Son of Bum by Wade Phillips

Author:Wade Phillips [Phillips, Wade with Carucci, Vic]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781682308073
Publisher: Diversion Books
Published: 2017-03-27T16:00:00+00:00

• • •

We started to lose some of the major pieces of those Super Bowl teams when Jim Kelly and our center, Kent Hull, retired after the 1996 season. We didn’t have anyone who came close to Kelly’s ability at quarterback, so we finished 6–10 in 1997. Marv Levy retired at the end of the year and a short while later, John Butler, the general manager, walked up to me and said, “I want you to be the head coach.” I said, “That’d be great.” He said they would be interviewing some other people, but he thought I was the best man for the job.

After that, John called me at home and said Ralph Wilson, the Bills’ owner, was going to give me a call to offer me the job. This time, I was determined to do a better job of negotiating than I had done with the Broncos.

When Ralph told me what he wanted to pay me, I said, “No, I’m not going to take the job for that.”

“What?”

“Ralph, I’m almost making that right now.”

After my second year as defensive coordinator, which was when my original contract was about to expire, there had been a rumor the Miami Dolphins wanted to hire me as their defensive coordinator. I don’t know where it started; maybe I started it. Anyway, I hired an agent and told him I wanted the Bills to pay for my move from the house we were renting to one we had bought and also make me the highest-paid defensive coach in the league. I got both.

Next we tried to figure out a number that would work for both of us. Ralph wouldn’t talk to my agent, so I had to do this one on my own. The Indianapolis Colts had just hired Jim Mora to be their head coach, so Ralph said, “Well, would you take that?”

“Yeah, I’d take that.”

“Okay, three-year deal, but no raises. Just a flat number for three years.”

Ralph gave me the additional title of vice president of football operations. He wanted me to answer directly to him rather than the GM. That wasn’t a problem with John. We worked great together on everything—picking the roster, drafting players, signing free agents.

Part of the reason I thought we lost in ’96 was because we didn’t have a quarterback. So one of the first things I said after taking the job was, “We’ve got to get a quarterback.”

First, we signed Doug Flutie, who after an unsuccessful start to his career in the NFL went on to become the greatest player in the history of the Canadian Football League. A.J. Smith, who was our director of pro personnel, loved Flutie. When he said he thought we could get him from the CFL, I said, “Let’s get him.”

I didn’t know that much about Doug, other than the fact he was only five foot ten and that he had originally come into the NFL after winning the Heisman Trophy and making a miracle Hail Mary pass that allowed Boston College to upset the University of Miami.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.