Bills suffer a devastating loss just hours after divisional round playoff defeat that’ll greatly impact their 2026 plans
The Bills are losing one of their better positional coaches.
The Buffalo Bills’ season is officially over.
After an overtime loss to the Denver Broncos in the divisional round, Buffalo is looking ahead to next season. Unfortunately, news broke that will greatly change its plans for what’s to come.
Just hours after the loss to the Broncos, it was announced that offensive line coach Aarom Kromer would be retiring after more than 20 years in the NFL. He built and maintained one of the best offensive lines in football during his tenure in Buffalo, and he will surely be missed.
A decorated career for Aaron Kromer
Kromer began his NFL career in 2001 with the Oakland Raiders, where he served as an assistant offensive line coach before being promoted to their offensive line coach in 2002, a position he held until 2004.
Kromer spent the next several seasons with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, serving as a senior assistant coach and an offensive line coach. From 2008-2012, he joined the New Orleans Saints, initially as the running backs coach, then the offensive line coach, and finally as the interim head coach in 2012. Kromer won a championship with the Saints in 2009.
He jumped around the next couple of years, spending time with the Chicago Bears (2013-2014) and Buffalo Bills (2015-2016), before joining the Los Angeles Rams. In Los Angeles, he served as the offensive line coach and offensive run game coordinator until 2020. After a brief hiatus, he joined Buffalo in 2022 and never looked back, staying as the team’s offensive line coach throughout his career.
With Kromer’s departure, one name to keep an eye out for is Austin Gund, the assistant offensive line coach. He joined the Bills in 2022, the same year as Kromer, as the offensive quality control coach. In 2023, he was promoted to offensive assistant coach, then again in 2025 to assistant offensive line coach.
With the team firing head coach Sean McDermott, there could be sweeping changes in this room specifically, as whoever comes in is sure to bring his own guys.
It’ll be difficult to replicate what Kromer has built in Buffalo
Kromer’s impact in Buffalo cannot be overstated, as seen in the offensive line EPA and the improvements they have made in both passing and rushing protection up front.
Since 2022, the Bills’ offensive line has seen dramatic improvement in pass protection. There was a slight regression in 2025, which can be attributed to Allen trying to make something out of nothing and getting out of the pocket too early, but still.
According to SumerSports, the team’s sack rate reduction was from 3.29% (2022) to 1.38% (2024). Not only that, but they boosted their run blocking in a big way. Run EPA per play more than tripled from 2022 (0.029) to 2024 (0.098), showing significant development inside the trenches. Perhaps the most impressive feat, though, is that the overall offensive efficiency nearly doubled the team’s EPA per play from 2022 to 2024.
The Bills have ranked in the top three for overall offensive EPA in all four seasons. They were first in sack rate for two consecutive seasons, top two in rush EPA for three straight seasons, top four in pass EPA in every season, and top two in yards per carry in 2022 and 2025.
Kromer’s retirement leaves a massive void at the worst possible time for Buffalo. With Josh Allen still in his prime and expectations still set at a Super Bowl or bust, the Bills now face the difficult task of replacing one of the most influential behind-the-scenes figures in the organization.
Continuity in the trenches helped keep Buffalo competitive year after year, and figuring out how to replicate that standard may be one of the defining storylines of the offseason ahead.
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