The McDermott Problem, Part III: Let Josh be Josh

“He wants to run through your face and establish the fact that he’s the biggest alpha male dog quarterback in the history of pro football." Buffalo needs to do what's right for its QB. Time's ticking.

Illustration by Brave Buffalo

Miss Part II? Catch up here.

There are two distinct versions of Josh Allen this 2023 season. One is fun. One takes off on the run — “The crowd loves it!” Al Michaels professes — and holds the football over the goal line while staring down a Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback. All at full speed.

This version gets a Cincinnati Bengals safety to leave his feet with a pump fake, points, laughs and runs in for a TD. Flag ‘n fine, be damned. Meanwhile, Sean McDermott, spits on the turf and purses his lips. Fifteen yards lost on a kickoff likely means more to the Buffalo Bills head coach than any momentum gained by his backyard quarterback rediscovering himself.

This version, at rain-slopped Philadelphia, rams through Reed Blankenship at the goal line, chucks the ball against the backstop and — flanked by teammates — swaggers right into the teeth of those trash-talking Eagles fans as if welcoming a dark-alley fight. The TD launched a tour de force for the quarterback: 420 total yards, four touchdowns. 

“No. 17 is just a different bird,” said one friend and former pro teammate. “He’s wired different. He’s not like most of these quarterbacks. He wants to make dick jokes and run into people.”

If Buffalonians could create the quarterback they’ve always desired in a lab, it’s exactly this.

But then, there’s the other Allen. The pale, stupefied, knockoff version who trudges to the sideline after an interception vs. Denver with McDermott screaming in his ear.

Unlike his boss, Allen does not come remotely close to assigning blame. Doesn’t embarrass receivers on national TV. Doesn’t snipe into earholes on the sidelines. Doesn’t kindly remind the public what McDermott said back in March when, in truth, it’s fully within his rights to alert your attention to these trainwreck comments. When, in reality, this is everything a former Bills assistant coach meant when he said this team is forced to “overcome the head coach.” Everything a former teammate meant by McDermott serving as a drop of “poison.”

A smart coach does everything in his power to accentuate the first version of Allen.

Realize you’ve been gifted a Marvel character at the most important position in sports and let him fly.

Then, there’s McDermott sitting down with NFL Network last March. He made it abundantly clear that Allen needed to siphon these sorts of plays out of his game. 

“I don’t think that that’s a healthy way to play quarterback in this league,” said McDermott, in a video posted by the team. “It’s really undefeated that things are going to happen when you play that style, that brand of football. So, we’ve got to get that adjusted. It’s never going to go completely away but it has to get to where it’s workable. I don’t want to take his personality away from him as far as that goes. His signature. But there needs to be an adjustment in that style of play.”

Manually warping the “style” of your most valuable commodity should’ve slotted in as the 2,789th item on the Bills’ offseason agenda. But this was no surprise.

This is a head coach with a low Quarterback IQ.

Start with the player who helped him become a head coach: Cam Newton. When the former No. 1 overall pick shapeshifted into molten lava on NFL defenses throughout the 2015 season — an MVP season, a 15-1 season — McDermott was the Carolina Panthers’ defensive coordinator. One of many individuals to directly benefit from Newton throwing for 3,837 yards, rushing for 636 and scoring 45 touchdowns in leading Carolina to the Super Bowl. In 2016, the Panthers went 6-10. In 2017, McDermott was named the 20th coach in Bills history.

This did not stop McDermott from bashing Newton in staff meetings.

One of the Bills assistants Go Long spoke to for this series said that McDermott’s “frame of reference” as a coach was watching Newton — in his mind — “ruin” the Panthers. “He used to come into offensive staff meetings,” this source said, “and just motherf--k Cam Newton.” Aside from the objective lunacy, this created… awkwardness. Before becoming the Bills’ quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator, Ken Dorsey served as Newton’s coach from ‘13 to ‘17. Dorsey was the coach most responsible for Newton’s rise, thus Dorsey understandably wondered if McDermott knew he was sitting in the same room.

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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

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Let’s not forget one of McDermott’s first dalliances into scapegoating. After the Bills defense surrendered 47 points, 482 yards and 32 first downs to the New Orleans Saints his first season on the job, he benched Tyrod Taylor for Nathan Peterman. Disaster ensued. Peterman suffered the worst game by a QB in 40 years and the fourth-worst in NFL history: 6 of 15 for 66 yards, five interceptions in one half. As if scripting his own comedy, McDermott named Peterman the Week 1 starter the very next season. The on-field results were, again, tragic: 5 of 18 for 24 yards, two interceptions.

