Why was Sean McDermott Fired?
The goal is Super Bowls. With Josh Allen, the urgency has never been higher. Go Long talks to people with direct knowledge of the decision.
Playoff losses are soul-crushing. Always. The reality that this opportunity won’t come for another 365 days — if you’re lucky — is paralyzing.
Year to year, no team in today’s NFL has experienced more agony than the Buffalo Bills.
After “13 Seconds,” to cap the 2021 season, players recall Stefon Diggs going ballistic in the locker room. “Every fucking time!” he screamed. “Every single fucking time!” After getting snowplowed by the Cincinnati Bengals, in 2022, the Bills were an emotionally deflated ghost of themselves. The sight of Damar Hamlin nearly dying on a football field a few weeks prior was traumatizing. After Wide Right II, in 2023, the sensation was disbelief. After the 2024 AFC Championship? More sadness. More shock. Dalton Kincaid was in tears after a fourth-and-5 prayer fluttered through his hands. He recalled sage vet Micah Hyde telling him to “fucking own it,” to “fucking suck up these tears” and face the press. He did. Everyone found a way to move on.
But this all felt like something different. The raw emotion from Sean McDermott’s eighth playoff loss resembled more of a finality. Joey Bosa slammed his helmet against the tunnel wall. Quarterback Josh Allen — a portrait of stoicism in pressers — broke down in tears. Dion Dawkins, upon hearing that Allen blamed himself, was quite literally speechless. McDermott went off on the officials. One last time, he invoked his love for the city — “I’m standing up for Buffalo, damn it” — and even called The Buffalo News from the team plane to vent.
All the epitome of a coach and a team that has officially run out of gas.
It was time.
After nine seasons as the Bills’ head coach, McDermott has been fired. In a statement, owner Terry Pegula announced that Brandon Beane would serve as both the president of football operations and general manager. Pegula said Beane would “oversee all facets of our football operation, including the oversight of our coaching staff.”
McDermott’s place in Bills history is secure. He finished 98-50 in the regular season for a sparkling winning percentage of .662, good for 15th all-time. He ended this franchise’s gloomy 17-year playoff drought and won five straight division titles. One day, he’ll have the honor of shouting “Where else would you rather be?!” into a pregame microphone. News of his firing struck an emotional chord with fans. Even McDermott’s detractors insist the man sincerely woke up every morning with the best intentions — he was driven to bring a title to this title-starved city. He viewed his presence here as a calling from a higher power. Intentions, however, do not guarantee success. Because even McDermott’s greatest supporters must admit his ceiling is clear.
Buffalo boasts one of this generation’s greatest talents and has nothing to show for it.
No coach in NFL history has won more playoff games (eight) without a Super Bowl appearance. No quarterback in NFL history has also won more playoff games (eight) without a Super Bowl appearance than Josh Allen.
Allen, the reigning MVP, turns 30 in May.
Owner Terry Pegula needs to inject new life into his franchise before it’s too late.
This was always the difficult decision he needed to make. We obviously wrote an extensive series on the coach in December 2023. To his credit, McDermott tried to evolve the last two years. Buffalo fell short two more times, so he’s out. Rare is the coach who breaks through with a team to win it all in Year 10 or beyond.
On Monday, Go Long chatted with sources with direct knowledge of this decision.
Here’s why the Bills finally moved on from McDermott.
Defensive playoff failures. The wide receiver position was a mess this season. There’s a legitimate debate to be had about the personnel on the current roster. But let’s also not lose the plot. This season was always going to be judged by how the defense performed in January. Even through a wacky 33-30 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos, Allen has been the best statistical playoff quarterback in the NFL since 2020. All while Buffalo’s defense has allowed 33.2 ppg in its last six playoff losses — unacceptable for a head coach whose expertise is defense. Thirteen Seconds broke the psychology of this team. A new coach with a new message is imperative.
