As the sun set in the East on Sunday, Buddy Nix was no doubt pulling hard for San Diego Chargers coach Norv Turner to guide the Bolts past the New York Jets and into this weekend’s AFC title game against the Indianapolis Colts.
Never mind that Nix was named the Buffalo Bills’ general manager on New Year’s Eve. Two years ago the former University of Tennessee at Chattanooga head football coach was the director of player personnel for the Chargers.
“I love Norv,” said Nix last Wednesday morning from his Bills office. “The owner is a great friend, and I still have a lot of ties to their players. So, yes, absolutely I’m pulling for them.”
But with the Jets’ stunning 17-14 road win over the Chargers, one can’t help but wonder if Nix won’t have a chance to reunite with Turner, given the boos that filled Qualcomm Stadium early Sunday evening.
“Certainly my first focus is finding a head coach,” said Nix, who’ll keep the home he and wife, Diann, own in Ooltewah but also purchase a residence in Buffalo.
“And we’ve got to make a decision that’s best for the Bills. The biggest mistake people make in this league is to be influenced by outside factors — the media, the fans, whatever. Everybody wants instant gratification, but that’s where you get off track.”
Some might say Turner got off track against the Jets by kicking an onside kick with more than two minutes left after the Bolts pulled within the final score. New York recovered and the Chargers never got the ball back.
Now the wildcard Jets are on their way to Indianapolis to face Peyton Manning and the Colts for a spot in the Super Bowl opposite the winner of the NFC title game between New Orleans and Minnesota.
The irony, of course, is that the Jets wouldn’t even have made the playoffs if the Colts hadn’t pulled their starters late in the third quarter in Week 16, a decision that turned a 15-10 Indy lead into a loss.
No one could have known then that the Jets would win their way back to Lucas Oil Stadium for a shot at the Super Bowl, but it will certainly make for an interesting week of revisiting very recent history.
And what if the Saints end 40-year-old Vikings quarterback Brett Favre’s storybook run 50 miles from his Kiln, Miss., home on the same day the Colts top the Jets? There’s not enough paper and cyberspace to hold all the stories that would be written concerning Saints all-time hero Archie Manning and his son Peyton.
But much as Nix may still monitor the rest of the playoffs, his chief focus is on the broken-down Bills, who haven’t reached the playoffs in 10 years after reaching the Super Bowl four straight seasons between 1990 and 1993.
“It’s a tremendous challenge, a tremendous task,” said the 70-year-old Nix. “But it’s a great town, great people, just tremendous fans, so passionate about the Bills, so we’ve got to get it done.”
Nix got it done in San Diego, helping turn the Chargers from the worst team in their division in 2003 into the AFC West’s best, the Bolts reaching the playoffs three times during his five years there. That they failed to make the Super Bowl during Nix’s tenure was more a product of running into eventual champs New England and Pittsburgh than the Chargers’ shortcomings.
But the Bills have many shortcomings, including no coach at the moment.
“It’s a 5-year deal,” Nix said of his contract. “I had in mind two, but they wanted a longer arrangement. Hopefully, we’ll see some progress.”
In an irony almost as rich the Jets-Colts, Nix finds himself reunited with wideout Terrell Owens. Nix, in case you’ve forgotten, recruited Owens to UTC, then coached him as a freshman.
“I had a team meeting the day I was introduced as GM,” said Nix. “(Owens) is sitting back in the back and after everybody else left he comes up and says, ‘That took me back to when I was a freshman in college and I heard that same talk and that same accent.’ And I guess he did.”
Other than that, Nix wouldn’t comment on his long-term plans for TO or much else about the franchise he has previously served as a college scout on two different occasions.
One thing he doesn’t plan to change is his casual wardrobe, despite purchasing a couple of business suits before he left the Scenic City for Buffalo.
“I’ve got on a sweater vest and an open-collar shirt right now,” Nix said. “I came here to work, not to model.”
If San Diego has grown tired of Turner, the Chargers coach might soon be modeling for Nix for a chance to work for the Bills.