After the Bills lost to the Broncos on a Monday night last November, thanks to having one player too many on the field for a Denver field-goal attempt that was missed, it felt like just a matter of time before Buffalo would fire coach Sean McDermott.
They entered the bye at 6-6. Then came a 20-kiloword bomb targeting McDermott’s flaws as a coach, and reporting that he made a few years earlier an unfortunate training-camp reference to 9/11. It felt like it would end for McDermott after the season. But when McDermott spoke to the team in the aftermath of the hit piece, the season inexplicably turned around.
The Bills went from 6-6 and out of the playoffs to 11-6 and the AFC East title. In separate conversations with PFT and/or PFT Live, cornerback Rasul Douglas, quarterback Josh Allen, and G.M. Brandon Beane confirmed that McDermott’s address to the team sparked the turnaround.
They made it to the final eight, again. But they failed to get past the Chiefs in the postseason, again. While McDermott was not fired when the season ended, some are wondering whether the Bills can win a Super Bowl with McDermott in charge.
At his Scouting Combine press conference, McDermott said it’s a matter of when, not if. In a conversation with Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com, McDermott elaborated on his confidence that things can be turned around.
“I’m confident in who I am as Josh’s coach,” McDermott said. “I know how to develop players. I’m confident in that and extremely confident Josh is going to develop the best he can, that we’re going to maximize Josh’s potential.”
One of the criticisms of McDermott is that, as a defensive coach, he can’t get the most out of Allen — and that any offensive coordinator who does will be snatched up as a head coach elsewhere, like Brian Daboll was. McDermott believes that’s not an impediment to maximizing his franchise quarterback.
“I watched Donovan McNabb and Cam Newton grow, one under an offensive head coach in [Andy] Reid and the other under a defensive head coach in Ron Rivera,” McDermott told Graham. “I took copious notes. I wasn’t just over there, doing my thing. I was watching.
“With Josh, some of my [pre-draft evaluation] on him was, through a defensive lens: This is going to be hard to defend. But it’s also about who the guy is as a person. Who fits Buffalo the best? Not only the weather and his hand size, but who fits the fabric of Buffalo the best?
“Similarly as the head coach, the fit of Sean McDermott in Buffalo. They’re my type of people. Hopefully, I’m their type of people. The fit is important.”
The fit has worked, for the most part. However, six years into Allen’s career, the question becomes if/when the Bills can bust through to the Super Bowl before Allen joins Jim Kelly as a Hall of Fame former Bills quarterback.
The easiest explanation might be that McDermott and Allen have been and will continue to be bedeviled by Reid and Patrick Mahomes. With Mahomes at three Super Bowl wins and determined to push for seven, plenty of great coaches and quarterbacks might go ring-less over the next 10 years.