“Grinding on people.” That’s how one team source put it. Scathing accounts from former coaches in our ‘23 series had a positive effect on McDermott. He made a point to loosen up, as if realizing players take on his personality. McDermott also made a conscious effort to broadcast his personality, right down to snow angels on live TV. But one high-ranking source put it this way: Too often, McDermott “resorted back to those ways when the pressure increased.” A decade’s worth of heartbreaking playoff losses is not the product of mere bad luck. Rather, the DNA of the team itself. Tight coaches create tight teams throughout the NFL.
Relationship with the GM. It obviously soured. Two people working together for a decade is a long time.
And the No. 1 driving force behind this decision is the man wearing No. 17. I’ve been told repeatedly that Pegula believes he has an all-time quarterback and understands time is of the essence. After seeing his team lose yet another close game, he decided a coaching change was the best path forward. Allen is now 0-7 in overtime games, including three in the playoffs. That’s coaching. The Bills managed to beat the Chiefs five times in the regular season, yet lost in playoffs four times. That’s coaching. Only recently did McDermott embrace the reality that Allen is the engine of year-in, year-out success, sources say. One exec believes the coach did such an excellent coaching job early on — slaying The Drought, pre-Allen — that it took him too long to realize the quarterback is the one who makes things go at One Bills Drive.
“Sometimes the ego gets in there,” this source continues. “There’s plenty of coaches that can get Josh Allen to play to this level and he’s not even an offensive coach. Coaches get blinded by success.”
Any sports franchise in possession of an individual talent like this should do the exact same thing. Doing nothing for a 10th straight season would’ve be the definition of insanity.
One truth lasts forever in this league. To reach a Super Bowl, the Core Four must be aligned: owner, GM, head coach and quarterback. We can all debate Beane’s role in the equation. This new structure gives Buffalo a chance to achieve exactly that. Before, the head coach and GM reported to the owner separately. Beane has been empowered to put his imprint on the roster.
For the first time since 2017, the Bills are looking for a new coach.
The presence of Allen makes this the most appealing coaching job on the market in years.
Allen, for all his brilliance, had a nightmare afternoon at Empower Field. The same quarterback who went six straight playoff games without a turnover threw two interceptions and fumbled twice. He missed open receivers. He deserves his share of blame for how this season ended. Yet, despite it all, Allen nearly made history. Into the weekend, road playoff teams were 1-85 with a turnover differential of minus-3 or worse. And a beaten, bruised, clearly injured Allen had Buffalo in position to be Team No. 2 with a 27-23 lead over the Denver Broncos. Defensive coaches live for this do-or-die play. McDermott’s defense had this Bo Nix-led operation dead to rights: third and 11 at the Denver 37 with 2:38 to go. Buffalo showed blitz. Seven defenders crowded the line of scrimmage and — for a moment — you couldn’t help but wonder if a coach who’s made a habit of shrinking in the big moment would finally go for broke.
And… he backed off. Three of those seven dropped into coverage.
Nix delivered a 25-yarder to Courtland Sutton in the hole.
“You need one fucking stop,” says one team source on the third and 11. “Here it is, defensive coach. Get the fucking stop.”
Four snaps later, McDermott failed to learn a valuable in-game lesson. Earlier, the Broncos noticed that safety Cam Lewis departed with an injury and smelled blood. Head coach Sean Payton had Nix attack his replacement (Darnell Savage) on a 29-yard TD. When cornerback Tre’Davious White left this pivotal 2-minute drive, the Bills coach failed to give his replacement (Dane Jackson) any help. Straight off the sideline, ice cold, Jackson was left alone on an island. Nix connected with Marvin Mims for a 26-yard TD.
Injuries aren’t an excuse. Denver was missing two of its own starting wide receivers.
The Bills were victimized by the NFL’s latest officiating controversy. This game should’ve never boiled down to one play.
