The Buffalo Bills have established themselves as a contender that hasn’t been part of the head coaching cycle since the start of the 2017 offseason. In January of 2017, they hired Sean McDermott from the Carolina Panthers and we all know what has happened since then. The Bills have only missed the playoffs once and are currently getting ready to battle the Denver Broncos this Saturday.
Since McDermott took over, the rest of the division has gone through some head coaching changes including in this cycle. The Miami Dolphins are surprisingly the only team in the AFC East that made the decision to move on from their head coach in Mike McDaniel.
Lots of people thought that the Jets would move on from Aaron Glenn, but the Jets are sticking with him despite his super underwhelming performance as the Jets’ head coach in his first season. For right now though, the Dolphins are the only team to have a head coach vacancy in the division.
Miami is interviewing multiple candidates, and Ian Rapoport reported that the Dolphins will conduct interviews with two top candidates, one of them being familiar to Bills fans. One of the candidates that the Dolphins are interviewing is former Jets head coach and current 49ers defensive coordinator Robert Saleh.
The #Dolphins will conduct interviews today with a couple of top HC candidates, #Chargers DC Jesse Minter and #49ers DC Robert Saleh, sources say.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) January 15, 2026
Dolphins reportedly interviewing Robert Saleh should scare Bills fans
In 2021, the Jets hired Robert Saleh to be their head coach and it was a home run hire because of the work that Saleh did in San Francisco with their defense. However, Saleh couldn’t overcome the quarterback struggles that the Jets constantly faced whether it was with Zach Wilson or Aaron Rodgers.
Say what you want about how the Jets’ offense was still a mess under Saleh, that defense was no joke. Saleh helped build up a Jets defense that was a handful for the Bills and there were some close games between the Bills and Jets.
Quite frankly, Saleh should have never been fired from the Jets, or atleast at the time he was. After Week 5 of the 2024 season, the Jets let Saleh go just before the Jets were set to host the Bills on Monday Night Football. From that point on, that’s when the Jets’ defense started to slowly fall apart and now they no longer have Quinnen Williams or Sauce Gardner.
If Saleh comes back to the AFC East with the Dolphins, Miami is going to be challenging the Bills year-in and year-out. Buffalo was already passed by the New England Patriots this season and the Dolphins absolutely dominated them in their Week 10 matchup down in south beach. Saleh possibly going to the AFC East will make this division even tougher for the Bills.