The McDermott Problem, Part II: Lost in translation
“It’s like you make a good batch, but then he just adds a drop of poison in there and it makes the whole thing bad." There's a reason these Bills fail in the final seconds. Here's Part II.
Miss Part I? Catch up here.
The P.S.A. should be shouted from a megaphone at the next NFL owners meeting. For those who own professional football teams, one longtime vet who spent several years with the Buffalo Bills shares two valuable pieces of advice.
His own self-declared public service announcement.
“No. 1: Try to learn football. A little bit.”
His voice gets louder.
“No. 2: Just because people are good playcallers does not mean they’re good leaders of an entire f--king organization.”
To him, the traditional ladder-climb from “position coach” to “coordinator” to “head coach” is flawed. He compares it to grabbing the soot-covered diesel mechanic from the garage and asking him to put on a sleek suit and tie to sell cars. The difference between mashing X’s and O’s together to stymie a high-powered offense and speaking to an entire team is massive. There’s no denying that Sean McDermott has been a fine defensive coach the last two decades, Philadelphia to Carolina to Buffalo. But as the head coach, he’s not merely a game-planner in a film bunker. He’s the singular voice an entire group of grown men follow on a day-to-day basis.
His intent — players repeat — is pure.
The coach who ended the Bills’ 17-year playoff drought realizes how badly locals are dying for their first Super Bowl. The quest consumes him.
“He never, ever, ever does a damn thing with any other intention than to empower and grow the Buffalo Bills franchise,” this ex-Bill said. “That’s a fact. Now, whether or not the shit’s going to work or whether or not the players are going to receive it well? That’s a different conversation. But it doesn’t come from an evil ‘Sean McDermott wants all the praise and all the credit.’ He genuinely wants every person in that organization to thrive and win a lot of games to the point of exhaustion.
“All he wants to do is help that team win. Now, that’s the truth.”
But that’s the tricky thing about intent. A player could intend to block the man in front of him after endless hours of preparation but, if he’s steamrolled? He’s cut. Out of a job. Ejected into civilization to find another job. Possibly with lifelong back pain and looming CTE. Pro football, this player made clear, is “production-based.” No different than when it’s time for a head coach to stand in front of the entire team and inspire with a carefully prepared speech.
McDermott takes this opportunity quite seriously.
This setting is not his forte.
Take the “Niagara Falls” speech. In December 2021, locals will recall the news of a woman deliberately driving into the waterway that spills into the falls. She drifted down the Niagara River before her vehicle was lodged against a rock about 50 yards from the brink. McDermott studied up and pieced together a speech. The coach explained how members from the Coast Guard did everything they could to save the woman. He built up the drama. Players held on tight for an inspiring apex, and… nothing. He said the woman died. End of story. The complete absence of a point had some players biting their tongues, trying their hardest not to laugh.
And those in attendance will never forget training camp of 2019. The memory alone elicits a scattershot of emotions. One player’s eyes widen into saucers, horrified. One almost falls over, clapping and laughing hysterically. One cuts the question off before it’s asked, as if pleading the fifth: “I ain’t talking about that.”
Seven sources confirmed this story.
They call it the “9/11 speech,” and it’s seared into their memory forever.
This entire three-part, 20,000+ word series is available to Go Long subscribers.
Part I: Blame Game
Part II: Lost in translation
Part III: Let Josh be Josh
At St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, N.Y., McDermott’s morning address began innocently enough. He told the entire team they needed to come together. But then, sources on-hand say, he used a strange model: the terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. He cited the hijackers as a group of people who were all able to get on the same page to orchestrate attacks to perfection. One by one, McDermott started asking specific players in the room questions. “What tactics do you think they used to come together?” A young player tried to methodically answer. “What do you think their biggest obstacle was?” A veteran answered, “TSA,” which mercifully lightened the mood.
No one could fathom this insanity.
Said one veteran: “I don’t know why he’s that awkward but his social skills are lacking. Maybe he’s just wound-up thinking about ball. You’ve got to talk to the team every day. That’s one where maybe he heard it on a podcast. Next episode! That’s not the one to lead with. He was trying to bring the team together. It was a horrible, horrible reference. He missed the mark.”
Added another: “Supposedly what he was trying to get at was — obviously what they did was horrible — but how a unit that is tight-knit can do something that’s as crazy as hijack planes and fly them into buildings. Kind of like how some people say, ‘Hitler was a great leader.’ Almost the same thing he was trying to say with Al-Qaeda.”
And another: “In his brain it was, ‘If evil can accomplish this, then imagine what we can accomplish’ doing things the right way. The message was just f--ked up.”
And one coach: “He doesn’t have bad intentions. He’s just so clueless that he couldn’t believe that it was a big deal when the players were losing their minds.”
