In a vacuum, Sean McDermott ranks right up there with Lou Saban and Marv Levy as the most successful head coaches in the history of the Buffalo Bills. Saban won two straight AFL titles with the team in 1964 and 1965, and Levy went to four straight Super Bowls between 1990 and 1993, famously losing all four. McDermott’s .624 regular-season win percentage places him in the Pantheon of head coaches in the annals of professional football. His .444 postseason record is another matter, and the Bills’ 6-6 record in the 2023 season — armed as it’s been with issues on all sides of the ball — has some people wondering if the Bills have wasted perhaps the best and widest window the franchise has ever had to take home its first Lombardi Trophy.
Longtime NFL and Bills reporter Tyler Dunne, who has his own “Go Long” Substack and series of podcasts, put out a blockbuster three-part article (subscription required) on Wednesday detailing the issues some have had with McDermott’s coaching style. Dunne spoke to reams of players and coaches, painting as clear a picture as he could. As to the veracity of the stories… well, there’s the 9/11 story you’ll read about below if you haven’t already, and McDermott’s Thursday response to it.
Sean McDermott just addressed the 9/11 meeting referenced by @TyDunne's article published today. He said he plans on addressing this with the team later today once they get out of meetings. Here's the first few minutes of his comments from moments ago @WKBW pic.twitter.com/lKBdGVd8GV
— Matthew Bové (@Matt_Bove) December 7, 2023
None of this an endorsement of a firing, but Dunne’s piece does shine an interesting light on the works of one of the most successful — to a point — coaches in the modern NFL.
We recommend that you subscribe to and read Ty’s work, and as a table-setter for that, here are some of the more gobsmacking takeaways from the article.
The 9/11 example.
This one has made the rounds just about everywhere, and for good reason.
At St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, N.Y., McDermott’s morning address began innocently enough. He told the entire team they needed to come together. But then, sources on-hand say, he used a strange model: the terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. He cited the hijackers as a group of people who were all able to get on the same page to orchestrate attacks to perfection. One by one, McDermott started asking specific players in the room questions. “What tactics do you think they used to come together?” A young player tried to methodically answer. “What do you think their biggest obstacle was?” A veteran answered, “TSA,” which mercifully lightened the mood.
The relationships between assistant coaches and players.
Per Dunne, McDermott at times appeared “jealous” of the relationships between his players and his assistant coaches. One example:
Chad Hall played wide receiver, was much closer in age and — clearly — has a gift for managing egos in his room. The Bills receivers loved Hall so much that they bought him a truck for Christmas in 2020. An objectively touching moment that Isaiah McKenzie shared via Instagram. In the dark, in the rain, you see Stefon Diggs and Andre Roberts lead Hall out to the driveway with a beanie over the coach’s eyes. On the audio, Cole Beasley says that this was originally Gabe Davis’ idea and that they all chipped in.
It’s impossible for any sane person to watch this heartwarming video and not feel happy for Hall.
Obviously, this coach had made a profound impact on those receivers’ lives — why anyone gets into coaching in the first place.
But Sean McDermott? Oh boy. Sean McDermott was not pleased. One source described this as “a dark day at One Bills Drive.” Not only was the head coach pissed that players were gathering as a group during Covid, McDermott told his staff he pays them to be a coach. Not a friend. Other coaches could not believe his cold response. They had never seen anything like this in their careers.
The "Niagara Falls" speech.
The 9/11 example wasn’t the only time that a McDermott attempt at motivation did not have the desired effect.
In December 2021, locals will recall the news of a woman deliberately driving into the waterway that spills into the falls. She drifted down the Niagara River before her vehicle was lodged against a rock about 50 yards from the brink. McDermott studied up and pieced together a speech. The coach explained how members from the Coast Guard did everything they could to save the woman. He built up the drama. Players held on tight for an inspiring apex, and… nothing. He said the woman died. End of story. The complete absence of a point had some players biting their tongues, trying their hardest not to laugh.
The blame game.
Per Dunne, McDermott has a tendency to earhole his assistant coaches when their players underperform, but that doesn’t prevent other types of scapegoating.
The coach’s “blame game” extends to players. Running back James Cook, who entered the Broncos loss with zero fumbles on 160 touches, was swiftly ushered into the coach’s doghouse after one fumble that was the result of an exceptional strip by the defender. Not a gaffe. Treating his starting running back like a 10th grade point guard who turns the ball over against a full-court press is the sort of Cro-Magnon coaching that’s become the norm in Orchard Park. Perhaps public embarrassment installs mental toughness in some players but… eh. This isn’t 1995. Most players across the league will tell you such nonsense has the reverse effect. A seed of doubt is planted. Whenever Dad calls them out of Timeout, they’re not the same. They mentally tip-toe through a violent game won on instincts.
Nobody should’ve been surprised when Cook dropped a potential touchdown two weeks later in Philadelphia.
13 seconds of hell.
The 13 seconds at the end of regulation between the Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs in the divisional round of the 2021 playoffs has been well-documented as the point at which McDermott’s window — and the Bills’ window — started to close. Buffalo had a 36-33 lead after Josh Allen’s 19-yard touchdown pass to Gabe Davis with 13 seconds left, but the Chiefs drove far enough downfield after the subsequent kickoff for Harrison Butker to kick a 49-yard field goal as time expired in regulation, and the Chiefs won in overtime on a Patrick Mahomes eight-yard touchdown pass to Travis Kelce.
The Bills never got the ball in overtime.
That night, of course, the Bills defense also surrendered 19- and 25-yard completions to set up the game-tying field goal. One defensive starter is still pissed McDermott didn’t instruct DBs to press the Chiefs’ receivers on those two completions (“Get in front of their face,” he laments, “and challenge them!”) He’s currently loving life on a new team, but admits these two plays still serve as a 3 a.m. nightmare. Before each play, McDermott called a timeout to set the defense. That “Kodak” logic again.
He is clearly communicating into his headset as 71 seconds of real time pass before one completion and 110 seconds the next. At best, he signed off on the lax coverage. At worst, what three team sources told Go Long is true: McDermott flat-out seized playcalling from [then-defensive coordinator] Frazier those final two plays. Once [Tyreek] Hill took a quick-hitter 19 yards — to the KC 44-yard line — one coach on that staff believes McDermott’s thinking changed. “Now,” he said, “he’s worried about losing. In his mind, overtime is OK.” So, the Bills lined up in another prevent coverage. One safety was 31 yards off the ball; the other 26. Cornerback Levi Wallace was instructed to line up with outside leverage, vs. Travis Kelce, and the tight end accepted this free release to get KC in field-goal range.
Said one coach: “Imagine not being the playcaller all year long and then at a critical moment, ‘Hey, let me take the wheel.’”
