Yesterday was the first day of offseason workout for the Buffalo Bills, and while there wasn’t much news to be found on a day that mostly involved stretching and cardio there was an interesting tidbit from new head coach Sean McDermott in his presser.
Saying he’s a big believer in “player-driven leadership”, McDermott intends to have a leadership council on the Bills while he’s with the team. While he hasn’t made any decisions about who might be on it just yet, he (and the rest of the coaching staff) will be working on that over the course of the offseason.
Leadership on the Bills under Rex Ryan was somewhat spotty, at best. Ryan never named official team captains, famously using the opening coin tosses to send out players with some connection to whatever team the Bills were playing that week (memorably letting LeSean McCoy take the field by himself prior to the game against the Philadelphia Eagles in 2015). That will not be the case moving forward.
McDermott himself didn’t single out any players, but did note that he wasn’t going to be relying solely on veterans to take the reins. “You want representation from ... guys that represent the whole team, not just certain parts of the team,” McDermott said when asked about who might make up the group.
“Young or old, it’s time to step up and lead.”
Not that it needs to be said, but McDermott didn’t use the group as a way to shirk his own responsibility on the leadership front, saying, “Every ship needs a rudder, and so obviously I’m one of the leaders”. The group seems to be simply an extension of that, giving the on-field leaders a platform to speak to the coaches (and vice versa).
There are some obvious candidates, such as Kyle Williams, Lorenzo Alexander, and Tyrod Taylor. Does anybody have any other suggestions?