Bills Coaches Mix It Up, Paper Says : One Assistant in Reported Fight Has Face, Hand Injuries

Buffalo Bills assistant coaches Nick Nicolau and Tom Bresnahan got into a fight while reviewing videotape from Sunday’s victory over the New York Jets, leaving Bresnahan with face and head injuries, according to a published report.

The Buffalo News reported today that Nicolau, the wide receivers’ coach, apparently knocked Bresnahan to the floor Monday with an uppercut to the chin in a meeting room of the Bills administrative building at Rich Stadium.

Bresnahan, the team’s offensive line coach, received a cut that required stitches, the newspaper said.

Sources told the News that Nicolau then placed Bresnahan in a headlock and rammed his head through a wall, scraping his face badly and opening a cut in his forehead that also required stitches.

A large blood-spattered hole in the wall of the meeting room was later repaired, the newspaper said.

During meetings later Monday, Bresnahan was seen wearing a white turban on his head and an adhesive bandage on his chin.

“He looked like one of those earthquake victims,” one source on the team told the newspaper. “He looked like he had been through a war.”

Although it was not known what sparked the altercation, sources on the team said the relationship between Bresnahan and some of the other coaches has been strained.

“He tries to coach every position,” the source told the News. “It was building up for a long time.”

Neither Nicolau nor Bresnahan could be reached for comment, but Bills Coach Marv Levy said the fight “was news to me.”

“I know Tom has the injuries. I asked him what happened, and he said, ‘I had an accident,’ ” Levy said. “He didn’t want to say any more than that, and I didn’t ask him any more about it.”

Levy described Nicolau and Bresnahan as “close friends. Their wives are close friends. They (the coaches) lived together for four or five months in the off-season.”

Both Bresnahan, 54, and Nicolau, 55, are in their first season with the Bills.