Boorish handling of the position that should’ve served as an immediate red flag.

McDermott seems intent on fighting against the NFL’s inherent gravitational pull toward the position. Allen is the No. 1 reason the Bills have won three straight division titles. Allen is the No. 1 reason that McDermott not only stays employed but earns millions of dollars. He inked a contract extension through the 2027 season. His base salary has previously been reported at $8.5 million per year.

Nonetheless, when Allen decided to put roots down and build a house with his then-girlfriend in Western New York, his boss was livid. Inside staff meetings, one source said McDermott would bark: “Tell Josh to stop worrying about that f--king house! We’ve got the season coming up. When the season starts, that needs to be Brittany’s issue and not f--king his.” Coaches, understandably, were stunned. They shared What the…? glances of disillusionment and moved on.

That’s all you can do usually: Shake your head. Move on.

Yes, the problem in Buffalo is the head coach. Most specifically, it’s his cluelessness concerning the most valuable employee of the franchise. He is repeatedly described by coaches and former players as blind to the fact that he was gifted one of the best quarterbacks in the sport. As long as McDermott is the team’s head coach — pinning his own QB in a Half Nelson — the Bills are fighting against themselves more than any opponent.

Forces of good have tried. That 2021 offense that said “F--k it” and freed Allen was on track to host the AFC Championship Game and win the Super Bowl. Beane did offer his own public comments on Allen’s game. But one source indicated that he wanted the quarterback to simply slide more often, and never at the expense of what makes Allen special. The GM understands the team runs through its quarterback.

The moment it became clear that Allen was a special talent, the No. 1 priority for the entire organization should’ve been to do everything humanly possible to let Hulk smash. Celebrate his unique game. Don’t punish it. Don’t manually scatter the field with red tape and construction cones and hyper-analyze every breath he takes. Asking Allen to dull his play style, as written, is thwarting art. Take comedy, for example. The most creative minds are unafraid to push their boundaries. They’re not worried about getting cancelled by a legion of keyboard warriors. The best of the best, Carlin to Chappelle, have all made people uncomfortable.

That’s how true innovation is possible in any artistic field. The person with the mic, the pen, the paintbrush, the football takes a chance. Allen may cross a line. He may even — gasp! — throw an interception. But putting such thoughts in his head, period, was insanely counterproductive.

Allen is Brett Favre.

If McDermott hasn’t realized that by now, he never will.

“Go back and rewrite the draft,” said the teammate/friend who was also a trusted leader in this locker room, “Josh Allen’s going No. 1, not No. 7. So you get a franchise Hall of Fame quarterback that six people passed up on. And now all you folks get to make 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 million because No. 17. I’d write him a damn ‘Thank You’ letter once a week.”  

After the Bills’ 24-22 loss to the Denver Broncos, Allen was ominous. He admitted “the clock’s ticking.”

This former teammate is more pointed.

“It’s a ticking time bomb, man.”

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Bill Belichick and Tom Brady.

Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

These are generational pairings. When the quarterback-head coach relationship hits, it’s unfair. And it’s no accident that one duo has produced six Super Bowls, while the other has gone 83-23 with two rings and counting. Personalities must align. One longtime Bill with a front-row seat to the interactions between Allen and McDermott every day offered this analogy: “I might’ve gone on a date with your wife once or twice, and she would’ve called me a crazy son of a bitch and dumped me in a day. You might’ve gone on a date with my wife and she might’ve said, ‘Man…’ That doesn’t mean that your wife or my wife is bad or me and you were bad. Sometimes, people don’t genuinely grow together.”

McDermott and Allen may both be perfectly justified in how they approach this profession.

But central to the Bills’ inability to get over the hump is this relationship, said this source with intimate knowledge of the team. It’s more absent, than toxic.

Brady cosigned and empowered Belichick every step of the way because, for a while, he was a sixth-round pick who deeply feared he’d be replaced. “So, he became exactly what Bill needed him to be: a good little soldier,” one ex-Patriot, ex-Bill explained. “All of a sudden, he becomes the greatest player in the history of our game. But after he got conditioned to Bill’s Way. Bill Belichick institutionalized the shit out of a sixth-round pick that then became the greatest player ever.” In KC, the dynamic’s different. Mahomes and Reid clearly have forged a family-strong bond and Reid has coached QBs since ‘97. Around the likes of Favre, Donovan McNabb, Michael Vick, Alex Smith and Mahomes, he knows a team only goes as far as its quarterback.

