Lance Lysowski: This Bills season may be Sean McDermott's most impressive as coach
Do not discount the impact McDermott made by establishing a winning culture in which everyone at One Bills Drive is held to a playoff-caliber standard. Players across the league now view Buffalo as a destination, the gold standard of how a team should operate.
Coaching the Buffalo Bills from the sideline of Gillette Stadium for four tense quarters took a toll on Sean McDermott's vocal cords.
Addressing his team following their second fourth-quarter comeback in as many weeks, McDermott's voice cracked. He paused, smiled at the dozens of players basking in the thrill of victory, and rolled his shoulders forward, causing laughter to erupt on the night of Dec. 14.
"That's Buffalo Bills football, man," McDermott declared, pounding his fist toward the ground. "Great job!"
The Bills have reached the playoffs in eight of Sean McDermott's nine seasons as coach.
Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
These postgame victory speeches shared by the team on social media are merely a snapshot of the coach responsible for transforming the Bills from a dysfunctional franchise marred in a 17-year playoff drought into one of the NFL's crown jewels.
With a victory Sunday, Buffalo became the fifth team in league history to reach 11 wins in six consecutive seasons. The Bills are playoff-bound for a seventh consecutive season − the longest run since Buffalo became a charter member of the AFL in 1960 − and they are still in the hunt to win the AFC East for a sixth year in a row, though New England holds a one-game lead. The San Francisco 49ers' George Seifert is the only coach with more wins in his first nine seasons than McDermott's 97.
The unprecedented run of success was fueled, in large part, by the decision to select Josh Allen as the franchise quarterback with the seventh pick in the 2018 draft and the infrastructure McDermott had in place to develop a raw, gifted prospect like Allen into an elite passer who became the NFL's most valuable player.
Bills head coach Sean McDermott, left, stands next to quarterback Josh Allen for the national anthem before playing the Browns on Sunday in Cleveland.
Harry Scull Jr., Buffalo News
Do not discount, however, the impact McDermott made by establishing a winning culture in which everyone at One Bills Drive is held to a playoff-caliber standard. Players across the league now view Buffalo as a destination, the gold standard of how a team should operate.
Of all McDermott's accomplishments, including an immediate overhaul that finally made football the franchise's priority, this season has the potential to be his most impressive as coach of the Bills.
"I think it's just holding everybody throughout the building to the standard that we want," said defensive coordinator Bobby Babich, who has been on McDermott's staff since the beginning. "That's the biggest thing in his day in and day out. So, that's the deal there. And certainly every year's different. But if you can, to your point, if you can hold that consistency throughout, you'll more than likely find yourself closer to the results that you want."
Several players on his roster, including starting safety Taylor Rapp and edge rusher Michael Hoecht, were lost to season-ending injuries. The Bills' first-round draft pick, Maxwell Hairston, missed most of training camp and the first six games because of a knee injury.
A torn bicep has limited their top defensive tackle, Ed Oliver, to three games. Through an 11-4 start, only two rookies − defensive tackle Deone Walker (fourth round) and tight end Jackson Hawes (fifth round) − have made a significant impact. The Bills are winning with 34-year-old safety Jordan Poyer and 30-year-old cornerback Tre'Davious White in starting roles. Over the past several weeks, both have been among the defense's best players.
The wide receiver corps is arguably the worst among the teams making the playoffs. When second-year receiver Keon Coleman arrived late to another team meeting, McDermott did not hesitate to bench him. When offensive coordinator Joe Brady called another head-scratching jet sweep, McDermott put his foot down. When the defense kept struggling to stop the run, he got more involved in assisting Babich.
Each week, based on the opponent, McDermott collaborates with his defensive staff to create a game plan that accounts for the players that he is missing and the offense's tendencies. In Week 14, for example, the Bills blitzed more because Joey Bosa joined the list of injured defensive linemen. Some coaches are set in their ways, defiant when the video review shows their strategies are not working with their current players. McDermott molds his defensive game plans like a piece of clay, reshaping coverage schemes and blitz packages to try to get the most out of his players that week. The goal is to win, even if mistakes on game day make it look ugly.