One player blacked out during the speech. He walked out to the practice field and one thought crossed his mind: “What the f--k just happened?” Sources credit Kyle Williams for smoothing things over. The longtime Bills defensive tackle was in town after retiring the previous season. When McDermott walked onto the practice field, he apologized and explained what he was trying to say with the reference. One vet found his apology very sincere, while another believes he only doubled down. The flub hinted at exactly what has plagued this coach and, consequently, this team the last seven years.
A maniacal attention to detail helped drive the Bills out of a dark place. This organization was starving for a coach obsessed with nuance. A coach who’d ramp up the pressure in practice — be it May or January.
But when you’re this obsessive, this intense, this robotic in trying to lead a football team, the human element gets lost.
Playoff games are not won with top-secret plays (or speeches) devised late at night.
When it’s the fourth quarter, and time’s ticking, and all 22 players on the field are on “E,” those capable of playing freely triumph. Reaching such a flow state in such moments doesn’t happen overnight, either. The head coaches capable of leading with genuine intuition and guts and belief in their players have the advantage. Players don’t get tight because their coach isn’t tight. By the time Doug Pederson calls a “Philly Special” in the Super Bowl, nobody’s panicking. By the time Patrick Mahomes is down to one good leg in another, again, there’s no panic. The fact that this damn good era under McDermott — 72 wins, 46 losses — is marred by repeated playoff failures is no accident. The Buffalo Bills shrivel because their coach shrivels. Their coach takes one look at Josh Allen, one look at 20 seconds on the clock and imagines the worst. Not the best.
He thinks, and thinks, and thinks and self-destructs.
He fails to see the big picture.
It’s hard to imagine any other successful head coach overthinking a speech to the point of comparing his players to terrorists. Again, there was no evil. Nobody thought McDermott was pro-terrorism. But he also didn’t misspeak. This was not off the cuff. It was obvious to everyone that the head coach thought long and hard about this all. He was thorough — “too thorough,” one ex-coach says — in overthinking a team speech that exposed his blind spot.
The head coach proves too much to overcome.
Especially when the pressure’s highest.
He has been the head coach for 2,000+ days. The Sean McDermott of today has evolved from the one slapping the word “Process” all over One Bills Drive.
Several players Go Long chatted with for this series indicate true personal growth, especially those who were around for the early years. Take that running back who teed up the Houston Texans’ overtime field goal in the 2019 playoffs: Taiwan Jones. He saw the first phase of McDermott (’17 and ’18), left to Houston for ’19, then returned for ’20, ’21 and ’22. He even became a team captain, as chronicled.
Upon arrival, Jones admits again he initially found McDermott’s brand of coaching militant. Guys couldn’t play music as much as they wanted. The dress code was strict. McDermott stripped the pool table, air hockey and video games from the locker room. “This is a business,” he said in March ’17. A 180 from lackadaisical life as an Oakland Raider. Looking back, Jones understands why McDermott was so harsh. “He has to put his foot down,” Jones said, “to set a standard.” When he returned in 2020, the atmosphere was “night and day.”
After establishing the culture he wanted, McDermott loosened up. The head coach would sit next to guys at lunch to have a 1-on-1 conversation. He’d rarely raise his voice.
Jones, a legendary prankster, even found himself cracking jokes with the head coach.
“As far as how he runs the show,” Jones said, “I enjoyed playing for him.”
Running back Nyheim Hines, traded to Buffalo last season, also experienced a change. Whereas it could feel like “everybody’s the same” with his prior employer (the Colts), McDermott repeated two words to players: “Be you.” He wanted them to let their personality show. Hines pointed to Isaiah McKenzie as a prime example. The beloved “Lil Dirty,” the “Face of the Franchise” always cut it loose on his podcast with us, be it Notre Dame’s no-sex mandate, calling Brandon Beane the “cool uncle” and McDermott “dad,” or reliving the time McDermott showed the entire team video clips of everyone saying the same thing in their media interviews. This prompted McKenzie to inform those teammates they’re cult members who were clearly brainwashed by their cult leader i.e. McDermott.
McKenzie was in town for the middle five of McDermott’s seven years, 2018- ’22.
He said getting to know this coach is no different than any relationship: You figure the person out.
“With Sean, it’s ‘Come to my office. Talk to me. Let’s sit down, let’s talk about this. You need a day off? OK, cool,’” McKenzie said. “With Sean, the person-to-person is so good that even though you may not like the way certain things are, you still want to play for him because he cares about you off the field.”
This was the interpretation of fullback Patrick DiMarco, too.
“One of my biggest beliefs,” said DiMarco, another captain, “is you can be critical and you can be honest and direct and even mean at times as long as it comes from a place of love. And I think that every time Sean were to get aggressive or have those hard conversations — at least me personally — I knew that they always came from a place of love with him.”