Teammates of Allen don’t think it’s much of a secret. One points out that McDermott and Allen are not exactly teaming up for commercials, or arm-in-arm in the Buffalo community, or yucking it up for candid videos on the team website.

They are not close.

“You can’t win championships like that,” said this source, who knows both well. “It doesn’t mean that anyone’s wrong.”

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The next question, naturally, is how two faces of a franchise can last this long together. This is Year 6 and nothing’s bubbled over on gameday. Even college roommates who love each other are prone to blow up over a game of Madden. That’s when the psychology of the quarterback is worth exploring. Consider the fact that Allen was a Firebaugh, Calif., farm kid who received zero scholarships out of high school, who then sent an email to 1,000+ colleges after JUCO and received exactly one scholarship offer, who then went to Wyoming and turned himself into the seventh overall pick in the 2018 NFL Draft. He’s a true alpha who’ll try throwing the ball through a brick wall and, no, he’ll never back down from a defensive lineman looking to rumble.

Allen is obsessed with winning — his own 1-of-1 way. He treats 80,000-seat stadiums as his own playground.

He has never been the type of leader to yell at a teammate. He isn’t mercilessly cussing out teammates like Brady, like Aaron Rodgers, like Peyton Manning.

“Josh isn’t that guy, so he’s not going to be that way either with the head coach,” said this ex-Bill with intel on the current team. “He’s not that kind of guy. It’s a personality deal. That’s just who he is.

“He wants to run through your face and establish the fact that he’s the biggest alpha male dog quarterback in the history of pro football. He just might not be aligned with the saying — are you ready for the big word? You ready for it? The word of the day? You’ve heard it 50 million times. He just might not have the same process as a certain someone else. It’s not f--king hard to figure out.”

There are a million ways to run a football team. Many head coaches before have strung together winning seasons with a stringent process. McDermott’s .624 winning percentage is the highest in team history. But at some point, the man running the show should’ve taken a deep breath and realized this particular quarterback was not produced on the assembly line. His uptight M.O. will never work.

So, why force it?

Why go full Belichick with a quarterback who’ll never be “institutionalized?”

“Like, ‘Whoa, whoa, whoa, this ain’t Tom Brady,’” the former teammate continued. “This is a freaking 10-year old kid who just wants to have fun. And by the way, that's pretty cool for the Buffalo Bills quarterback. The guy freaking makes ‘em happy. Just let him be him! It’s bananas. So here we are, coaches leaving a Super Bowl team for lateral moves.”

Ex-Bills fullback Patrick DiMarco, a noted proponent of McDermott, calls Allen the most competitive human being on Planet Earth. He’d whip the quarterback’s ass in ping-pong — DiMarco estimates he slayed Allen 100 times and lost only five or six matches — but that never stopped the QB. After losing, he’d flip the ball back to DiMarco and repeat: “Let’s run it back. Let’s run it back.” Playing cards, he was the same way.

So, of course, he’s going to rip off Christian Wilkins’ helmet when the 6-foot-4, 311-pound Miami Dolphins defensive tackle grabs his groin in a pile.  

So, of course, he’s going to hurl his body into Giants linebacker Bobby Okereke when a melee breaks out in the end zone.

He’ll strut and taunt on the field. He’ll scream and chest-bump linemen on the sideline.

When he’s cut loose to this extreme, his energy is contagious.

“I wish that they would stop putting reins on Josh,” said DiMarco, three weeks ago. “If Josh gets hurt, he gets hurt. He’s proven year after year. He rarely gets hurt, but he’s playing cautious now. And I think that’s honestly what’s holding him back. I know they don’t want him to take the hits and he’s the franchise quarterback and they have X amount of dollars, but that’s why he’s 6-6, 255. God was extremely happy the day he made Josh Allen. Let him use that.”

Mitchell Trubisky, the QB’s backup during the 2021 season agrees. He cites Allen’s videographic memory and how he can quote an endless number of movies.

Whether it’s his demeanor in the huddle or cracking jokes over a beer on a back deck, everyone describes Allen as magnetic.

“He brings out the best in everybody and he’s the ultimate competitor,” Trubisky said. “He’ll do whatever it takes to win and is super talented. A great person. One of a kind.”

