The Bills are still deciding if Sean McDermott is going to continue calling defensive plays in 2024.
When the Bills and former defensive coach Leslie Frazier broke up in February, Buffalo did not hire anyone to replace Frazier over the 2023 season. On defense, head coach Sean McDermott took in as the team’s leader.
Bob Babich was officially promoted by the Bills on Tuesday from LB coach to defensive coordinator. CNN’s Alaina Getzenberg said that Buffalo is still deciding whether McDermott or Babich will be calling the safety plays in 2024.
General Manager Brandon Beane said last week that the team is fine with whatever McDermott wants to accomplish. The Bills gave up the fourth most points and the ninth most yards during the 2023 regular season.
According to Getzengberg, Beane said, “If [McDermott] thinks he needs to put another individual in charge of calling the plays, we would approve that.”
“If he says, ‘Man, yes, I can accomplish this. We would do that because there was absolutely nothing that made me say he couldn’t wear both hats. As he put it, “I want to do it again.”
Making lb coach Bobby Babich defensive coordinator is a good way for the Buffalo Bills to keep a popular safety assistant on the team.
Yesterday, the Bills announced that Joe Brady, their 34-year-old interim offensive coordinator, would be promoted to his full-time job. On Tuesday afternoon, they made the move public.
“Good coach,” Sean McDermott told Babich’s team last week. “Bobby and I have been living together for a long time, ever since we met in North Carolina.”
You should know that his dad, coach Bob Babich, worked here for a while. They are a good family.
Bob is a great coach. I believe that when you judge a coach, you are improving what you already have. I don’t think it needs to get more complicated than that. It was Bobby who did it.”
The Bills didn’t have a defensive coordinator for the 2023 season because Leslie Frazier, who was in charge of defense from 2017 to 2022 but isn’t paid for 2024, chose to take a year without coaching.
Babich, who is 40 years old, has been asked to interview for several jobs as defensive coordinator around the league, but he has never been in that position.
Instead, McDermott, who had been a defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles and the Carolina Panthers, called the plays.
After being an assistant head coach as a defensive line coach, Eric Washington was hired to serve as the defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. This leaves his position on the coaching staff open.
Players who collaborated with Babich say great things about him as a coach, and players liked the promotion on social media.
At some point during the season, McDermott said that Babich was someone who sometimes got the defense together to give them a boost during games.
In all of his years serving the Bills (since 2017), Babich worked in different capacities on McDermott’s staff. Coach Babich was in charge of both Poyer as well as linebacker Matt Milano during their All-Pro years.
Before taking over as linebackers coach from his father in 2022, he was the safeties coach for four years, assisting Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde. Before that, he was the team’s junior defensive backs coach.
Eric Washington, who was an assistant head coach or defensive line coach for Buffalo, left the team last weekend to become the defensive coordinator for the Chicago Bears. This caused the move.
Babich has worked for the Bills since 2017, when McDermott accepted the position as coach. In the beginning, he helped coach defensive backs. In 2018, he became the head coach of safeties.
He was then given the job of linebackers coach in 2022, taking over for his father, Bob Babich, who had retired after the 2021 season.
Bobby Babich got his start in the NFL in 2011 as an administrative assistant for the Panthers. The next year, he became the defensive assistant for McDermott, who was Carolina’s defensive coordinator at the time.
The Buffalo Bills defense is likely to change during the summer because of free agency and players getting older. Babich will take over that defense.
Micah Hyde, the starting safety, is thinking about retiring, and Jordan Poyer, another starter, could be cut because of the salary cap.
Buffalo’s defensive front has five regulars who can become free agents. Edge rushers Leonard Floyd and A.J. Epenesa, as well as tackles DaQuan Jones and Tim Settle, are among them.