Connecting with stars is a problem. The public was supplied a brief peek behind the curtain last spring when McDermott admitted he was “very concerned” by Stefon Diggs’ minicamp absence. One ex-coach said Diggs flatly “can’t stand him.” One former Bills wide receiver believes the relationship started poorly because the head coach thought he could tell Diggs what to do — a big mistake — but believes the relationship improved. One newcomer to this year’s team went on an impassioned defense of Diggs, calling him “the coolest f--king dude on the team.” A class clown who’ll pop the phone out of your hand in the hallway if you’re not paying attention. His take: Players are thankful for Diggs because he’s got the balls to say out loud exactly what they’re thinking.
One ex-teammate on offense said he knows for a fact that Diggs does not enjoy playing for McDermott.
“I know Diggs,” he said, “and Diggs wants to be able to do what he wants to do — with OTAs and shit like that. Diggs is going to get his work in. The organization I’m at now understands the great players don’t need you to babysit them to be great. Diggs wants to be great for Diggs. And when you question that, Diggs gets pissed off. Because that’s testing his integrity and what he wants to be. And I definitely think that’s where Sean f--ks up.”
If there is any bad blood — to the credit of both — it has not affected the bottom line. Since the Bills acquired Diggs, he has the fourth-most receiving yards in the NFL. He has not been a cancer. There has been no drama this season outside of a brother’s tweet. Overall, McDermott has eased off. There’s a good chance you caught karaoke sessions on Instagram Live last season from the likes of Jones, McKenzie, Hines and left tackle Dion Dawkins. Dress code? Ahead of the Bills’ MNF game against Denver, the "Shnowman" arrived shirtless. Dawkins is unapologetically himself.
Lee Smith, a pillar of leadership on the 2019 and 2020 Bills teams, cuts to the chase.
“Josh Allen is the best. Brandon Beane is the best — that damn roster. And Sean is the best for bringing the freaking Bills out of the gutter.”
But something is missing. Even the players who enjoyed playing for McDermott admit this much.
Too often, this team fractures in the clutch. It’s maddening.
At one point during Buffalo’s 27-10 playoff loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, Jones tilted his head up toward the sky and let the snowflakes fall on his face. He felt trapped inside one of those snow globes you shake up as a kid. Trapped in a “nightmare.” The week leading up to the game, he could sense energy was low and tried giving everyone a speech on Friday. As Cincy built a lead, he saw nothing but bad body language and zero urgency.
“Every year,” Jones said, “I’m riding that high horse and believing that we’re going to be the group to win the Super Bowl. It just feels like we always fall short and it sucks because they’ve had the right guys there.”
McKenzie, as always, speaks to the soul of Bills fans. He plays for the Colts now but part of his heart will always be in Western New York. That much is obvious in the hint of agony to his voice when informed that the locals are currently losing their minds. He repeats an exasperated “I don’t know” seven times in the same answer, adding: “Every year I was there, shit, I felt like we had a chance. I know that. I’m like, ‘Damn, we had a chance.’ And we blew it away. We had those chances. I just don’t know what it is. We have all this talent. We have everything.”
A different beloved ex-Bills vet reminds everyone that the team made the playoffs before even drafting Josh Allen.
Even then, he acknowledges everything should now be at play. Including firing McDermott.
“And, it’s a bitch,” this player said. “It is unfortunate as hell. I could have good intentions all I want. That doesn’t mean the shit’s going to work. There’s not a Good Samaritan Award in f--king pro football.”
Players are proud and accountable and often put those playoff losses on themselves. But football is unlike any other team sport. A locker room full of grown men from all different sorts of backgrounds will inevitably become a reflection of their head coach. If he’s tight, there’s a good chance they’ll subconsciously be tight. The best coaches are more than coordinators, more than hyper-organized micromanagers. They master the psychology of their team.
Examine this group more closely and this exasperation makes all the sense in the world.
The facial expression spoke 1,000 words. While visiting another team for another story, I asked one ex-Bill what made his new team different than his old one. There was no pretense. I had never spoken with this player before in my life. His eyebrows jumped and he nodded his head toward his new coach: “That guy.” Asked to elaborate, he noted the direct correlation between McDermott being high-strung 24/7/365 and the team’s playoff failures. Nothing is an accident. As bad as that 9/11 speech was, he has even crazier stories from his time in Buffalo. “For life,” he added.
In another city, another prominent ex-Bill was asked a simple question about McDermott: Did you like him? His answer: “He’s a great secondary coach.” The reason this player’s so lukewarm is that McDermott was adamant on manually putting all 11 players in specific positions to make a play when those pressure situations arise. He was determined to do the thinking for players, instead of letting ‘em play. “You’ve been teaching us Monday through Saturday,” this player said. “Sometimes, you’ve gotta let us go. We’ll make you right. Trust us.”
