional round.

The following season, the Giants went 6-10 and missed the playoffs, although after a 2-8 start and losing starting quarterback Daniel Jones for the rest of the year in Week 9, backups Tommy DeVito and Tyrod Taylor led New York to a 4-3 record down the stretch in Jones’ absence.

The 2024 and 2025 seasons, regardless of whatever optimism existed at the end of 2023, proved catastrophic. The Giants finished 2024 3-14, tied for the worst record in the NFL, and Daboll led the team to a 2-8 record before being fired on November 10. The day before, New York blew a 20-10 fourth-quarter lead to the Chicago Bears.

Daboll, who grew up in the Buffalo suburb of West Seneca, attended high school in nearby Athol Springs and college in Rochester. He began his coaching career at William & Mary and then Michigan State before joining Bill Belichick’s inaugural New England Patriots staff as a defensive assistant. Over the next 20-plus years, in addition to two stints with New England, he worked as an assistant with the New York Jets, Cleveland Browns, Miami Dolphins, and Alabama before taking the offensive coordinator position with the Bills, who drafted Allen, a raw quarterback prospect out of Wyoming, the same year as Daboll’s arrival.

Under Daboll’s tutelage, Allen improved from a rookie season in which he threw 10 touchdowns and 12 interceptions to the 2020 season, the penultimate campaign with Daboll, during which he threw for a career-high 4,544 yards, 37 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions.

The Bills, who fired McDermott after eight playoff appearances in nine seasons, are one of more than half a dozen NFL teams without a head coach currently.

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