Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier to take year off from coaching

INDIANAPOLIS - In a rather surprising, not to mention strange announcement Tuesday morning, Buffalo Bills defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier has informed the team is taking a year off from coaching.

“So last week was kind of a week that we gave everyone off in the office, coaches were away, and so during that time Leslie reached out and just talked through some things,” general manager Brandon Beane said at the NFL Scouting Combine. “Ultimately, he didn’t want to retire. He’s not there in his mind but he just wanted to take a step back. The way we left it is he’s gonna take 2023 off, but talking to him, he has full plans to return to coaching in 2024.”

Though Frazier indicated he wants to coach again, there is certainly no guarantee that he would do so in Buffalo. It would probably depend on whether the Bills hire a new defensive coordinator, or if they go through 2023 without one and have head coach Sean McDermott call the defensive signals on game day, perhaps leaving the door open for Frazier to resume his duties in 2024.

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“Still working through what we would do,” Beane said. “The good thing for us is Sean’s background. Sean’s been a longtime defensive coordinator (with both the Eagles and Panthers) and so right now he’ll just kind of lead that.

“Not saying that we would or we wouldn’t (hire a new DC). It’s still very early in the offseason. It’s not on the offensive side of the ball, it’s on the defense and we feel we’ve got some really good minds in that room with Bobby Babich, we added Al Holcomb, John Butler, Eric Washington, we just added Joe Danna. Adding Sean in there as well, I’m sure he’ll be even more hands on at this point.”

The 64-year-old Frazier has been Buffalo’s only defensive coordinator since McDermott became head coach in 2017, and he has presided over six years of mostly very good performance.

Since 2017, the Bills have allowed an average of just 20 points per game which ranks third in the NFL over that span, and the Bills rank No. 1 in total yards allowed per game (315), passing yards per game (202), and total passing touchdowns allowed (107).

However, what has frustrated fans is the way the Bills have bowed out of the playoffs in their last four appearances as the elimination game has seen defensive meltdowns that led to losses to Houston, Kansas City twice, and Cincinnati last January.

In particular was the awful loss to the Chiefs in the 2021 playoffs, the infamous “13 seconds” game when many felt Frazier’s coverage calls were far too soft on the two passes Patrick Mahomes completed to get the Chiefs into position for a tying field goal.

That led to a gut-wrenching overtime defeat that cost the Bills a real shot at playing in, and possibly winning, the Super Bowl. Still, Frazier’s critics cannot deny that his overall body of work has been very good.

“We’ll miss him,” McDermott said Tuesday afternoon. “I thought he did a really good job with our defense. It’s a long and hard season so he decided to take a year off here. We want the best for him.”

The timing of the announcement was certainly odd, and while Beane didn’t get into specifics, he did say, that he “did not foresee that coming, but you work in this business long enough, things that surprise you, you've got to be careful. Anything can happen. Not speaking for Leslie, but sometimes you may just want to take a breath from them. That would be for him to say, but he was very adamant that he was not going to retire. My two cents: He just wanted to take a step back this season.”

When McDermott was asked about whether he would step in to call the defensive plays, he was mostly non-committal.

“We’re just getting started with that in terms of evaluating who and what,” McDermott said. “So, the internal evaluation will continue. We’ll just keep taking it one day at a time. I’m extremely confident in the guys that we have and the coaches that we have already in our building. So we’ll just see where it goes.”

It will be an interesting decision because while McDermott has vast experience as a defensive coordinator, there aren’t many head coaches these days who handle play-calling duties on either side of the ball because it can spread a head coach awfully thin.

“That’s a big part of the consideration there,” McDermott said. “That is my background. To have this happen on the offensive side, it would not be as big of a consideration, obviously. We’ll do what we feel is best for the team.”

The Bills also officially announced the earlier changes to the coaching staff which included the hiring of Al Holcomb as a senior defensive assistant and Adam Henry as wide receivers coach, plus the shifting of duties for Austin Gund (from offensive quality control coach to offensive assistant/offensive line coach) and Kyle Shurmur (from defensive quality control to offensive quality control).

Holcomb was the Cardinals defensive coordinator in 2018 and last year he served as the Panthers interim defensive coordinator after head coach Matt Rhule was fired at midseason.

The 52-year-old might be the best suited candidate if McDermott turns the reins of the defense over to an assistant, though linebackers coach Babich (six years), and defensive backs coach Butler (five years) have the most experience in Buffalo’s scheme.

Sal Maiorana can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter @salmaiorana.To subscribe to Sal's newsletter, Bills Blast, which will come out every Friday during the offseason, please follow this link: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast

This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Leslie Frazier to take year off coaching for Buffalo Bills