A third player agrees that McDermott has the temperature turned up too high those other six days of the week. Pressure he puts on assistant coaches trickles down to the players. A fourth, who previously played for two contenders, said McDermott tries too hard to cast a distinct aura around the building: “Like he’s ready to whoop someone’s ass. But in a passive-aggressive way.” This offensive player never saw teammates joking around with McDermott because “he takes everything so literal and militant.” And even though he was not close to Ken Dorsey, the player called the OC’s ousting a “chicken shit” move.
“We saw the turmoil that you had with Daboll,” he said. “You got rid of Leslie Frazier because you wanted to be in charge. It’s all getting blown up in his face right now because he’s a control freak about everything.”
A fifth ex-Bill answered his phone from an airplane. His new team was traveling to an away game and he couldn’t help but relive the bad times through a lengthy delay, only hanging up as his plane finally ascended. Nothing this season has surprised him. “Classic Sean,” he said. “He always fumbles at the end.” One gaffe comes to mind. McDermott uses a tactic he calls “Kodak,” in which he’ll call a timeout before the final crucial play of a game. That’s why he insisted on hitting pause even as the Arizona Cardinals’ play clock dwindled to two seconds in 2020. Next snap? Kyler Murray completed a Hail Mary. This player knows his friends on the team are getting fed up with the collapses.
“It’s like you make a good batch,” he said, “but then he just adds a drop of poison in there and it makes the whole thing bad. Everything’s really good and then there’s just enough shit.”
This former starter crystallizes the strange dichotomy between those coaches who view McDermott as a tyrant and the players who find him personable. Whether it’s 1-on-1 conversation, a meeting, even some of those speeches, he said everyone likes McDermott at first. There were many times he found the coach to be a truly good man. But considering he was tight with a few position coaches, this player had a rare perspective. He knew how horribly McDermott treated his staff.
He knew what the head coach was saying specifically about players behind their backs. That’s why he, too, uses one word to describe McDermott: “Fraud.”
“In front of the player, Sean will be nice,” he said. “But then, behind the doors, he’s screaming at the coaches: ‘What the f--k is this guy doing? This guy f--king sucks.’ Blaming. Just yelling at the coaches and kissing your ass in front of you. That’s when you’re on his good side. He is the biggest hypocrite.
“He does a good job of faking it for a little bit and then you get to know him. It’s weird. It’s frustrating. There were times where he’s a really decent person, and then you feel betrayed. He betrays your trust a month later.
“He’s one way one time and then — when there’s any kind of pressure — he’s a different guy.”
Unlike many of his assistants, McDermott is not a former NFL player. His football career maxed out as a safety at William & Mary in 1997. That doesn’t help relatability, but it’s no deal-breaker. Mike McDaniel played college football at Yale and the 150-pound receiver never recorded a stat. His only claim to fame was cranking out 39 straight pull-ups. But he owns his quirkiness — it’s endearing, authentic. The Miami Dolphins head coach is a brilliant offensive mind literally inventing plays other teams copy. But he’s so much more. He’s the smartest man in the room without ever acting like the smartest man in the room. McDaniel revitalized the career of Tua Tagovailoa by rebooting the QB’s confidence through sheer force of positivity.
Life under the previous head coach, Brian Flores, became so toxic that Tagovailoa admitted to CBS he’d look into the mirror and ask, “Do I suck?” McDaniel was hired and immediately showed his new quarterback 700 positive plays of himself. He re-taught Tua to believe.
In Buffalo? There’s a persistent fear that one mistake will send you to the bench.
The coach’s “blame game” extends to players. Running back James Cook, who entered the Broncos loss with zero fumbles on 160 touches, was swiftly ushered into the coach’s doghouse after one fumble that was the result of an exceptional strip by the defender. Not a gaffe. Treating his starting running back like a 10th grade point guard who turns the ball over against a full-court press is the sort of Cro-Magnon coaching that’s become the norm in Orchard Park. Perhaps public embarrassment installs mental toughness in some players but… eh. This isn’t 1995. Most players across the league will tell you such nonsense has the reverse effect. A seed of doubt is planted. Whenever Dad calls them out of Timeout, they’re not the same. They mentally tip-toe through a violent game won on instincts.
Nobody should’ve been surprised when Cook dropped a potential touchdown two weeks later in Philadelphia.
Eggshells scatter the floor during the week, too. One ex-Bill said it felt like he was being tested every time he walked into the building. When team meetings revved up, McDermott would randomly call on players to ask questions about the gameplan. Even those who knew everything felt on edge. Nerves were rattled unnecessarily. “Knowing that I could be tested at any time,” one longtime Bill said, “made me uncomfortable in the building.”