There are quarterbacks who should always play within structure. Then, there’s the select few who most certainly should not. Allen is well aware that he exists in this second category.

He knows he’s capable of making every throw, every play.

“So it’s hard for him to throw the ball away or slide because that is when his greatest plays happen,” Trubisky said. “When he does extend it, he makes plays. Everybody has their opinion. I would just continue to unleash him and let him play his game and be smart. It’s gotten him to this point.”

Tight end Lee Smith has played for a slew of different personality types of quarterbacks.

Allen, he assured, “is a straight-up gangster” who sincerely views himself as “one of the boys.” Equal to everyone.

“An unbelievable leader of men,” Smith said. “He puts unlimited pressure on himself. He wears every loss like he was out there by himself. He’s special, man. And yeah, he’s liable to throw five interceptions this week trying to win the damn game by himself. That’s just how he is. He’s Brett Favre. But he’s special. And when you put special people around that dude, it wouldn't be fair.”

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Smith doesn’t expect Allen to change his style. Nor should he. He knows Allen viewed himself as such a gangster from Day 1 who most certainly would not stop lowering that shoulder. In a roundabout way, this all reminds him of that funky Kyler Murray contract in Arizona. On one hand, the Cardinals paid him a lucrative contract. On the other, the contract included the infamous “homework” clause. The best teams don’t mess around with quarterbacks they’ve given $40+ million per year.

Nobody in Kansas City will quarantine Mahomes inside the pocket. Nobody in Philly is taking a week-to-week inventory on the number of bruises Jalen Hurts accumulates. The opportunity to win championships in the NFL is too fleeting. So, the intent of trying to extend Allen’s career by rebuilding an offense in which he takes less hits and doesn’t take chances downfield does not match the reality that all of this is exactly what Josh Allen does best.

“Leave those guys alone,” Smith said. “It’s a player’s league and it’s especially a quarterback’s league.”

Every coach has flaws — even the greats — but those flaws cannot clash with your stars. If it’s oil and water at the top, the organization will crash and burn. Eventually. That’s where frustration sets in for those who’ve been around both McDermott and Allen. We’ve seen this play out before in other NFL cities. There’s a reason Aaron Rodgers and Mike McCarthy only won one Super Bowl together, Dan Marino won none, and Jim Kelly went 0 for 4.

One ex-Bill calls the ego issue in pro football “an epidemic.” And since it’s now going down in a city like Buffalo, he expects emotions to explode.  

“People are going to start freaking out,” he added. “They’ll be burning cars.”

The good news for the Bills is that they can always stay competitive with this coach and this quarterback. It’s hard to imagine the wheels ever completely falling off. They can win enough games to fill this stadium and the new one scheduled to open in 2026. Seven of the 16 teams in a conference make the playoffs. Even this season, the playoffs remain a realistic goal. Hope will stay in the air.

Under these parameters, sources wonder aloud, how does Terry Pegula justify such a major change?   

A fair point. Only the owners of pro sports teams truly set expectations, and history’s full of coaches who’ve won games the McDermott Way: Marty Schottenheimer, John Fox, Dan Reeves, etc. But this arranged marriage, this quiet divide, whatever you want to call it, is becoming a problem that’ll prevent the Bills from the ultimate destination. The 37-34 loss in Philadelphia again highlighted all of McDermott’s worst tendencies and all of Allen’s best with an eerily familiar final sequence of scenes: A scared head coach. An excruciating OT defeat. A head-scratching comment. After Allen’s virtuoso performance — a positive worth celebrating — McDermott noted the 500+ total yards but quickly added: “I do think we had some opportunities to come up with more.” Asked about Allen’s MVP-like play, McDermott agreed the quarterback has upped his game, yet then managed to pat himself on the back by referencing his firing of Ken Dorsey as one reason why: “The inconsistencies leading up to the last two weeks were why I made the decision I did to move forward. The last two weeks, Josh Allen’s level of play has been good enough for us to win.”

Yippee.

Too often, we hear the quarterback needs to play within structure. And therein lies the problem.

The best way to understand Josh Allen is through the Hall of Fame quarterback Lee Smith brought up: Favre. We reached out to the Gunslinger for this story.

Favre knows the QB-HC partnership is what gets a team to the Super Bowl.  

