Sam Wyche's silent count.(NFL)(National Football League)

Sam Wyche is a football player's dream: a coach who can't yell.

"That's all right," Wyche says, grinning. "I've got a very loud whistle."

Wyche is the new quarterbacks coach of the Bills, a team with its share of rehab cases. Running back Willis McGahee and wide receiver Lee Evans, Buffalo's top picks in the last two drafts, both will test rebuilt knees in training camp, and quarterback Drew Bledsoe is looking to bounce back from his worst season. But the Bills' most remarkable comeback story is Wyche, 59, who spends practice weaving between players to catch up to his quarterbacks after plays.

Wyche underwent exploratory surgery for a heart ailment in March 2000. Later diagnosed with viral cardiomyopathy, a rare condition that can be treated but not cured, Wyche initially feared he would need a heart transplant. He was so weak he could stay awake for barely an hour a day. The condition eventually was brought under control with a pacemaker and medication, but a mishap in the first operation left him with a paralyzed vocal cord. His broadcastine career and, it seemed, his coaching career were over.

"I'd tell people, 'I have heart disease and can't talk very well. Do you have anything for me?' It was hard to find jobs," says Wyche, a head coach for the Bucs and Bengals for 12 seasons--he led the 1988 Bengals to Super Bowl 23--after seven years as a quarterback with the Bengals, Redskins, Lions and Cardinals and four years as an assistant coach with the 49ers.

Wyche's road back to the NFL began in 2002 at the local high school near his home in Pickens, S.C. He started out as a substitute teacher, then as a volunteer assistant on the football team. He coached two seasons at Pickens.

"Talk about looking at the big picture," says Wyche. "It gave me a totally different perspective on teaching. I'm anxious to get back and see how much better of a coach I am going to be now than I was the last time around."