If a player is benched, there’s a good chance they won’t get a straight answer why. The position coach cannot flat-out say “It’s Sean” or their ass is grass. That’s when a player knows it was a McDermott decision, even if McDermott fails to provide a full explanation.
There’s a fine line between hardening a football team for combat and zapping instincts. No metric is available to decipher which players are able to rise up in the clutch. McDermott, a situational-football aficionado, may have his team prepared for, say, Red Zone Defense or Third-and-Medium but — as that longtime vet alluded — when the proverbial shit hits the fan in a game, and momentum’s fragile, coaches need to let players go.
Again, players win games.
Specifically, players with a free conscious.
Coaches can do their part. Their decisions on Sunday can naturally inject belief.
Pederson is now turning the Jacksonville Jaguars into winners with the same sort of player empowerment that helped him beat Tom Brady’s New England Patriots with Nick Foles as his QB. When the Jags were 3-7 last season, his speech to the entire team did not invoke one of the darkest days in U.S. history. Pederson informed everybody that he had a “crystal ball” and that his crystal ball revealed Jacksonville would win. And win. And win. And they’d have a chance to take AFC South in Week 18 against the Tennessee Titans. That’s exactly what happened. In the Wild Card, the Jags then erased a 27-0 deficit to stun the Los Angeles Chargers.
None of this happens if Pederson, a 10-year QB himself, doesn’t back up the rhetoric. In the Jags’ first game after the crystal-ball speech — down 27-20 vs. Baltimore — they drove 75 yards in 1:48 to score a TD and pull within one point. Only 14 seconds remained. Staring down the barrel of 3-8, Pederson went for 2. Not only that. He gave quarterback Trevor Lawrence three plays and let him choose which one he preferred. Lawrence made his selection. Pederson and OC Press Taylor asked the receiver on this play, Zay Jones, how he wanted to run his route.
Everyone took the field with zero doubt they’d convert.
“We talk about it all time — our guys playing with conviction,” Taylor said in our season-preview feature on the Jaguars. “We want them to believe in themselves and for them to know we believe in them. We’re going to give you these tools. You go out and we’ll train you on when to use them, where to use them, how to use them, all that. But go out and play.”
Everyone sure had fun mocking Dan Campbell at his introductory press conference as the Detroit Lions’ head coach. Lost in the knee-biting hysteria was the reality that Campbell, a 10-year tight end himself, uses the power of belief as his personal compass. Take Week 3 of the 2022 NFL season. With a 24-21 lead over the Minnesota Vikings, and 1:14 remaining, Campbell opted for a 54-yard field goal attempt on fourth and 4. The kick sailed wide right. The Vikings scored. The Lions lost. And, no, Campbell didn’t claim “hindsight’s always 20/20” like McDermott when asked about those final 20 seconds in Philly.
Immediately after the Vikings loss, Campbell told his entire team he should’ve gone for it on fourth down.
He then opened his postgame presser by pointing the finger directly at himself. Not his players. Not a coordinator. Himself. “I just hate the decision,” Campbell said then. “I wish I would’ve put it back in their hands offensively.” He was visibly dejected because Campbell knew this decision wasn’t anything he believes as a coach. He’s not tight. He’s not a coward. He believes in his staff and his coaches to gain four freakin’ yards to win the game.
Unlike McDermott, Campbell said he’d regret this decision for the rest of his life.
Unlike McDermott, he learned from his mistake.
The Lions became one of the most aggressive teams in the NFL. Against the Vikings the second time around, Campbell called a fake punt from his own 26. When Detroit needed to convert a third and 7 to ice a win, he sent 6-foot-5, 335-pound offensive tackle Penei Sewell out on a pass route. This season, the Lions converted 4 of 5 fourth down in a 41-38 shootout win over the Chargers with Campbell joking afterward that he tells his family to wear diapers. He’s self-aware. He knows his defense is enduring a rough patch and it pays to slam the accelerator. So, no, a failed fake punt on Thanksgiving did nothing to derail this mindset. Ahead 33-28, on third and 9, with 1:54 left vs. New Orleans last weekend, he didn’t run the ball and let the clock bleed before punting. The Lions threw to win.
The coach who instills belief — real belief — is the coach who’ll win in January. The bigger the game, the bigger the moment, McDermott freezes. As his defense struggles, McDermott only turns more conservative. Buffalo’s win over the Buccaneers should’ve never boiled down to Chris Godwin failing to turn around on a Hail Mary. When the Bills’ offense had its foot firmly above Tampa Bay’s throat, up 24-10, McDermott punted four times at midfield to end the game: Fourth and 5 from the Bills 49, fourth and 9 from the Bucs 47, fourth and 2 from the Bucs 44 and fourth and 1 from the Bucs 48.
