The Bills fired special teams coordinator Matthew Smiley on Super Bowl Sunday; they had a replacement in mind. They are bringing in Chris Tabor, who spent this past season out of football.
The former Panthers interim HC is signing on to be the Bills’ ST coordinator, ESPN’s Adam Schefter tweets. Tabor, 53, has been an NFL staffer since 2008. He climbed to that interim role once Carolina fired Frank Reich, and while the Panthers interviewed him for the full-time post, he was never a likely candidate.
Tabor, however, has coached special teams throughout his pro career. This includes stays as the Panthers, Bears and Browns’ ST boss. Smiley had been in place as Buffalo’s STC for the past three years and had been with the team since Sean McDermott‘s 2017 debut. As such, this will mark a major change for the Bills’ staff.
A Kansas City-area native, Tabor has not overlapped with McDermott previously. The Panthers-to-Bills pipeline has effectively dried up, as McDermott and GM Brandon Beane have been in Buffalo now for eight years. But Tabor brings considerable expertise to this post. He has coached since 1993, moving from high school to college to the pros, and had the Panthers’ special teams operating at a high level during his final full season as their ST boss. Veteran writer Rick Gosselin had the Panthers’ special teams ranked fourth in 2022. Carolina dropped to 23rd on Gosselin’s chart in 2023.
Tabor coached both Devin Hester and Josh Cribbs, overseeing the latter’s work for two years as Cleveland’s ST coordinator, and will work on overseeing a Bills team that allowed a blocked-punt touchdown and a kick-return score in 2024. Buffalo also ranked 28th in yards allowed per kick return last season. Tabor interviewed for the 49ers’ ST coordinator job last month. The Panthers had blocked Tabor from meeting with the Giants, only to not retain him on Dave Canales‘ staff, but the experienced assistant has secured another opportunity a year later.
I remember Tabor when he was with the Bears. The Bears always had one of the top ST groups in the League. Never could figure out why he didn’t get more love when it came to HC opportunities. Great hire IMO.
A lot of NFL teams seem to want their head coaches nowadays to be the cheap, young, yes-man micromanagers of the world like Liam Coen and Ben Johnson.
If Johnson ($13m X 5) is cheap, then who is expensive?
Guy must be 5 cans short of a six pack. What has any of that got to do with the article anyway? Just spewing out random nonsense. Must be a Twitter star!
There are a few players like Devin Hester that are so naturally gifted, that the idea they need coaching is just laughably ludicrous. Yet the media always wants to link some coach to these player as if it was their genius that made the athlete so great.
Yeah except there is lot more that goes into ST’s than Devin Hester being able to run around like a chicken with his head cut off. There’s KO coverage( Not the nonsense today either), Punt coverage, Being able to switch available people after injuries and keeping it to a minimum on penalties. The Bears were good at everything when he was here. Hester was a part for sure, But he was far from the only part.
The idea that players like Michael Jordan, Wayne Gretsky, Rickie Henderson or Jerry Rice needed coaching is comical. It would be like saying Jimi Hendrix needed a guitar tutor…lol.