The Buffalo Bills have promoted Brandon Beane to President of Football Operations, and with that move comes a major responsibility. For the first time in a decade, Beane will now lead Buffalo’s head coaching search after the team parted ways with Sean McDermott following a nine-year run. And one of the names for the head coach candidate has just surfaced: The Washington Commanders run-game coordinator, Anthony Lynn.

On Wednesday morning, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported that the Bills are scheduled to interview Lynn for the vacant post on Saturday, per league sources. The 57-year-old is no stranger to Buffalo or to head coaching discussions. Lynn previously served as an assistant head coach with the Bills and was a finalist for the head coach job back in 2017, before the team ultimately hired McDermott.

The report about Lynn’s interview surfaced nearly 48 hours after the Bills parted ways with McDermott. The firing followed a quiet Tuesday that produced no new updates on Buffalo’s head coaching search. That silence wasn’t all that surprising.

Most of the top candidates around the league had already interviewed elsewhere or had interviews scheduled, without yet knowing that a job in Buffalo might suddenly become available. It’s the familiar script we’ve seen before. The New York Giants had previously interviewed or lined up interviews with multiple HC candidates, without realizing that the former Baltimore Ravens‘ head coach, John Harbaugh, could suddenly be available.

Once that door opened, the Giants wasted no time, moving quickly to land the veteran coach. Now, the spotlight shifts to Buffalo. The Bills are beginning their own search, and Lynn is the first name to surface. Lynn may be the first candidate through the door, but he’s far from unfamiliar territory in NFL coaching circles. After hanging up his cleats as an NFL running back, Lynn entered the coaching ranks in 2000 as a special teams assistant with the Denver Broncos.

From there, he settled into a role he knows best, running backs coach. He held that position with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Dallas Cowboys, Cleveland Browns, and New York Jets before eventually landing in Buffalo. Lynn spent a couple of seasons with the Bills as a running backs coach and assistant head coach before being promoted to offensive coordinator for most of the 2016 season.

And after losing the HC job role to McDermott, he took over as the HC of the Los Angeles Chargers. That stint produced mixed results. Across his tenure, Lynn posted a 33–31 record and reached the playoffs just once. Hardly disastrous, but not enough to secure long-term stability. Fast forward to now, and after brief stops with the Detroit Lions and the San Francisco 49ers, Lynn is currently serving as the run-game coordinator/RB coach under Dan Quinn in Washington.

With his Bills interview set for Saturday, the question is whether this time, the opportunity finally sticks. For now, though, it’s another former Bills coach being linked to Buffalo almost immediately after Sean McDermott’s firing.

Sean McDermott’s former OC has been linked to the Bills

Since Black Monday, several teams around the league have parted ways with their head coaches. It didn’t matter whether those tenures lasted one season or nearly two decades. The Bills fall squarely into that group. And as the team searches for a replacement for Sean McDermott, Anthony Lynn isn’t the only familiar name being linked to Buffalo. McDermott’s former OC, Brian Daboll, is in the mix as well.

“Talking to NFL executives around the league about Buffalo’s next head coach options, the name that keeps coming up is a familiar one, a Buffalo native and someone Josh Allen loves: Brian Daboll,” The Athletic’s Dianna Russini wrote on X.

Daboll was most recently let go by the Giants after a rough 2-8 start to the 2025 season. Across three-and-a-half years in New York, he posted a 20–40–1 regular-season record and reached the postseason just once. On paper, the results weren’t pretty. But context and familiarity matter here. Daboll’s ties to Buffalo run deep.

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He served as the Bills’ OC beginning in 2018, the same year the team drafted Josh Allen. During that stretch, he played a major role in helping McDermott turn Buffalo into a legitimate contender and in guiding Allen’s rise into the face of the franchise. His résumé also includes developing quarterbacks like Jalen Hurts and Tua Tagovailoa at Alabama. And in the process, Daboll also earned AP NFL Assistant Coach of the Year honors.

Now, after a turbulent Giants stint, Daboll is back in the conversation where much of his coaching reputation was built. Whether that interest turns into something real ultimately rests with Brandon Beane and the Bills’ front office. For now, it’s another familiar name circling Buffalo. What happens next remains to be seen.