With Josh Allen as his quarterback. Not Trent Edwards.
Leaning into a C+ defense vs. any good team via punts and field goals is nonsensical. Yet predictably stale. If anything, the injuries on defense should’ve prompted McDermott to actively lean into a high-flying offense — not his defense — with brazen aggressiveness. This was the perfect season to pivot philosophically.
Look at each division leader in the AFC.
Andy Reid, in KC, is constantly innovating with Mahomes at forefront of mind. John Harbaugh, in Baltimore, transitioned from a traditional offense with Joe Flacco to a completely new playbook for Lamar Jackson. Once Greg Roman ran his course, he modernized the passing game with new OC Todd Monken. Even defensively, the Ravens transitioned from blitz-happy Wink Martindale to Mike Macdonald, who may win Assistant Coach of the Year. Harbaugh is no renowned wizard on offense or defense — his roots are in special teams. But he gets people. He has innate feel for knowing when and how to change course.
Here in Buffalo, it was always naive for anyone to think Frazier — and Frazier alone — ran the defense. McDermott would frequently take over playcalling duties at key spots during games. But let’s say change was needed. Let’s say McDermott was justified in taking total control of the defense. Last offseason, fans were certainly thrilled to hear he’d bring the heat. Even then, McDermott has a knack for pushing the wrong buttons. Twice, McDermott sent the hounds with the game on the line. Twice, it backfired. In London, Jacksonville’s Lawrence laced a 32-yarder to Calvin Ridley on a key third and 4 over aging safety Micah Hyde. Against Denver, Taron Johnson was flagged for DPI. There was no shame afterward — “If we’re going down, we’re going being aggressive” — but McDermott did fire Dorsey and blame special teams coordinator Matthew Smiley for the 12-men penalty that gave the Broncos a second shot at a field goal. Never mind that it was Buffalo’s defense on the field.
Adding full playcalling duties to the plate has obviously backfired. People on both the coaching and personnel side cite McDermott as a slow processor in tight situations. An assertion backed up by the numbers. He’s 7-22 on challenges for his career and his Bills are 7-5 since 2021 (including playoffs) when leading by 1-to-8 points in the final 2 minutes, the worst winning percentage in the league.
Maybe installing Joe Brady, 34, as OC is a shock to the system. It’s true that two years ago — Dec. 12, 2021 to be exact — the Bills proceeded to enjoy arguably their greatest month of offensive football in team history. Fresh off that tense Wind Game vs. the Patriots, fresh off McDermott putting the unit on blast for not running the ball enough, the Bills fell into a 24-3 hole at Tampa Bay.
But in this case, the party receiving McDermott’s blame refused to bend over and accept its spanking. Run more? Win at the line of scrimmage? Players on offense vividly remember offensive coordinator Brian Daboll essentially saying, “F--k that!” at halftime. Daboll unleashed Josh Allen in all his glory. As a passer. As a runner. The Bills nearly came back to stun Tom Brady’s Bucs in overtime. One player remembers Daboll calling the same RPO play constantly. “We came out and we started f--king kicking their ass,” he said. “Letting Josh be Josh.” That half on, Allen became the most dominating player in the sport. He threw for 1,828 yards, rushed for 475 and scored 22 touchdowns with only five picks the final seven games. The Bills obliterated the Patriots — twice — including a playoff epic for the ages. A scene inconceivable through the drought years. Fans bought t-shirts at Store716 that read “Death of a Patriot” by Josh Allen with the full details of all seven scoring drives in the Wild Card bloodbath.
Every NFL team’s dream is to catch fire at the absolute perfect time.
Nothing was stopping this offense.
“Sean said some things,” one offensive player recalled, “and we’re like, ‘Man, f--k that. We’re going to make this happen on the offensive side of the ball.’ And it happened. Sean is an understanding person for the most part. When everybody pushes back, he understands. We said, ‘F--k this. This is what we do. This is what we’re good at. Let Josh throw this f--king ball. Let him run the ball. Let’s do this.’ And it worked.”
All the way through the first 59 minutes and 47 seconds of the AFC divisional playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs, anyways.
One hundred and twenty-six seconds of real time passed between wide receiver Gabe Davis catching a 19-yard missile from Allen in the end zone and the ball leaving the foot of kicker Tyler Bass. The Bills took a 36-33 lead. Historians will one day pinpoint these 126 seconds at Arrowhead Stadium as the moment that broke the McDermott-led Bills.
The CBS camera shows a Bills fan hoist a “Josh Allen, G.O.A.T. in Progress…” sign, receivers coach Chad Hall jubilantly leaps into McDermott, Allen’s family celebrates in a suite above, the QB holds Davis tight for an emotional embrace and — as Bass lines up to kick — play-by-play man Jim Nantz suggests a squib kick is coming. Color commentator Tony Romo agrees, saying the Bills don’t want this to be a normal kickoff. “You want it to be a little short,” Romo said.
