Continuity is key, Bills owner says
Terry Pegula says the word “ultimatum” like he can’t believe it’s coming out of his own mouth.
A little more than two years after he and his wife, Kim, bought the Buffalo Bills, Pegula laughs at some of this stuff. But he clearly is annoyed by what he thinks is a media-driven perception of him as an impatient, sometimes intrusive owner.
And Pegula knows that perception — real or imagined — isn’t beneficial for anybody when every bit of bad news and every loss renews speculation about coach Rex Ryan and/or general manager Doug Whaley losing their jobs.
“You have to have continuity,” Pegula told USA TODAY Sports during the NFL meetings this week. “I don’t care if you’re drilling oil in gas wells or you’re running a sports team. If you keep changing things, nothing ’s going to work.”
Some change can be good, such as the ouster of unpopular offensive coordinator Greg Roman after the Bills’ 0-2 start. Since then, they’ve won four in a row, making them one of the NFL’s hottest teams entering Sunday’s road game against the Miami Dolphins.
But that move brought scrutiny on the Pegulas, too, with reports that the front office leaned on Ryan to fire Roman after the Pegulas allegedly made known
their displeasure with the offense, upsetting Ryan by convening private meetings with star players behind his back.
A billionaire in the oil and gas industry who also owns the NHL’s Buffalo Sabres, Pegula doesn’t speak publicly often, so let’s go down the list.
On rumors in league circles that Ryan could’ve been fired after his first season, just one year into a five-year, $27.5 million contract: “No. We just hired the guys! Doug’s a new GM basically (promoted in May 2013). And we just hired Rex. We’re talking about continuity, and the players need that.”
On a report by The Buffalo News that Pegula told Ryan and Whaley near the end of last season to make the playoffs in 2016 or they’d be fired: “The famous ultimatum that I supposedly gave them, I wasn’t even in town that day. I was up at my lake in the Adirondacks.”
On 2016 as playoffs-or-bust for his football brain trust: “Oh, no way. No way.”
On the circumstances of Roman’s firing: “Rex had been talking about it. Any well-run organization, everyone has to communicate with each other. It was just a situation where he — and we were in agreement — felt that we needed the change. A lot of people said, ‘Oh, Rex is covering his ass. Why not fire himself because his defense was bad?’ Well, guess what? Our offense put the defense on the field the first two games for pretty much the whole first quarter, which set the tempo for the games.”
On how long he envisions Ryan and Whaley leading his franchise: “I don’t even think that’s a fair question, because it’s not even entered my mind that anybody needs to go.”
Pegula called the Bills’ last two drafts great, pointing out that injuries have kept several current rookies, including top picks Shaq Lawson and Reggie Ragland, from playing a snap this season. Days after the ultimatum report in January, the Bills signed Whaley to a multiyear contract extension.
Roman’s replacement, Anthony Lynn, pulled his name out of the running for the San Francisco 49ers offensive coordinator job in January — “I figured he was gone,” Pegula said — and is coaching his way into the mix as a potential head coaching candidate somewhere.
As for Ryan, who can sometimes let his mouth get ahead of results, Pegula says he felt the same way at 0-2 that he does now that the Bills are looking like a playoff con- tender. They’ve already beaten the AFC East-ruling New England Patriots, who come to Buffalo for a rematch (with star quarterback Tom Brady this time) on Oct. 30.
“Our coach needs to know that, through the good and the bad, there’s stability. The players need to know there’s stability,” Pegula said. “And by the way, that doesn’t help our players any to start reading that their coach is going to get fired.”
To that end, Pegula is smart enough to know he should talk like this — which is a whole lot easier when it appears that showing a little patience is paying off.