The 2001 Buffalo Bills season was the team’s forty-second season. Previous head coach Wade Phillips was relieved of his duties as coach and replaced by Tennessee Titans defensive coordinator Gregg Williams.
John Butler, who had been the Bills general manager from 1993–2000, left to become the new G.M. of the San Diego Chargers. Butler was replaced by Tom Donahoe, who would remain with the Bills through the 2005 season.
In the wake of Buffalo's quarterback controversy, Doug Flutie was released by the Bills, prior to the season and followed Butler to San Diego. Buffalo named Rob Johnson their starting quarterback for the 2001 season, which would ultimately be his last in Buffalo. Bills defensive end Marcellus Wiley and linebacker John Holecek also left Buffalo for San Diego in 2001, leaving a gap in Buffalo's defense. The special teams also saw a major overhaul. Placekicker Steve Christie was also among the defectors to San Diego, forcing the Bills to sign rookie Jake Arians (son of longtime offensive coordinator Bruce Arians) as a replacement, then after several weeks of Arians's poor play, Shayne Graham. Chris Mohr left for the Atlanta Falcons and was replaced by Brian Moorman, who would stay with the team for the next eleven seasons.
Famous quotes containing the words buffalo, bills and/or season:
“As I started with her out of the city warmly enveloped in buffalo furs, I could not but think how nice it would be to drive on and on, so that nobody should ever catch us.”
—Anthony Trollope (1815–1882)
“It is only by not paying one’s bills that one can hope to live in the memory of the commercial classes.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The landscape was clothed in a mild and quiet light, in which the woods and fences checkered and partitioned it with new regularity, and rough and uneven fields stretched away with lawn-like smoothness to the horizon, and the clouds, finely distinct and picturesque, seemed a fit drapery to hang over fairyland. The world seemed decked for some holiday or prouder pageantry ... like a green lane into a country maze, at the season when fruit-trees are in blossom.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)