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The morning after the loss that tipped this 2023 season sideways — 24-22 to Denver — Brett Favre began our conversation with the same three words being echoed throughout Western New York: “Something is missing.” He doesn’t know McDermott personally though correctly surmises the coach “speaks softly but carries a big stick.” Getting caught with 12 men on the field, Favre added, isn’t an Allen problem, isn’t a Matthew Smiley problem: “That’s Sean McDermott’s fault,” Favre said, “because he’s the leader of the whole team.”

Part of Favre does understand McDermott’s desire to curtail Allen’s aggressiveness.

His first coach in Green Bay, Mike Holmgren, used to call him “John Wayne” for trying to gain a fourth yard on third and 20. Favre was beyond reckless early in his Packers career. The word, “throwaway,” flatly was not in his vocabulary. He’d stiff-arm a defensive tackle. And if the Packers scored a touchdown, there was always a good chance Favre tackled a teammate in the end zone.

Yet when Packers coaches voted to bench Favre for Mark Brunell in 1994 — Favre’s second season in Green Bay — Holmgren couldn’t pull the trigger because he knew it was lunacy to give up on his wild stallion of a quarterback. Not only did Holmgren keep Favre under center. The man schooled in everything Joe Montana, Steve Young, West Coast Offense under Bill Walsh for six seasons told Favre they’d either climb to the mountaintop or crash and burn together. He was all-in Brett Favre, Inc. Holmgren soon realized the key was calling plays that’d steer Favre out of harm’s way. This is where Ken Dorsey warrants criticism as the OC. Virtually eliminating the slot receiver from the offense — think: Peak Cole Beasley — eliminated Allen’s safety blanket.

If Holmgren didn’t want Favre YOLO’ing the ball 50 yards downfield at a specific juncture of the game, he’d make sure whichever play he called did not include such a route. Even if it was a clear-out. That way, Favre wouldn’t be tempted.

But he never veered away from one principle: Favre needed to be Favre.

The tipping point was Green Bay’s Wild Card win in Detroit that ’93 season. With one minute left, down 24-21, in no-huddle, Favre called the wrong play… scrambled left… realized Sterling Sharpe was actually lined up on the other side of the field… planted his back foot at the 43-yard line and gunned an all-time laser to his WR1 in the back of the end zone. Even when a neck injury ended Sharpe’s career, Favre went on to enjoy one of the best three-year stretches of quarterback play the sport’s ever seen: MVP awards in ’95, ’96 and ’97 with two Super Bowl appearances and one title.

Favre, like Allen, believed he could make every throw.  

Favre, unlike Allen, had the full support of his coach.

“It’s a blessing and a curse,” Favre said. “You don’t want him to quit doing it. Bottom line, you are who you are. You’re going to gravitate towards what you do best. So, you’ll see him do movement stuff, you’ll see him jump, you’ll see him dive, you’ll see him run over someone. Over time, if he survives, you’ll see him be smarter.”

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Initially, Holmgren called plays that worked when he was a 49ers assistant. If it was a five-yard hitch and throw, Favre might’ve dropped seven steps and bailed because he didn’t trust the protection. But Holmgren, a man who did not lack ego, never forced Favre to become his own cookie-cutter vision of a quarterback. “So rather than say, ‘Look here, you son of a bitch, you better trust the protection,’” recalled Favre. “He said, ‘I’ll call plays that’ll get him on the move. We’re going to go play-action, we’re going to go bootleg where he’s not thinking too much. And as he progresses in the offense, I can expand a little bit.’ And it worked to perfection. I didn’t think. I just reacted.”

And injuries? Through his Super Bowl season in ’96 — his best — Favre lost No. 1 wideout Robert Brooks to a torn ACL, MCL, meniscus and patellar tendon in Week 7. His next No. 1, Antonio Freeman, missed four games with a broken arm, and then played with a bulky cast. Tight end Mark Chmura was hampered by a foot injury. Through it all, Favre played freely. In Seattle, he one-hand flicked a TD into the end zone. Funny enough, the color commentator up above was Jerry Glanville, the ex-Falcons head coach who treated Favre as a side-show clown as a rookie. Or take the TD in St. Louis, in which he rolled right, reversed course, stopped on a dime at the 10-yard line to Ole! defensive end Leslie O’Neal, somehow broke free from D’Marco Farr’s clutches and threw to Dorsey Levens in traffic. Or the stiff-arm of defensive tackle Michael Dean-Perry before rifling a TD to a one-armed Freeman.

All improvisation that’d make McDermott’s heartbeat audible on the television broadcast.