No Patrick Mahomes, no Lamar Jackson, no Joe Burrow and it didn’t matter. It’s time we updated our non-kneeldown stat for the final time. We can safely declare the Bills legitimate contenders since the 2020 season. Here’s how the defense has fared in those six (of eight) playoff defeats under McDermott:
52 non-kneeldown drives
25 touchdowns
13 field goals
12 punts
1 missed field goal
3 turnovers
199 points allowed … good for 3.83 points per drive.
Players come. Players go. The hangover from the Bills’ 42-36 loss at Kansas City in the 2021 AFC divisional round still throbs. We’ve explained McDermott’s culpability at length here and here. To recap, he overruled his special teams coordinator on the kickoff before those 13 seconds by demanding a touchback instead of a squib. He seized playcalling. Despite a pair of “Kodak” timeouts, the Bills’ DBs lined up way off the ball. Two quick completions and, voila, the Chiefs forced overtime. After that loss, one coach remembers McDermott saying the offense scored too fast and left the Chiefs too much time. He continued to blame others the next day. “You guys need to get away,” one assistant recalled the boss saying. “Recharge, reflect, and figure out what you can do better to avoid that happening again.”
NFL history is rife with gutting playoff losses that linger. The “Legion of Boom” Seahawks never forgave Pete Carroll for throwing the ball at the 1-yard line. The Atlanta Falcons were doomed after “28-3.”
Four years later, several players and coaches alike still have not gotten over this loss. Diggs never let it go, and he wasn’t alone. The universal belief is that the Bills would’ve hoisted the Lombardi Trophy in Los Angeles.
“You’re not going to get rid of that cloud — the weight of that,” said one team source. “You’re not getting over that until he’s gone. Every failure is just magnified. ‘Fuck, we blew it when we should have won that game. That was our year.’ Make a blunder that big and you’re messing with guys’ careers. Any mistake from that point on? How do you look at him and have confidence? You end up losing all these close games and the same guy is in control.”
Fresh out of what one player called “a bad, bad situation” at Arrowhead in ‘21, we hypothesized a Chicago Bulls-like organizational approach. Allen was such a superstar that night in throwing for 329 yards and four touchdowns (with another 68 rushing yards), the Bills could’ve decided right then and there to be bold and fully view this franchise through the prism of their quarterback. The 1988- ’89 Bulls even advanced a round further under Doug Collins, losing to the Detroit Pistons in the conference finals. In possession of Michael Jordan, they dared to be great. Collins was fired. Phil Jackson was hired. Six championships followed. It would’ve been a tough sell considering the Bills were still a team on the rise but, in retrospect, one exec on that staff admits a move would’ve made a lot of sense.
Timing has always been tricky. The next season, McDermott did an excellent job of navigating the Bills through the unprecedented Hamlin situation. Into ’23, the Bills started 6-6 and ripped off six straight wins. Last season, the Bills were one or two plays away from facing Philadelphia in the Super Bowl. The likes of Ben Johnson, Mike Vrabel and Liam Coen were on the market then. Pegula could’ve rolled the dice. Instead, McDermott and Beane held their separate press conferences after the season and vowed to keep kicking at that Super Bowl door.
The GM went all-in on defense considering defense has been the problem. Agree? Disagree? To Beane, that was the best way to help Allen. As a result, the wide receiver room ranked amongst the NFL’s worst. There’s no sugarcoating the GM’s season-long scrambling at the position. But as we analyzed, personnel men across the league still believed this roster had enough ammo to reach the Super Bowl. Allen was the reigning MVP. James Cook led the NFL in rushing. The offensive line was a top 5 unit. In a weakened AFC field, Buffalo could not get it done. After trying to win with a spread offense that attacked teams through the air, Beane tried to evolve this offense into a unit that wins with more balance.
Rather than pin the blame on the GM, the owner decided his defensive coach should’ve been able to beat a second-year quarterback who finished 29th in passer rating. Regardless of other circumstances.