Good coaches develop schemes that get their team into the playoffs. Great ones learn from the deficiencies that are exposed when they get there. For years, McDermott used nickel personnel − four defensive linemen, two linebackers and five defensive backs − as the foundation of his defense, but he pivoted this season in response to a league-wide trend of offenses deploying more plays that use a fullback, a sixth offensive lineman or multiple tight ends.
In addition to using more base looks with three linebackers, McDermott is deploying more dime personnel, which features six defensive backs. The results are mixed. The Bills are among the worst in the NFL at stopping the run, ranking 30th in yards allowed per game (144.3), 31st in yards allowed per rush (5.5) and 31st in rushes of 10-plus yards (63). On the other hand, they are second in passing yards allowed per game (167.1) and sixth in Next Gen Stats' expected points added per pass attempt faced. Though Buffalo is 15th in points allowed per game (22.9), it has given up fewer than 25 points in 10 of 15 games.
Evaluating this defense is not as simple as yards allowed or points against because of the plays it has made in the biggest moments throughout the second half of the season. Over the past four games, Buffalo has forced the third-most takeaways (seven), and its offense has scored the most points off turnovers (43) during that span. Three times this season, the Bills have scored at least 28 points in the second half of a game to overcome a multi-touchdown deficit and win.
A team is not able to rally in that fashion unless its defense makes the proper halftime adjustments and executes the changes coaches implement during the short break. And Buffalo's four losses were mostly the result of its offense's turnovers, not its defense's inability to stop the opponent.
"I think he fully trusts his team," Allen said last week of McDermott. "He really allows us to have the keys to drive this ship. He's very calm, but he's also very supporting, I would say, in going out there and giving us the reins to go be ourselves and play the game of football free."
Thirteen seconds (the 42-36 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC divisional round in 2022) was arguably the lowest point of McDermott's tenure. Some of those past playoff failures still haunt McDermott, and he has revisited those games during the offseason to make sure that he's learned everything he possibly can from the experience. Aware in 2023 of how his offense was too reliant on Allen to play hero ball, McDermott fired his play-caller, Ken Dorsey, and promoted Brady, who implemented a run-first approach that has become Buffalo's foundation.
McDermott, to his credit, has become a more aggressive coach, and he has shown a willingness to adapt in response to defeat. No team has a better winning percentage in December and January over the past five seasons than Buffalo. He and his staff have instilled resolve and resilience, no small feat given how quickly one bad half or quarter can significantly shift the media's narrative about a team.
Ultimately, McDermott and this era of the Bills will be measured by what they accomplish in the postseason. They are 0-5 on the road in playoff games since he became coach. Some of those results are on the coach. But some were the result of a roster that did not have enough depth, like the AFC championship game in January when failed first-round draft pick Kaiir Elam could not cover any of the Chiefs' receivers.
Fans have every right to want more from these Bills. For many, the wounds from the four Super Bowl losses have yet to heal. Others could not imagine during the dark days of the drought that Buffalo would someday become a perennial championship contender. No matter which side you're on, it is safe to assume your expectations for this team have risen. A playoff berth isn't celebrated the way it was back in 2017, when Andy Dalton and the Cincinnati Bengals gave everyone in Western New York a reason to party. But don't take any of this for granted, either.
Look at how quickly the Baltimore Ravens fell apart this season, or the way the Washington Commanders plummeted to the bottom so soon after their trip to the NFC championship game last season. Pressure is on for these Bills to win it all, and we have seen over the past 16 weeks their coach has them prepared for what's to come.
"He knows what to do," White, the first player drafted by McDermott in 2017, said of the team's consistency under its coach. "It just goes to show you, man, when you build a program that's consistent with a great foundation, you build it with people who are willing to connect on a common goal, and you recruit the type of guys who are going to go out and bring other guys along, I feel like he's been doing a great job of that, him and Brandon. ... Also, having a plan and being very organized and being very detail-oriented in what we need to do and what we need to accomplishment."