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Bills owner Pegula says Rex Ryan's job is safe

Kirby Lee / USA TODAY Sports

While Rex Ryan's antics may appear like he's fighting for his career on a weekly basis, his boss is much more confident in the coach's job security.

Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula has scratched his head at some of the reports detailing how close he's come to firing Ryan in their short time together. In just his second season with the Bills, Pegula thinks it's much too soon to pull the rug out from under Ryan.

"You have to have continuity," Pegula told USA TODAY's Jarrett Bell during league meetings last week. "I don’t care if you’re drilling oil in gas wells or you’re running a sports team. If you keep changing things, nothing’s going to work."

Despite reports, Pegula says he never considered letting Ryan or general manager Doug Whaley go after last season, and there's "no way" their jobs rely on a playoff appearance this year.

"Our coach needs to know that, through the good and the bad, there’s stability. The players need to know there’s stability," Pegula said. "And by the way, that doesn’t help our players any to start reading that their coach is going to get fired."

Though he maintains that too much change too quickly would cripple his organisation, Pegula agreed with Ryan in September when the two decided to get rid of offensive coordinator Greg Roman after two games.

"Rex had been talking about it," Pegula said. "Any well-run organization, everyone has to communicate with each other. It was just a situation where he - and we were in agreement - felt that we needed the change.

"A lot of people said, 'Oh, Rex is covering his ass. Why not fire himself because his defense was bad?' Well, guess what? Our offense put the defense on the field the first two games for pretty much the whole first quarter, which set the tempo for the games."

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