Report: Bills name new special teams coordinator. What to know about the hire
According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, the Buffalo Bills will be hiring Chris Tabor as their new special teams coordinator, replacing the fired Matthew Smiley.
The 53-year-old spent more than a decade coaching in college including stops at Missouri, Utah State and Western Michigan before breaking into the NFL in 2008 as assistant special teams coach of the Chicago Bears.
After three seasons he went to the Cleveland Browns and was their special teams coordinator from 2011-17, then returned to Chicago in that role from 2018-21 before moving on to the Carolina Panthers in 2022.
In November 2023, former Bills quarterback Frank Reich was fired as head coach of the Panthers and Tabor was elevated to interim head coach but won only one of six games. He was out of the NFL in 2024.
While the Bills never announced it, NFL Network reported on Super Bowl Sunday that was Smiley was being fired after eight years with the team, five as assistant special teams coach and the last three as the coordinator.
Buffalo had some notable breakdowns in the kicking units during the 2024 season, and McDermott decided to move two weeks after he had said he would be bringing Smiley back in 2025.
Tabor has a wealth of experience in this role and that is exactly what the Bills need. When he was with the Browns, he had a player win at least one AFC special teams player of the week award in six consecutive seasons and in 2012, when kicker Phil Dawson and return man Joshua Cribbs were selected to the Pro Bowl, it was just the second time in history that two players from the same team in one season.
He was so highly thought of in Cleveland that he worked for four different head coaches - Pat Shurmur, Rod Chudzinski, Mike Pettine and Hue Jackson.
With the Panthers, he took a unit that ranked 28th in Rick Gosselin's annual and widely respected special teams rankings and vaulted the Panthers up to fourth in 2022. That year the Panthers set a franchise record with four blocked field goals and also blocked an extra point, punter Johnny Hekker set a franchise mark with 39 punts inside the 20, and kicker Eddy Pineiro led the league with a 94.3% success rate on field goals.
Tabor coached a return specialist to the Pro Bowl in each of his four seasons during his second stint as coordinator in Chicago - Jakeem Grant, Cordarelle Patterson (twice) and Tarik Cohen - as the Bears ranked fifth in yards per punt return (10.3) in that span and tied for sixth in the NFL with four special teams touchdowns.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for four decades including 35 years as the full-time beat writer for the D&C, he has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social. Sign up for his Bills Blast newsletter here: https://profile.democratandchronicle.com/newsletters/bills-blast
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Chris Tabor named new Buffalo Bills special teams coordinator
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