Power struggles are a way of life in pro sports and nine years is a long time for any GM-HC combination. Back in May 2017, McDermott brought Beane in as his personnel man. McDermott obviously has had heavy input on which players the Bills draft. As one assistant GM for another team told us, the Bills seek a very specific type of player defensively. This is a mentally taxing scheme, which is why Buffalo often brings old friends back. Beane, however, did have final say.
I was told the relationship between McDermott and Beane was “respectful.” They still spoke to each other. But by the end, it was not a particularly healthy situation. Both were compartmentalizing. There was an obvious divide here that has been stewing for a while — and it came to a head this season. It’s no coincidence McDermott praised Jacksonville’s midseason acquisition of Jakobi Meyers multiple times and bemoaned the loss of Ja’Marcus Ingram — a backup on the roster bubble in August — when the Bills’ claim of Darius Slay backfired. One source familiar with the relationship likened this union to a marriage heading toward divorce. Short of a title, he would’ve been surprised to see the two stick together. “Whether it be the husband or the wife,” this person added, “they start going on a campaign, right? They’ll start going to the friends, ‘Oh, my husband, he does this wrong.’ And they start bitching because they’re trying to get people on their side, so they’re out campaigning. That’s basically what Sean was doing in those press conferences.”
In Beane’s mind, defense was the issue, so he aggressively acquired defensive players in the spring. Was the problem personnel? Coaching? Injuries? In truth, it’s likely a combination of all three. Buffalo explored options at the trade deadline. From what I’ve gathered around the league, no deal was close. The Dolphins might’ve pretended like they were interested but they never seriously considered handing Jaylen Waddle to the Bills. Meanwhile, the Jets refused to play ball. Afterward, Beane doubled down on his belief that this was a championship roster. Three weeks later, he pivoted to Brandin Cooks.
Multiple sources believe the relationship started to fray with that ’21 playoff loss in KC.
Their personalities are very different, too.
“Sean is a good coach,” says one source in personnel. “He works his ass off. But he doesn’t always handle conflict well or tough situations.”
McDermott, for example, would get upset with coaches for wanting a raise when he wants more money himself. Everyone should. There was also the time he was pissed Bills receivers chipped in to buy their position coach, Chad Hall, a new truck. When such stories went public in our series, co-workers say McDermott tried to conduct himself with more empathy. One source believes the series “woke him up a little bit.” The coach who rarely ever did media beyond required press conferences started to ingratiate himself with reporters. McDermott engaged in more 1-on-1 interviews and profile stories to reveal his human side and push back against those coaches who described him as a robot.
But that’s the funny thing about playoff football. Pressure is inevitable. McDermott wasn’t going to change into a completely different coach this side of 50 years old. Nor should he. Some of McDermott’s closest allies say he is a difficult boss and that can be a good thing for a team trying to establish a new culture. These Bills absolutely needed such rewiring post-Rex Ryan. In Year 9, however, such an approach grew stale.
“His intensity wears on everyone in the building,” says one team source, who was pro-McDermott for years.
“I mean, he tries to change. But once you’ve established who you are, come on. Maybe he can ... ‘Oh, I’ll do dad jokes with the guys,’ and ‘Hey, you can wear comfortable clothes on the plane.’ All that stuff is a good change, but day-to-day with staff interactions? He is who he is. That wears on people.”
The head coaches who last in one location for an extended period of time bring a distinct personality to the job. Andy Reid is an old-school coach who still makes his players hit each other in pads. But he has also developed a natural way of keeping things light. McDermott tried. McDermott is also a “Type A wrestler” to his core.
“Intensity is good, but it grinds people,” this team source continues. “The NFL never stops. So to have that year ‘round? That presence? When you’re the head coach — when you walk into a room — everybody’s feeling what you’re feeling. You set the mood. How often can you keep being that guy and dealing with the same messaging, but you keep getting the same results? Which are not what you wanted. So how many more times can I hear: ‘Yeah, do it this way, do it this way.’ And I get the same fucking results. And some of the time, you’re the one that made the bad decision. You’re the one that used that timeout. You’re the one that didn’t know enough to squib it.