What the camera does not show, as we reported, is special teams coordinator Heath Farwell calling for exactly that: a squib. The thinking being, of course, that you force the Chiefs to field the ball. Melt four or five seconds off the clock. Make the tackle around the 30- or 35-yard line. Force the Chiefs to attempt a funky lateral downfield or see if Patrick Mahomes is an alien capable of throwing the ball 70+ yards. Farwell approached McDermott to clear the squib, more sources confirmed, McDermott said he wanted to kick it deep and they went back and forth for a bit.
Bass heard “kick it deep.”
The 10 others heard “squib” since that’s what the coordinator called in the huddle.
Hence, the confusion once Bass blasts the ball through the end zone. Siran Neal throws his hands up in confusion.
Afterward, McDermott cited “execution” as the problem. Forever coach code for a player screwing up. This one word allowed the general public to heap blame on Bass, who was simply following his head coach’s instructions. And when Farwell quit — when he became the Jaguars’ special teams coordinator — the public blame conveniently shifted to him. Honestly, you can’t blame anyone for incorrectly connecting such dots. But the idea that Farwell was forced out as punishment is also false. Per team sources, Farwell had two years left on his deal, but wanted out and would’ve departed regardless of the 13-second fiasco.
All along, McDermott never came close to explaining what happened that night publicly. This was a master class in cowardice, the opposite of Scott Norwood answering questions at his locker for nearly an hour after Wide Right and Bruce DeHaven’s lifetime of class after the Music City Miracle.
The man central to this epic blunder slithered through the scrutiny. Inked a nice contract extension, too.
That night, of course, the Bills defense also surrendered 19- and 25-yard completions to set up the game-tying field goal. One defensive starter is still pissed McDermott didn’t instruct DBs to press the Chiefs’ receivers on those two completions (“Get in front of their face,” he laments, “and challenge them!”) He’s currently loving life on a new team, but admits these two plays still serve as a 3 a.m. nightmare. Before each play, McDermott called a timeout to set the defense. That “Kodak” logic again. He is clearly communicating into his headset as 71 seconds of real time pass before one completion and 110 seconds the next. At best, he signed off on the lax coverage. At worst, what three team sources told Go Long is true: McDermott flat-out seized playcalling from Frazier those final two plays. Once Hill took a quick-hitter 19 yards — to the KC 44-yard line — one coach on that staff believes McDermott’s thinking changed. “Now,” he said, “he’s worried about losing. In his mind, overtime is OK.” So, the Bills lined up in another prevent coverage. One safety was 31 yards off the ball; the other 26. Cornerback Levi Wallace was instructed to line up with outside leverage, vs. Travis Kelce, and the tight end accepted this free release to get KC in field-goal range.
Said one coach: “Imagine not being the playcaller all year long and then at a critical moment, ‘Hey, let me take the wheel.’”
Added one defensive starter: “When shit hits the fan, I’ve seen him take over.”
And one ex-Bills front office man: “That’s why the big game hasn’t been won there. In big games he definitely gets tight.”
In overtime, the Bills never saw the ball again. Reid dizzied his former assistant with a clinical eight-play, 75-yard drive.
Game over. Season over. Inside the locker room, players remember Diggs yelling “Every f--king time! Every single f--king time!”
Even if you do not believe the fans pouring their life savings (and sanity) into this team do not deserve an explanation, the coaches certainly do. The players. Everyone who has bought into the “process” all these years. Nonetheless, the head coach never addressed that night internally. Tight end Dawson Knox told us then it was “an unspoken tragedy.” McKenzie said players had no clue what happened. Another player said it was a moment that was “never talked about or clarified.” Wallace took more responsibility than anyone in our 2022 conversation. While both he and Poyer were lined up exactly as instructed, he wishes he would’ve turned around, noticed Poyer’s depth, and adjusted. “If you guys want to put it on me,” Wallace said, “I’ll take it.”
As written in Part 1, McDermott’s internal response the next day was to point the finger at his staff and exit the room. A coach who preaches accountability took none after one of the most ludicrous finishes in NFL history. Simply being upfront — with everyone — unquestionably would’ve allowed the Bills to move on.
“The 53 on the team. Practice squad. The coaches. Everybody that worked thousands of hours for that season?” one ex-Bill player said. “That should’ve been addressed, and it’s pretty shitty it wasn’t.”
How an NFL head coach handles this moment — psychologically — matters more than any late-night scheming. As the leader, the voice everyone follows, McDermott failed to recognize this big picture. So, emotions linger. One offensive player on that team is sure memories of 13 Seconds still creep into the minds of players late in games. It’s inevitable.