That’s where Favre’s perspective proves extra valuable for the sake of this discussion.

He lived the other side.

His first season post-Holmgren, ’99, began with three comeback wins for the ages. By mid-December, Ray Rhodes’ Packers were 7-5 and Favre experienced a fourth quarter that’ll sound eerily familiar to Bills fans. With 4 minutes left, Green Bay took a 31-27 lead over the Carolina Panthers, who then drove the length of the field to win with no time remaining. As the Panthers drove, Rhodes refused to use any of his three timeouts. Steve Beuerlein scored on a fourth-and-goal draw, sealing Rhodes’ fate. He was fired after an 8-8 season.

“Whether the coach realizes it or not — there’s a biased or unbiased position,” Favre said. “We went to the locker room with three timeouts. So we’re like, ‘shit.’ Holmgren would’ve been diligent with encouraging the defense to stop them, but also would be very conscious and aware of what was needed offensively. Timewise. Yardage. What we needed in points. All that would come into focus. That happens sometimes based on who the head coach is.”

Two years prior, in Super Bowl XXXII, Holmgren took game management to the other extreme. He instructed the Packers defense to let Denver score at the goal-line to get Favre the ball back with 1:45 left. Such a tactic was mostly unheard of in the 90s, but the dead-on correct decision with this quarterback. Favre drove the Packers downfield and was one Freeman drop at the 15-yard line away from potentially tying the game up.

A head coach doesn’t know his own blind spots, so it pays to have a coach whose default is unequivocal belief in the quarterback.

In reporting for this series, I never got the sense that Allen and McDermott shared anything close to that defining Come-to-Jesus chat Favre and Holmgren had in ’94.

Said one ex-Bill close to both: “I know they’re both strong-minded people. Josh is not going to back down. Sean’s not going to back down. That’s a tough one.”

Offensive coaches tend to run the show through an offensive lens. Defensive coaches tend to run the show through a defensive lens. Sometimes, a major adjustment is required. Brian Billick realized he needed to swallow his ego and lean into his 2000 Ravens defense, fresh off coordinating the historic ’98 Vikings offense. Same for Jon Gruden two years later, in 2002, with his Hall of Fame-laden Buccaneers defense. Bill Belichick cut his teeth on defense through the 80s and 90s but grew to embrace an aggressive coaching style with Tom Brady.

Here, there’s a defensive bias. One running joke in Buffalo is that McDermott rigs competitive drills in the defense’s favor.

The defense always seems to get the extra vote because he’s the head coach. “Everything was always favored towards them,” said one former captain. “He definitely catered more towards the defense.” It only got worse after he took over playcalling duties. Which players find funny because it quickly became obvious to everyone that Allen is the one carrying the team. “Sean is so strong-willed that he doesn't want to admit to it and adhere to that,” that player continued. “He’s like, ‘No, man. We’re still a defensive football team.”

With the exception of that near-dash to glory in 2021 when the Bills offense, under Brian Daboll, pushed back. And it worked.

Recalled Trubisky: “They cut it loose. I felt like they had really good chemistry between Josh and Dabes.”

Favre actually played for Daboll with the New York Jets. At that time, Daboll was a 33-year-old quarterbacks coach; Favre the 39-year-old nearing the end of his storied career. But he knew immediately that Daboll had a legit chance to rise up the ranks. When Favre was traded to the Jets the first week of August, he needed to adjust to a major change in verbiage. In New York, numbers were plays and names were protections. It was the opposite in Green Bay. Daboll got into the habit of talking Favre through the plays in his helmet. “Toyota 963! That’s two jet flanker drive.” This helping hand is a major reason Favre excelled so quickly. That Jets team started 8-3 and might’ve done damage in the playoffs if the QB hadn’t torn his bicep…  one of many “What ifs” Favre thinks about today.

No unknown stings more than Holmgren’s departure after seven years. The head coach desired total control of a team, and got his wish in Seattle. Favre is positive they would’ve won more Super Bowls if he stayed.

“No question about it,” he said.

Instead, Favre only reached two more conference championships. Lost both.

Super Bowl windows close quickly — even for the greats.

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The quarterback is not immune to criticism.

On the field, other greats have spotted flaws in Josh Allen’s game this 6-6 season.

