Rex Ryan: Firing Greg Roman was ‘my move, without question’

The Buffalo Bills fired offensive coordinator Greg Roman Friday. It was quite a shocking move that head coach Rex Ryan has completely owned as his idea.

It’s interesting but not surprising that Roman bore the brunt of Ryan’s displeasure after falling to 0-2 to start the season. After all, despite the fact that Buffalo’s defense is a hot mess right now, Ryan’s not going to fire his own brother, who is coordinating the defense right now.

The head coach went on to explain his reasoning for making the move.

It’s worth pointing out that the Bills have had some serious success on offense with Roman as the coordinator.

Roman does have a reputation for being reliant on the ground game. He coordinated the San Francisco 49ers’ offense from 2011-14 under Jim Harbaugh and was with Harbaugh in the same capacity at Stanford.

The Bills do have some talented playmakers on offense. In addition to LeSean McCoy and Sammy Watkins, tight end Charles Clay, receivers Robert Woods, Marquise Goodwin and Greg Salas all have the ability to break games wide open.

We saw both Goodwin and Salas make humongous plays for touchdowns on Thursday night (watch here and here), and it’s likely Ryan wants to see even more of that. However, the entire offense still must revolve around McCoy and the run game.

It’s going to be interesting to see if new offensive coordinator Anthony Lynn can do something more with the offense in Roman’s stead.

Whatever happens, it’s all on Ryan’s shoulders now. He’s owning this power play like a boss, whether it blows up in his face or not.