Insider hints Bills may have forced Leslie Frazier's sabbatical

Aside from a press release courtesy of the Buffalo Bills, there are still no details regarding why Leslie Frazier chose to step away from his defensive coordinator duties for the 2023 season.

However, in his latest mailbag for the Buffalo News, Bills reporter Jay Skurski suggested a theory: The decision wasn’t Frazier’s to make.

“It’s hard to see how stepping away from the game for a year would benefit Frazier in his quest to again be a head coach,” Skurski said. “With that in mind, it feels as if Frazier’s decision to do so maybe wasn’t his idea in the first place. That’s just speculation on my part, because Frazier has curiously not offered up his side of the story. Perhaps one day that will change, but until it does, all we can do is speculate. As it did when the announcement was made, it still feels to me as if Frazier has coached his last game with the Bills.”

Bills general manager Brandon Beane told reporters at the NFL Combine in February that Frazier doesn’t want to retire and that he will return to coaching in 2024, but he didn’t specify if he would return to the Bills.

Frazier was one of 40 participants in the NFL’s coach accelerator program over the last three days, but there was no team affiliation listed next to his name on a memo sent from the league to its 32 teams informing them which coaches were attending the program.

The 64-year-old coach has been Buffalo’s defensive coordinator since 2017, but he’s been recently passed up for several head-coaching opportunities including the Chicago Bears, Miami Dolphins and New York Giants last year.

Frazier has more than three years of NFL head-coaching experience with the Minnesota Vikings, and he’s not been shy about wanting another chance to prove himself.