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In late February . . .
the Buffalo Bills announced that defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier would not return in 2023 and would return to coaching in 2024.
“I think my reasons for stepping away were the right reasons; I feel good about it,” Frazier told Sports Illustrated’s Albert Breer.
The perception is that Frazier, who has been coaching in the NFL since 1999, just needed a break.
“He doesn’t want to retire,” said Bills GM Brandon Beane in February. “He’s not there in his mind. But he just wanted to take a step back. So, the way we left it, he’s going to take 2023 off. But talking to him, he has full plans to return to coaching in 2024.”
But according to former NFL GM Mike Lombardi, there is more to the story than Frazier just needing a break.
“This Leslie Frazier situation has kind of been pushed under the carpet,” Lombardi said June 15 on VSIN. “It’s really a bigger story than it was. (Sean) McDermott wanted to take over the (defensive) play-calling and because he wanted to take over the play-calling, Leslie Frazier, when he went there, was the (defensive) play-caller. Frazier’s like, ‘Look, that’s not the deal we had. If you want to take over the play-calling, I’m out, but your paying me. I’m not going to sit here and make money and watch you (McDermott) call the defense if I’m not.”
This story is an example of how there is so much to a lot of these big stories than meets the eye.
So much goes on within the confines of these team complexes than ever gets to the public.
So much.
I will never forget when I was at a Senior Bowl, and a scout told me asked me what was going on with the GM and head coach I was covering.
He was talking about GM Mike Maccagnan and head coach Todd Bowles not speaking to each other for a stretch of time. Nobody who covered the team was aware of this.
Once again, this makes the point that there is so much going on behind the scenes in the league that never reaches the media and public.
And this Frazier story is a perfect example.
The perception out there is that Frazier perhaps was a little burned out and needed a time-out.
But if you are a 64-year-old coach, who wants to be an NFL head coach again (he had a stint in Minnesota), why would you take a year off now?
This story never made a ton of sense.
Nobody who covers the Bills reported what Lombardi just said.
Lombardi spent three decades in the league for various teams. He has a lot of contacts in the league. People talk to him, who don’t talk to the mainstream media.
He was the first person to report that Woody Johnson wanted to move on from offensive coordinator Mike LaFleur and Robert Saleh did not. That was the day after the season ended. A few days later the Jets moved on from LaFleur.
So once again, so much goes on at these NFL complexes that we never hear about.
It took four months for the real reason for Frazier’s departure to really come out.
June 21, 2023
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