Kurt Warner maintains that the Bills QB is at his best when he’s playing on-schedule. To the Hall of Famer, Allen too often plays too fast. Tries dictating the action to the defense, instead of taking routine completions underneath. If the offense becomes overly “Josh-centric,” Warner doesn’t believe this ends well. Joe Theismann dismissed the notion that McDermott is holding Allen back, pointing to the interception total. Too many of these 13 picks, to him, are desperation “javelin throws.” He sees Allen’s absurdly strong arm as a weakness as much as a strength because he’s forcing 50/50 balls that can go the other way.

“Look at the way Tua throws a football,” said Theismann, Washington’s all-time leading passer and the ‘83 MVP. “There’s probably a 50 mile an hour difference between the two. It isn’t all about rocketing things in. Tua knows he doesn’t have a gun, so he gets the ball out. And let me tell you something: Catching a Tua pass has got to be easier than catching a Josh Allen pass.”

Nor does either quarterback agree with the premise that a team should accept Allen’s unique game as both blessing and curse.

Theismann pointed to that grim version of 2023 Allen, the lost quarterback gazing ahead on the bench.

“I don’t want to read somebody’s mind, but he’s like, ‘What the heck’s going on?’ Everybody talks about how great he is and that’s great and all good. I think he’s an untapped talent. I don’t believe that his talent has fully been tapped. I really don’t. What we’re seeing is raw talent and not seeing the full picture of what this young man can be.”

Off the field, one of Allen’s former teammates sees that look and has a much different criticism. He believes it’s time for the quarterback to push back against McDermott. He’s honest with him, too. He’ll tell Allen straight-up that he’s too respectful toward the head coach and needs to, uh, drop his metaphorical genitalia on the table. To his core, Allen is still that kid who didn’t get any offers. He won’t challenge authority when one massive blowup is best for all parties involved.

There were no such issues with Daboll.  

In droves, players and coaches repeat that Allen and Daboll were extremely close on and off the field. The hug those two shared after this year’s Bills-Giants game was real. Daboll knew which plays to call to harness that big-bertha arm. He knew how to get Allen into a rhythm on those short-to-intermediate passes while still allowing the QB to play with spontaneity. Most importantly, his fiery personality aligned with Allen. He’d both ream the QB out and wrap an arm around him. Their relationship transcended football. Allen has called Daboll the “most influential” coach in his football career.

This Sunday, the Bills return to Kansas City where Reid, 65, and Mahomes, 28, have a realistic chance to surpass Belichick and Brady as the greatest combo this sport’s ever seen. OK, it’s very difficult to strike gold to that degree.

Thus, it’s impossible not to ask one longtime Bill who’s close with all three individuals (Allen, Daboll, McDermott) one question:

Did Buffalo keep the wrong coach?

There’s nothing but dead air on the other end of the phone for 13 seconds.

“Do I need to continue my silence,” this player said, “or are we good?”

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The friction between McDermott and Daboll was the worst-kept secret inside the building. This player is quick to say that this does not make one a better leader than the other. Yes, “Dabes” is the kind of coach who builds substantive bonds with players off the field. To the point where they’ll let him scream and yell in their face during a game. The relationships are raw, real. But then again, he said McDermott isn’t the kind of coach who’ll “mother-eff” a player. He compared it to having two different math teachers. Both can teach algebra, but that doesn’t mean they’ll do it the same way, adding: “Let’s just say hypothetically, it was true that Sean and Dabes wanted to kill each other,” this player said. “Well, I wonder why. Freaking oil and water.”

And that is what made the Daboll-Allen partnership special. This coach and this quarterback were in total lockstep — a rarity. Several ex-Bills believe the team would’ve already won a championship if he was the head coach.

One ex-coach believes McDermott didn’t like the fact that Daboll, a Buffalo native, could engage in natural conversation with Terry and Kim Pegula. “Sean couldn’t,” one coach added. “He envied that. He was deathly afraid of, ‘Shit. What if ownership goes, I’m the problem, fires me and promotes him?’” He wasn’t vocal about it. But as the head coach takes veiled shots at Allen in press conferences, assistants cringe. It doesn’t make sense to them because — at some point — the owners would surely realize they’ve got a lot more money invested in Allen, than McDermott.

“And that was something that Sean never understood,” one former Bills assistant said. “He still doesn’t believe that there are only a half-dozen guys walking this planet that are franchise quarterbacks. There are literally hundreds of guys walking the planet that could be head coaches in the NFL. You keep poking one of the six and they’re going to replace you and go to pick one of the hundreds that are still walking around out there.”

