{"id":725859,"date":"2026-02-03T08:55:25","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:55:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725859\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T08:55:25","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T08:55:25","slug":"why-philip-rivers-backed-out-of-bills-coaching-search-after-impressive-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/725859\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Philip Rivers backed out of Bills\u2019 coaching search after impressive interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Philip Rivers was truly a strong candidate for the Buffalo Bills\u2019 head coaching job.<\/a><\/p>\n

The position was instead filled by offensive coordinator Joe Brady<\/a> on Jan. 27, but Rivers, the 18-year NFL quarterback, interviewed with the Bills during the process.<\/p>\n

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Newly-appointed team president Brandon Beane told the 44-year-old Rivers after their meeting that \u201cI\u2019ll be surprised if you\u2019re not in the mix at the end,\u201d the Buffalo News reported Monday.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Philip<\/p>\n

Philip Rivers pulled out of the Bills\u2019 head-coaching search. IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n

Rivers\u2019 interview went \u201cgreat,\u201d according to Beane, though the team president warned him of the all-in challenges of a job like this. And Rivers\u2019 commitment to his family \u2014 his wife Tiffany and 10 kids \u2014 was the main hurdle for the two sides.<\/p>\n

According to the paper, Rivers called Beane a few days later and informed him he wasn\u2019t sure if he could fully commit to the position and backed out. <\/a><\/p>\n

If the Bills had hired Rivers, it would been quite the wild-card selection.<\/p>\n

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Rivers played 16 seasons with the Chargers from 2004-19, making eight Pro Bowls and all but setting himself up to become a future Hall of Famer. He retired in 2020 after spending his final season with the Indianapolis Colts.<\/p>\n

The quarterback added an unexpected chapter to his NFL journey in December when he shockingly returned to the Colts<\/a> following Daniel Jones\u2019 season-ending Achilles injury.<\/p>\n

\"Brandon<\/p>\n

Brandon Beane at a recent Bills press conference. AP<\/p>\n

Rivers, who has been coaching high school football at St. Michael Catholic in Alabama, went 0-3 with Indianapolis, but finished with 544 yards and four touchdowns.<\/p>\n

Unlike the other candidates, Rivers has zero NFL coaching experience.<\/p>\n

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Others who interviewed for the Bills\u2019 job included former Giants head coach Brian Daboll <\/a>and former Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel, the latter of whom was fired after the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

Former Chargers head coach Anthony Lynn, Colts defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo and Dolphins defensive coordinator Anthony Weaver were among other candidates.<\/p>\n

The 36-year-old Brady served as Buffalo\u2019s offensive coordinator for the past two-plus seasons and had been the team\u2019s quarterbacks coach from 2021-\u201922.<\/p>\n

He succeeds Sean McDermott, who was fired in January<\/a> after the Bills\u2019 crushing divisional round loss to the Broncos.<\/p>\n

McDermott posted a 98-50 regular-season record across nine seasons, but held an 8-8 mark in the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Philip Rivers was truly a strong candidate for the Buffalo Bills\u2019 head coaching job. The position was instead…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":725860,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[4256,232,214,53,30951,241,2005,2772,7,40300,2004,392,2381,12228,6,3725,97913,3025],"class_list":["post-725859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indianapolis-colts","tag-brandon-beane","tag-broncos","tag-buffalo","tag-buffalo-bills","tag-buffalo-news","tag-chargers","tag-colts","tag-daniel-jones","tag-football","tag-head-coaching-job","tag-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-indianapoliscolts","tag-joe-brady","tag-nfl","tag-philip-rivers","tag-team-president","tag-the-bills"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116005865977838464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=725859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/725859\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/725860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=725859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=725859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=725859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}