“Even when Sean’s being positive, there’s a sense of being on eggshells.”
One fact is worth repeating: Many players loved this head coach. There’s a reason several veterans returned to frigid Orchard Park, NY. There’s a reason so many rushed to the coach’s defense when news of the firing went viral. Under McDermott, the Bills often played like a wrestler on that mat. They refused to quit. Even this past season, the Bills overcame a 15-point deficit vs. Baltimore with four minutes left, stunned Cincinnati with an 8.4 percent chance at the time of Mike Gesicki’s late TD and erased a 21-0 deficit to win at New England.
All a hearty product of the environment McDermott created.
He won’t be a free agent coach for long. He can help rebuild another struggling franchise.
One reason the Bills are confident moving forward is that Beane also played a major role in the team’s renowned culture, says one source. The GM makes a point to talk to employees in every part of the building, right down to the equipment and mail rooms. The same staffers who felt dread when the head coach entered a room felt joy when Beane walked in.
We weren’t naïve back in 2023. McDermott could’ve banished this site from the building for life.
Instead — to his credit — the coach requested we sit down and get to know each other in the offseason. We did. We barely talked about those three stories at all. Then, ahead of the ‘24 postseason, McDermott opened up his office for an illuminating one-hour chat. His desire to bring a championship to Western New York was authentic. “I bleed for that win,” McDermott said. “And that’s real. What I want for people, for these fans, is for the true light to be shown on what this place really is. On Buffalo and Western New York.”
At the same time, I left our conversation wondering if the head coach viewed Allen as the primary driver of this regime’s success. Several times, he referenced the end of the drought. He made it clear the Bills didn’t win much at all before his arrival. “Look,” McDermott added, “Josh has been a big part of that. There’s more to it than just Josh, though.” As if catching himself, he later said he’s not slighting Allen.
The starting quarterback in Buffalo is the employee of the month… every month. He’ll never say a bad word about anyone. When Allen built a house in WNY, one source remembered a livid McDermott in a staff meeting saying, “Tell Josh to stop worrying about that fucking house! We’ve got the season coming up.” The two were not nearly as close as Allen was with OC Brian Daboll. Words in private and public never fazed Allen. He always backed his boss. If anything, the two grew closer. In an excellent profile, Dan Pompei noted that Allen stops by McDermott’s house for dinner. The coach even attended the QB’s wedding with actress Hailee Steinfeld.
Players and coaches alike often point out that the head coach rarely praised Allen publicly, up to his MVP season in 2024. Their point: McDermott, for too long, believed the team ran through McDermott. Not the QB.
“I think he changed,” one source says, “because he finally saw the writing on the wall.”
Pegula seeks a coach who won’t undergo this realization in Year 8 of 9.
At some point — 2020, into 2021 — the calculus should’ve changed. The quarterback became the most important person in the building.
Then, there’s history. Teams almost always move on from coaches who cannot get to the Super Bowl by this point.
Only three coaches since the AFL-NFL merger 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). (Stram won an AFL title before.) 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.
This is a common move in any era of the sport. Two weeks prior, the Baltimore Ravens fired John Harbaugh after eight Super Bowl-less seasons with Lamar Jackson. And Harbaugh was the coach who once believed in Jackson when no one else did. Harbaugh completely changed his offense for the Louisville quarterback. He even won a Super Bowl in 2012. Nonetheless, owner Steve Bisciotti realized a new voice was needed.
Locals can fear the great unknown, can worry about another 17 years of no playoffs.
Or, conversely, locals can imagine championships. Any team with this caliber of quarterback should.
