The Buffalo Bills bid goodbye to special teams coordinator Heath Farwell Wednesday and wasted no time in filling his seat.
Head coach Sean McDermott promoted assistant special teams coach Matthew Smiley to the coordinator job just two hours after news broke that Farwell was jumping ship to join the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Smiley, 43, was hired by McDermott in 2017 less than a month after the head coach took over in Buffalo. Smiley has served the past five years as special teams assistant. The first two were under Danny Crossman, and Smiley was retained on the staff even though Crossman was fired after the 2018 season. Smiley worked with Farwell the past three seasons.
The shakeup at coordinator comes in the wake of the Bills’ special teams miscue at the end of regulation in the divisional playoff loss at Kansas City. The Bills could have killed a couple of seconds off the clock by kicking short of the end zone, but place kicker Tyler Bass booted his kickoff into the end zone for a touchback.
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McDermott blamed lack of execution for the way the final 13 seconds of regulation went down. Video replays of the kickoff showed Bills coverage man Siran Neal turning to the sidelines with his arms out as if he was surprised by the touchback. Whether there was a miscommunication and Bass was supposed to get a different message or failed to execute the kick is not clear.
The Bills had good special teams overall under Farwell and Smiley. They stood eighth overall in 2021, according to the annual Rick Gosselin rankings. They were eighth in 2020 as well and 12th in 2019.
Farwell, 40, ended a 10-year NFL playing career after the 2014 season and then transitioned to a special teams assistant with Seattle in 2016 and ’17. He spent a year with Carolina in 2018 as assistant special teams coach, before joining McDermott, who gave him his first coordinator position.
Jacksonville last week named former Philadelphia coach Doug Pederson its new head coach. Pederson never has coached or worked with Farwell in the past.
The Bills’ coverage units have been especially strong the past two years. Buffalo ranked second in punt return average allowed and third in kickoff average allowed in 2021. In 2020, the Bills also were third in kickoff return average allowed, and they were 17th in punt return average allowed (but first in net punting overall).
The Bills lost a Pro Bowl return man in Andre Roberts in free agency after the 2020 season but did a reasonable job replacing him. Buffalo was 14th in kickoff return average and eighth in punt return average.
The development of Bass also has been a bright spot for the special teams. He has enjoyed two sensational years since being drafted in the sixth round in 2020.
Smiley has spent nine seasons in the NFL. He coached as an assistant on special teams in Jacksonville from 2013 to ’16. He played wide receiver in college for the University of Illinois and coached eight seasons in the college ranks before joining the NFL. He started his coaching career at Dartmouth, then moved to Eureka, Eastern Illinois and Charleston Southern.
