If former Bills coach Sean McDermott had concerns about the talent on the Buffalo roster, he kept it to himself. For the most part.
After the division-round loss to the Broncos, McDermott focused on the fateful decision (without replay review) to transform a key catch by receiver Brandin Cooks into an interception by cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian. McDermott continued his commentary on the ruling and the handling of it by calling Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News from the team plane back to New York.
Cooks was a post-trade deadline acquisition the Bills made after a failed effort by the Saints to make his contract less attractive on waivers. The Bills were one of the teams believed to be lurking for Cooks in free agency, if no one submitted a waivers claim.
McDermott may have been eyeing another in-season acquisition at receiver: Jakobi Meyers. The Bills had been linked to Meyers before he was traded to the Jaguars. And, in the days preceding Buffalo’s wild-card game at Jacksonville, McDermott made a comment that went largely unnoticed at the time.
“Well, I thought one of the moves that’s made, you know, a difference for them offensively is adding Jakobi Meyers,” McDermott said, via Alex Brasky of SI.com. “Good pickup for them. Probably a guy that’s, quite honestly, been undervalued in his career, but going against him in New England, ton of respect for his game.”
Brasky viewed the comments after they were made as a “veiled shot” at G.M. Brandon Beane for failing to close the deal for Meyers.
McDermott’s privately-communicated concerns about the quality of the roster also put the decision to make 2024 second-round receiver Keon Coleman a healthy scratch for multiple games after the trade deadline in a different light. Most assumed McDermott and Beane were on the same page regarding the need to not put Coleman in uniform for multiple games. Maybe they weren’t.
The Jaguars weren’t the only team to make an impactful deadline deal at receiver. The Seahawks picked up Rashid Shaheed from the Saints — and Shaheed had a direct hand in helping Seattle secure the No. 1 seed in the NFC with a game-altering punt return against the Rams in Week 16 and a tone-setting kick return for a touchdown to start Saturday’s playoff win over the 49ers. Maybe the Bills targeted the wrong Saints receiver.
For his part, Beane seems to have contempt for the trend toward trades for young General Managers, deriding it last January as “fantasy football.”
The reality for the Bills is that McDermott took the fall for the failure of the team to achieve the fanbase’s longstanding fantasy to win a Super Bowl. And it places under an electron microscope all moves made and not made by the Bills in the offseason (and during the 2026 regular season) to put more weapons around quarterback Josh Allen.