If McDermott was an abject disaster like Bills coaches past, a divorce would’ve been easier. He isn’t. Pegula saw him masterfully manage the Hamlin situation. Even this season, McDermott did a damn good job of coaching through a brutal rash of injuries on both sides of the ball. His defense was strong enough to hold Philadelphia to 17 second-half yards in a late-season loss. In the wild card round at Jacksonville, this unit managed to get the key takeaway late.
But in Year 9, McDermott must be able to beat Bo Nix. This wasn’t Mahomes and the juggernaut Chiefs. This was a young quarterback with no run game and a depleted WR room.
When a defensive coach failed to get that one defensive stop yet again, there were no more excuses to make. Buffalo has already burned through coordinators.
One person close to Pegula says the owner views Allen as the best player in the league and knew he needed to finally take action. His bet is that this team was always talented enough to win Super Bowls. In 15 playoff games, he has completed 66.5 percent of his passes for 3,915 yards with 29 touchdowns and only six picks. His passer rating of 101.5 only trails Mahomes, Bart Starr and Kurt Warner for QBs with more than five playoff starts. He has also rushed for 767 yards and nine scores. Amid the turnovers on Saturday, Allen still amassed 349 total yards, three touchdowns and had the Bills in position to do something only one other team in NFL history has accomplished.
Over the last nine years, the Bills defense was never able to carry its quarterback on an off day.
The pressure’s squarely on Beane now. His decisions have been scrutinized.
Now, he’s got the opportunity to hire a coach who can maximize a future Hall of Fame quarterback. The owner trusts him. The owner is also moving the Bills into a new home across Abbott Road and surely knows this plateaued contender desperately needs a shot in the arm. Many of the same fans in mourning are paying expensive PSLs and will demand excellence next January. The New England Patriots, piloted by MVP contender Drake Maye, are officially back. They’ve got the Core Four locked in.
For now, en masse, Bills fans are feeling a visceral connection to the coach who has proudly called Buffalo home. Media members praised him as a stand-up man. McDermott himself issued a classy statement. Droves of fans blame the GM, not the head coach, for this 2025 edition falling short.
None of that, however, changes one cold-hard truth.
Sean McDermott was not capable of leading this team to a Super Bowl for nearly a decade, so the Buffalo Bills will now try to find someone who can.
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Excellent recap of the McD era.
Although there is one glaring mistake when Tyler writes about the Denver loss…
“When a defensive coach failed to get that one defensive stop yet again, there were no more excuses to make”
The fact is that the Bills DID make “that one defensive stop” in OT. The play-by-play tells the tale…
1st & 10 at DEN 28 - 11-yd Pass
1st & 10 at DEN 39 - (Shotgun) B.Nix pass incomplete short left to C.Sutton.
2nd & 10 at DEN 39 - (Shotgun) B.Nix pass short right to M.Mims to DEN 38 for -1 yards
3rd & 11 at DEN 38 - (Shotgun) B.Nix pass incomplete deep middle to C.Sutton.
4th & 11 at DEN 38 - J.Crawshaw punts 55 yards to BUF 7, Center-M.Fraboni, out of bounds.
Although your critique of the defense in playoff games is well deserved, what is unsaid (or at least, minimized) is that the last THREE playoff loses, the Bills were in perfect position to win the game with the ball in Josh Allen’s hands with the excellent chance to win the game with a TD
2023 - at home, the Bills have the ball at KC’s 27 yard line. 1 yard run, two incompletions. Missed FG to tie…loss.
2024 - AFCC game at KC. Bills get the ball with 3:33 left. Their last four plays???
Incompletion
Incompletion
5 yard pass
Incompletion - turnover on downs…loss.
-2025 - the Bills had TWO chances to end the game. In regulation and in OT. They only needed a FG in OT. Yet…they failed.
Yes, the defense has left a lot to be desired in playoff time, especially from a defense HC.
But man ‘o man, if the offense has the ball with a extremely good chance to win the game, and do not, it is pretty damning.