In every high-profile NFL breakup, there are opinions and theories. There will be no shortage of these as the pro football world examines what exactly happened to end the relationship between head coach Sean McDermott and the Buffalo Bills, particularly after the sixth-seeded Bills lost to the No. 1 seed Denver Broncos 33-30 on the road in overtime.
It was a game that has become yet another officiating flashpoint following a controversial interception call that cost Buffalo, at the very least, a shot at a game-winning field-goal attempt.
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McDermott skewered the call multiple times afterward, at one point telling a pool reporter: “That play is not even close. That’s a catch all the way. I sat in my locker and I looked at it probably 20 times, and nobody can convince me that that ball is not caught [by Bills wideout Brandin Cooks] and in possession of Buffalo. I just have no idea how the NFL handed it, in particular, the way that they did. I think the players and the fans deserve an explanation, you know?”
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Tennis star Jessica Pegula, the daughter of team owners Terry and Kim Pegula, echoed a similar gripe at the Australian Open, signing on a camera “that was a catch” after her Round of 128 victory on Sunday.
Less than one day later, McDermott was fired after tallying a 98-50 regular-season record and leading the Bills to the playoffs eight of his nine seasons, including a pair of AFC championship games. For the balance of Monday, the split was framed by the Super Bowl appearance that Buffalo and McDermott orbited but could never ultimately land. This despite having one of the league’s most dominant quarterbacks in Josh Allen and an assembly line of talent that came and went around Allen during McDermott’s tenure. In a statement, Terry Pegula said the move was made to give the Bills “a new structure within our leadership to give this organization the best opportunity to take our team to the next level.”
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The nagging issue coming out of Sunday was that the narrative framing Allen’s postseason career changed in this most recent playoff push. It went from questioning a troubling lack of a breakthrough for the quarterback to focusing on his two interceptions and three fumbles (two of them lost) against the Broncos. The performance had some critics suggesting Allen wasn’t just hitting a ceiling in critical postseason moments under McDermott — he appeared to play worse this time around. And in the middle of his prime, with an offseason that was going to deliver his 30th birthday.
If that small window of decline for Allen is something that Bills ownership sees as a potential trend, the McDermott firing has some context. But there’s still a healthy debate about the pieces surrounding Allen, which are the responsibility of general manager Brandon Beane, who not only survived the Broncos loss but had president of football operations added to his title — which is effectively a promotion.
To some league sources, the shakeup had a residue of overreaction, driven by a ticking clock on Allen’s prime and the simple inability to get over the final hurdle. It was more apparent than ever in these playoffs, with Allen’s chief quarterback road blocks — the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes, Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson and Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow — all missing from this postseason. If there were ever a moment to seize with circumstances leaning in Buffalo’s favor, this was it.
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When McDermott couldn’t engineer the next step, that sealed his fate.
Interestingly, one longtime high-ranking NFL personnel source framed the decision with a parallel to Jessica Pegula.
In February of 2024, Jessica Pegula ended a highly successful five-year run with then-coach David Witt, despite having risen as high as a No. 3 world singles ranking in 2022 and reaching multiple singles quarterfinals in Grand Slam events from 2021 to 2023. That included three straight quarterfinals appearances in the Australian Open.
That success hit some rocks early in 2024, with Pegula withdrawing ahead of the quarterfinals in the Adelaide International and then losing a stunning second-round match in the Australian Open, where she later withdrew from doubles competition. Not long after, Pegula fired Witt and reshaped her coaching staff with an outside-the-box choice: Hiring a pair of co-coaches in Mark Knowles and Mark Merklein. At the time, it was a move that intrigued and surprised the tennis community given the success that Pegula found under Witt’s guidance.
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Currently the No. 6 female singles player in the world, Pegula spelled out the move to professional tennis podcast The Changeover last week:
“I just felt like I was at that point where I needed a little bit of a change. I felt like I needed to hear some different things from different people. I felt like I just needed to kind of change it up. I felt like I’d done really well obviously with David and we’d achieved so many things together. But at the same time I was kind of looking for like, ‘OK, how do I get myself over the next little hump?’ I think that’s really hard when you’re already doing well and you’re a top player. It’s like finding that balance of how do you become a better player without driving yourself crazy, or being too much a perfectionist, or changing something in your game that doesn’t need to be changed. That can be hard and I wanted to kind of push that a little bit.”
Seven months after making the coaching change, Pegula found some of the breakthrough she was seeking — advancing to the US Open singles final, the first Grand Slam singles final of her career.
“You wonder if [Terry and Kim] see the same things with the Bills situation,” the personnel source said.
Clearly there are some similar hallmarks, with McDermott’s coaching taking the Bills to the doorstep of the Super Bowl but failing to flip the necessary switches to push Allen to the next step in the postseason. Now they’ll be tasked with finding what their daughter reached for — a different voice, a different approach, maybe even a different coaching structure — to get the results they’re looking for at what might be the most critical juncture of Josh Allen’s career.