Losing typically drives such moves. The Bills did little of that during McDermott\u2019s nine seasons at the helm.<\/p>\n
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. \u2014 Sometimes the why is easy to explain.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the case with the Buffalo Bills\u2019 firing of Sean McDermott as their head coach Monday.<\/p>\n
Losing typically drives such moves. The Bills did little of that during McDermott\u2019s nine seasons at the helm.<\/p>\n
His teams won 98 games in the regular season and eight in the playoffs. They made the postseason in all but one year since he got the job in 2017 and captured five AFC East titles.<\/p>\n
What the Bills didn\u2019t do under McDermott was reach the Super Bowl, coming only as close as two appearances in the AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fair to assume that factored into his ouster, because a head coach is paid to do one thing: Guide his club to a Super Bowl crown. He only gets a finite amount of time to make that happen.<\/p>\n
And that is where identifying the why of this bombshell development gets tricky.<\/p>\n
The Bills had McDermott under contract through 2027, as part of an extension that reflected the confidence team owner Terry Pegula once had that McDermott was the right man to eventually deliver the league\u2019s top prize. The same contractual timetable was in place for General Manager Brandon Beane.<\/p>\n
Somewhere along the way, perhaps before the 2025 season even began, the clock started ticking faster. The delivery of the Vince Lombardi Trophy needed to happen now \u2026 or else.<\/p>\n
Or else arrived with Saturday\u2019s divisional-round playoff loss at Denver. The controversial nature of the loss \u2013 with McDermott and most Bills fans accusing officials of stealing a victory by turning a decisive catch into a decisive interception in overtime \u2013 didn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n
What sped up the clock? Logic points to a philosophical split between McDermott and Beane, leading to a power struggle from which Beane emerged as the winner.<\/p>\n
Despite the common outside view that Josh Allen\u2019s supporting cast was what has mainly held the Bills back in their Super Bowl quest, Beane managed to convince Pegula that coaching was the primary culprit.<\/p>\n
How he pulled that off is hard to understand, considering McDermott might very well have done the best work of his career in leading the Bills to a 12-5 record with glaring weaknesses at wide receiver and on the defensive line.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m told that during a meeting held five weeks ago between McDermott, Beane and Pegula, the coach pointed out what the roster lacked to win a Super Bowl. I don\u2019t know the specifics McDermott mentioned, but I\u2019m told neither Beane nor Pegula was pleased with McDermott\u2019s assessment.<\/p>\n
The clincher in concluding that the GM and coach no longer were on the same page showed up in Pegula\u2019s statement announcing McDermott\u2019s firing. It\u2019s the part where the owner revealed Beane now has the added title of President of Football Operations and will oversee coaching.<\/p>\n
This is a rare organizational structure for an NFL team. Previously, McDermott and Beane reported directly to Pegula. Now, Beane is the boss of all things on the football side. He\u2019ll guide the search for the next head coach and the assembly of the coaching staff. He\u2019ll also continue to lead the acquisition of players.<\/p>\n
This also is a risky move for the Bills as they prepare to move into their new stadium and give incumbent and new customers a reason to feel good about shelling out big bucks for seat licenses and season tickets.<\/p>\n
Replacing a man who not only is the second-winningest coach in franchise history but who dramatically improved a culture of dysfunction left behind by his predecessor, Rex Ryan, won\u2019t be easy. It\u2019s already being met with skepticism by players who held McDermott in high regard.<\/p>\n
It seems unlikely a head-coaching candidate of substance, someone who can afford to be choosy about his next job, would accept having to answer to Beane rather than directly to Pegula. That could very well limit the pool of prospective hires to younger coordinators of current teams rather than anyone with NFL head-coaching experience.<\/p>\n
Beane already faces a big challenge to upgrade spots on both sides of the ball. His additional duties figure to make it even larger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Losing typically drives such moves. The Bills did little of that during McDermott\u2019s nine seasons at the helm.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691332,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2048],"tags":[215,214,53,2086,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-691331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-buffalo-bills","8":"tag-bills","9":"tag-buffalo","10":"tag-buffalo-bills","11":"tag-buffalobills","12":"tag-football","13":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115927882336264336","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691331\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691332"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}