Bills interim head coach Anthony Lynn held his first news conference Wednesday, less than 24 hours after the team decided to fire head coach Rex Ryan and assistant head coach Rob Ryan.
And while it contained some awkward moments -- Lynn accidentally announced Cardale Jones as the starting quarterback before correcting himself to EJ Manuel and he faced combative questioning regarding the true reason for Tyrod Taylorbeing benched -- he made it clear that he is focused on this weekend and the big picture in Buffalo.
"As far as the permanent head coaching job, I'm really not thinking that far down the road because I don't want to miss out on anything right now," he said. "I want to stay in the now and I want to get this team ready to go out and play the best we can and beat the New York Jets."
When asked about his previous head coaching interviews and whether being a head coach remains his goal, Lynn added: "I want to go out and play well. Absolutely. I want to be the guy here, make no mistake about it."
Lynn is believed to be a strong candidate for the Bills position, according to NFL Network Insider Ian Rapoport, but his uphill climb starts against his former employer, the New York Jets. Lynn will be operating with a struggling former first-round pick under center and it's not quite clear how he arrived at that decision.
"That was a business decision and we wanted to look at the depth of our quarterback position and we're out of the playoffs, so we wanted to see what the other two guys can do," Lynn said of Manuel and Jones.
Later on, Lynn referred to it separately as "our decision" but also said "I wasn't in that room when that decision was made."
This ping-pong game of semantics would be a difficult hurdle for any new head coach, especially one that is just getting used to doing weekly news briefings. Taylor is obviously owed a ton of money in 2017 and should he get injured before the end of the season, Buffalo would be on the hook for roughly $30 million. Much like the Colin Kaepernick situation in San Francisco, it could be a major deterrent against Taylor seeing the field now that the Bills are officially out of the playoffs.
Some other notes from Lynn:
» Lynn and Ryan are good friends, but he noted that they are not carbon copies. When asked about Ryan's habit of coaching undisciplined teams, Lynn said he would not say Rex didn't hold players accountable. He did say that he and Ryan were "raised by different mamas."
» Lynn could very well interview elsewhere. A popular candidate, there's a good chance he might be brought in by another team with a vacancy. His response? "I'm not saying that I wouldn't leave my options open to be head coach somewhere else."
» It's easy to tell how Lynn feels about Tyrod Taylor, though at this point there probably isn't much he can do about it. Lynn was complementary of Taylor's season and said that he wanted to see what the Pro Bowler could do with an entire healthy year under his belt.