One ex-Bill starter put it perfectly: “There’s so many coaches that you can just name and plug in there and they won’t be worse.”

This player’s “dream scenario” is for the Bills to fire McDermott, keep Beane and see Beane trade for Daboll. He’d win a Super Bowl and retire.

Which is… unlikely.

Everything I hear aligns with Tim Graham’s report at The Athletic that Pegula remains firmly behind McDermott. It’s hard for any owner of any team to fire a head coach who has won this many games.

Daboll is not quite living la vida loca in New Jersey, either. In Year 1, he earned Coach of the Year honors. In Year 2, he’s been weathering his own avalanche of injuries. The Giants are 4-8 and down to third-stringer Tommy DeVito at quarterback. As much as we all want to compare McDermott and Daboll, as one ex-Bill said, both have been equally miserable most Monday mornings this season. Both have the same sinking feeling at that lonely mahogany desk.

As our mothers always told us, however, there’s a special someone for everyone. Josh Allen would be an all-time football bachelor.  

This wouldn’t resemble coaching searches from the drought years, when the Bills settled for tired retreads and whiffed on Rex Ryan. The brightest up-and-coming offensive minds would sell their souls to coach Allen. Kyle Shanahan’s coaching tree in San Francisco has now branched out to Miami and Houston. The work Bobby Slowik’s done with C.J. Stroud warrants job interviews. One ex-Bill cannot imagine Allen in such a scheme: “Holy shit,” he said. “F--king cheating.” There’s Ben Johnson in Detroit, Brian Callahan in Cincinnati, Press Taylor in Jacksonville, choose your fighter.

The Bills would instantly serve as the No. 1 destination for the best potential coaches.

Of course, the job’s more than devising X’s and O’s, too. The Buffalo Bills need to find a man who’ll inspire.

Short of a deep postseason run, soul searching is required. At some point, Allen’s hair will start graying and everyone will look back at his career as a gigantic What if. No tip-of-the-tongue reciting of injuries, no Dorsey scapegoating should distract ownership from the reality that the Bills have maxed out with this head coach. We’ve seen sports teams with rare individual talents dare themselves to be great. To the extreme, the Los Angeles Lakers fired Paul Westhead for Pat Riley and the Chicago Bulls replaced Doug Collins with Phil Jackson. The result was two of the greatest athletes ever, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, winning a truckload of championships.

It’s also true that running a pro sports team is no different than any other industry. Billionaires find new CEOs to run their businesses all the time. There’s always risk-reward. One player who runs a business of his own these days doesn’t think removing McDermott should be controversial at all from a business perspective — it’s smart, it’s forward-thinking.

Before this season began, the head man hoisted a banner of the Lombardi Trophy inside the team’s practice facility. He made it clear: Super Bowl or Bust.

If McDermott fails and McDermott stays, what’s the message in 2024? 2025? That trophy now feels miles away.  

One assistant coach who’s most critical of his old boss sees McDermott’s insecurity being his downfall.

“He’s going to walk away from the game a rich man,” this coach said. “But it’s a shame that he’s had an embarrassment of riches in Buffalo — and a fan base that is loyal to a fault — and he has squandered some years. That’s a shame for the players that have been involved, the coaches who have been involved, the fan base, the ownership.

“At the end of the day, he’s going to have to answer to it. And I’m being honest with you, I hope he gets it right. I really do. And not for him. I hope he gets it right for all the players that have been in the building and those fans that are hardworking, blue-collar people who’ve spent their money for those tickets to fill those stands every f--king game. … I hope he gets it right for them.”

Life on the other side of Sean McDermott could consist of another round of Jaurons and Gaileys and Mularkeys and, heaven forbid, Rex 2.0. That’s how apologists approach this debate — Imagine the dark side! Maybe the Bills would take a bad turn with the wrong hire. But maybe ownership doesn’t need to think like McDermott staring up at that game clock. Maybe a new coach completely maximizes Josh Allen while Josh Allen is still in his prime.

The Bills can find a coach who stares at that clock and won’t overthink the moment.

A coach who isn’t scared because he has conditioned himself and his team to attack that moment. He’ll put the ball in his quarterback’s hands, and win.

Nobody will be eager to bail Western New York, either.

Coaches, players, everyone will want to stick around to be a part of that championship parade through downtown Buffalo.

Here is our column that ran after Buffalo’s 27-24 playoff loss to the Kansas City Chiefs: