Former Bills Coach Wade Phillips Gets Another Opportunity in XFL
Wade Phillips has been having trouble finding work in the NFL, so the former Buffalo Bills coach has turned to the XFL, where he will coach one of eight teams when the fledgling league begins play next February. The team hasn't been determined, but Phillips isn't the only head coach with ties to the Bills.
Former Bills linebacker Jim Haslett, who like Phillips has extensive head-coaching experience in the NFL, also has been selected. The other head coaches are Bob Stoops and former NFL players Terrell Buckley, Hines Ward, Rod Woodson, Reggie Barlow and Anthony Becht.
A pair of former Bills executives, Russ Brandon and Doug Whaley, have been installed as president and senior vice president of player personnel, respectively, for the third incarnation of a league that originally was formed in 2001. It attempted a comeback in 2020 that was scuttled in midseason by the COVID-19 pandemic.
When (or if) the league does play again, Phillips will be attempting to win his first championship as a head coach at age 75.
His track record in the NFL featured much regular-season success (82-64 career record) but almost total failure in the postseason, where he was 1-5.
Two of those playoff losses came with the Bills, who finished 10-6, 11-5 and 8-8 in Phillips' three seasons (1998-2000).
His tenure in Buffalo rightly or wrongly was defined by just one game, however: The Music City Miracle, in which the host Tennessee Titans dispatched the Bills from the playoffs with a lateral across the field on a kickoff return to Kevin Dyson, who went 75 yards for the game-winning score with 3 seconds remaining.
The son of former Houston Oilers and New Orleans Saints coach Bum Phillips, Wade Phillips is widely respected for crafting outstanding defenses with multiple teams.
As the Denver Broncos' defensive coordinator in 2015, he helped them defeat the Carolina Panthers, 24-10, in the Super Bowl. Three seasons later, he was the Los Angeles Rams' defensive coordinator when they fell to the New England Patriots, 13-3, in the lowest-scoring Super Bowl in NFL history.
Phillips was let go after the Rams' 2019 season and wasn't able to find work until the XFL's resurrection.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
