The Buffalo Bills hired the first full-time female coach in the N.F.L. on Wednesday when Kathryn Smith was appointed their special teams quality control coach.
The announcement came less than a year after the Arizona Cardinals hired Jen Welter to work with their inside linebackers during training camp and the preseason.
Like many coaches, Smith got her job through relationships she built elsewhere. She spent 12 years working for the Jets, first as a game-day intern and then as a college scouting intern and player personnel assistant. In 2014, the last year Bills Coach Rex Ryan worked for the Jets, she was the assistant to the head coach.