For a year without many new and exciting head coaching candidates, there sure are a lot of head coaches getting canned. The Buffalo Bills announced Monday morning that they had fired HC Sean McDermott, two days after the team lost to the Denver Broncos in overtime. It'll be the 10th head coaching change within the NFL this season.
Across his nine seasons with the Bills, McDermott had a 98-50 record in the regular season and an 8-8 record in the postseason. In his first campaign, he snapped the franchise's 18-year playoff drought, and Buffalo would continue to play well into January with him and quarterback Josh Allen at the helm. Crucially, despite all this success, he never led the Bills to a Super Bowl appearance. For quite a while, the Kansas City Chiefs would crush the hopes of most other AFC contenders in the playoff bracket, but this year, with Patrick Mahomes injured and his team eliminated from contention, the excuses for the rest of the conference dried up. For another example, see John Harbaugh with the Ravens.
McDermott and Allen's long-term success helps to cover up the fact that, by their recent standards, this was a down year for the Bills. They were a very popular Super Bowl pick before the season started. Instead, they went 12-5 and didn't win the AFC East for the first time since 2019. The Patriots earned two more wins and also advanced further in the playoffs. If McDermott were a newer coach, this season would've been an admirable effort. In a playoff field with no Mahomes, no Joe Burrow, and no Lamar Jackson, it felt like a wasted year of Allen's prime.
That might be why McDermott "stood up" for Buffalo after Saturday's loss: It was better for him to focus on what he couldn't control instead of how he fell short yet again. In previous years he was noticeably bad at clock management and late-game situations; this time, against Denver, it was easier to push blame onto the officiating. Disregard that a former defensive coordinator's defense gave up three passing touchdowns to Bo Nix and 33 points to the Broncos.
But McDermott isn't the only one at fault. There's plenty of deserved criticism for the guy in charge of personnel. The Bills' lack of effective pass-rushers, or viable receivers for Allen, cannot be solved with one-year deals for players who were good three years ago, and yet general manager Brandon Beane kept trying. There's a reasonable argument that McDermott did the best he could with the roster he was given, especially this season. Unfortunately for him, this season followed so many disappointing endings before it, and Beane is the guy who gets to sit in the suite with the owner for the whole game. The other guy gets to look shell-shocked on the sideline as a nickel corner rips the football away from the 32-year-old WR2 signed out of desperation in November.
In the aftermath of McDermott's firing, somehow Beane not only kept his job, but got a promotion to President of Football Operations. He'll be helping with the search for a new coach, too.