You know what’s happened in the past, he explained.
“And the guy who took over and blamed a different dude is still there.”
Give McDermott credit for guiding the Bills through a surreal 2022. Four feet of snow forced his club to play a home game vs. the Cleveland Browns in Detroit. A month and a half later, Damar Hamlin was resuscitated back to life. McDermott’s steady hand earned him back plenty of goodwill in the locker room and the community. When McKenzie said on our podcast that McDermott deserves to be Coach of the Year, fans at Misters Bar & Lanes roared in approval. His approval rating was at an all-time high.
However, there was no storybook finish. That season came to a screeching halt against the Bengals. The scene was everything McDermott dreamt of the day he was hired: Snow falling. A home playoff game. A chance to lean into his prized defense vs. an elite quarterback. None of it mattered in a blowout defeat. Rather than re-dictate the terms of a shootout — rather than think of what could go right — McDermott sealed his team’s fate with two waves of the white flag: one fourth-and-10 punt from the Bengals 41 with 40 seconds left in the first half and one fourth-and-2 punt with 15 minutes left.
Looking back at that game, one defensive starter wasn’t surprised the offense struggled because the offense, as constructed, is built to win in a dome. He compares the Bills to the St. Louis Rams’ Greatest Show on Turf. That’s true. But it’s also true most of the 32 NFL teams would kill for this problem. It’s also true that when the head coach is not fully aligned with such a philosophy — with such a quarterback — that team has a clear expiration date. Last March, McDermott effectively gave this team such a date when he publicly tried to disarm his greatest weapon by stating on NFL Network that Allen must change his play style. A ridiculous talking point, considering the Bills were 17-1 when Allen rushed 10 times in a game.
Surprise, surprise: Allen’s turbo-charged game has been blunted for stretches. He hasn’t rushed 10 times in one game this season, finally coming close in Philadelphia last week with 81 yards and two scores on nine attempts.
These 2023 Bills are in desperate need of another “F--k that” epiphany. Their most recent game had the feel of a Bucs-like turning point… until the defense surrendered 30 points after halftime… until McDermott both waved off those final 20 ticks of regulation and opted for a field goal on fourth and 6 in overtime. Naturally, the Eagles drove 75 yards to win, completed a key third and 3 with the defense in backpedaling zone coverage and tackle Jordan Mailata “couldn’t believe” McDermott’s defensive play call on Jalen Hurts’ game-winning TD run.
The Bills were even granted a pregame gift when tackle Lane Johnson was declared a last-minute scratch. Heading into that Sunday, the Eagles were 10-22 with the veteran right tackle out of the lineup. Their only loss this season was against the Jets when Johnson was limited to nine snaps.
Once more, the head coach extracted defeat from the jaws of victory. He’s quickly becoming a coach defined by the nicknames of his collapses: the Hail Murray, 13 Seconds, Fourth and 18, Twelve Men, the Philly Kneel.
The one player with clout to speak up — Allen — is described by several teammates as non-confrontational. Joe Brady represents hope but it’s also hard to envision an interim coordinator doing anything to defy his boss through what’s essentially a job interview. As one ex-starter on the Bills offense said: “Not everybody on the offense understands Sean, so they probably — at this moment — are like, ‘Oh shit, I don’t want to piss him off.’ They don’t understand him.”
The retort to everything above, again, is Bill Belichick.
The retort to the theory that creating a tight atmosphere is killing the Bills are those six sparkling trophies in Foxborough. I’ve lost track of the number of players who’ve said how miserable life is under Belichick, a coach who doesn’t merely issue verbal tests in team meetings. No, he’ll put a picture on the screen of you getting your ass kicked for everyone to see. He’ll also go down as the winningest coach in NFL history when it’s all said and done. The key? Belichick and Tom Brady — for 20 seasons, 249 wins — were aligned.
One player who spent time with both the Patriots and Bills said that Brady was effectively “institutionalized” to Belichick’s ways.
“The only head coach Josh Allen knows is Sean McDermott,” this player said. “The only head coach Tom Brady knew was Bill Belichick. So as long as there’s consistency and genuineness and the head coach and the quarterback are aligned, you win a lot of games and you win a lot of championships.
“That’s the way I’ll put it. We haven’t won any championships yet, so take it however you want.”
Buffalo lacks synergy where it matters most.
This should all be speeding toward a decision for Bills ownership:
Trust Sean McDermott, and his culture, to figure this out.
Roll with the $258 Million Dollar investment at quarterback who pulls off the sort of stunts only two or three other humans on the planet can.
The choice should be easy.
Read Part III right here
This is incredible stuff Tyler. Couldn’t put it down until I read both parts. You must be the hardest working person in football journalism.
Absolutely wonderful reporting, Tyler.