The Buffalo Bills have fired head coach Sean McDermott after nine seasons as head coach, Go Long confirmed.
GM Brandon Beane is now the team’s president of football operations and general manager. In a statement, Bills owner Terry Pegula announced that Beane will “oversee all facets of our football operation, including the oversight of our coaching staff.”
McDermott helped end the team’s 17-year playoff drought before enjoying plenty of regular season success. He went 98-50. In the end, his inability to reach a Super Bowl — in possession of superstar QB Josh Allen — proved to be his downfall. No coach and no QB have won more playoff games without a Super Bowl appearance.
Teams typically move on from coaches who cannot get to the promised land by this point of their tenure. Only eight head coaches in NFL history who’ve coached 9+ seasons have a higher winning percentage than McDermott. But only three coaches in the Super Bowl era have won their first Super Bowl with a team in Year No. 9 or beyond.
Bill Cowher in his 14th year with the Pittsburgh Steelers (2005).
Tom Landry in his 12th year with the Dallas Cowboys (1971).
Hank Stram his 10th year with the Kansas City Chiefs (1969). (Note: Stram did win an AFL title before.)
McDermott often brought up Andy Reid, his old boss, as a coach who finally broke through. But it’s also true Reid was fired as the Philadelphia Eagles coach after 14 seasons before winning it all in Kansas City his seventh season with the Chiefs.
It was time to move on.
The collection of coaches who’ve lasted nine seasons in one place and never won a Super Bowl is much longer. This group includes: Don Coryell in San Diego (nine seasons), Bart Starr in Green Bay (nine), Marty Schottenheimer in Kansas City (10), Bud Grant in Minnesota (18), Jason Garrett in Dallas (10), Wayne Fontes in Detroit (nine), John Robinson with the L.A. Rams (nine), Dennis Green in Minnesota (10), Jim Mora in New Orleans (11), Chuck Knox in Seattle (nine), Marvin Lewis in Cincinnati (16), and, of course, Marv Levy in Buffalo (12).
McDermott and Knox are the only coaches in league history to win at least seven playoff games without reaching the Super Bowl.
Allen turns 30 years old in May.
Clearly, Pegula wants to maximize this Super Bowl window while he can.
We will have much more at Go Long in the future on this story.
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In the meantime, we’ve unlocked our December 2023 series, “The McDermott Problem,” for all to read. He certainly did evolve over the last couple of seasons — as we discussed in his office — but this decision has certainly been building:
So the clear message from this move is that the blame goes on McDermott for the lack of talent on defense in general (including numerous non-contributing recent high draft picks) and in the receiver corps, and not on the GM/now pres of FB operations and GM. Maybe that's true. If not, it sure looks like the GM should be on the clock. Appreciate how forthright and open he is, but if this doesn't bear fruit very soon or at least the defense doesn't show big improvement immediately, don't know how anyone can make a case that he wasn't/isn't a significant part of the problem that led to a HC getting fired.
I would love to know what was going on behind the scenes, and the conversations between Beane and Pegula. Seems tensions were brewing (remember McDermott's response when asked if he had a Super Bowl roster this year and his response was "I love these guys" or something).
McDermott had his faults, but I think he was a fine coach who got quite a lot out of an injury-riddled and questionably talented roster this year. That said, there's a strong argument to be made that something had to change because these Bills are not getting any closer to a SB. In fact, it feel like they're drifting away.
Finally, I feel bad for McDermott on a personal level. He seems to really love the community and the players. It has to hurt not leading the team into their new stadium. The official announcement was kind of lackluster too. I genuinely wish him all the best.