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Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott speaks during his postseason news conference at One Bills Drive on Thursday. Derek Gee, Buffalo News
Sean McDermott needs to take a hard look at his defense and make some structural changes for next season.
That means reconsidering the profile he and defensive coordinator Bobby Babich use for what they’re looking for at some positions.
It means finding a way to get better at man coverage.
It means revising the blitz plan and making it better.
The loss to Kansas City needs to cause some defensive soul-searching. The exact specifics? McDermott and Babich are the experts. They need to figure it out.
Sitting back and saying we need to do the things we do just a little bit better isn’t the answer after getting eliminated from the playoffs by the Chiefs for the fourth time in five years.
It isn’t just that the Bills lost to a great opponent. They allowed the Chiefs to have, by some measures, their best offensive day of the year – again. Doesn’t something need to change, McDermott was asked Thursday?
No head coach is going to offer hard critiques four days after the end of the season, but McDermott at least acknowledged the problem.
“It’s a fair question,” he said. “You know, we’ve played really good defense for a long time here. That’s what we’re used to doing. I would say this year, probably not as good as we played in the years prior. ... We didn’t perform well enough in the Kansas City game. ... We did make a key stop ... to allow us to go have a chance to win the game, which is, prospectively, an important piece. But to your point, we have to figure out a way to perform better against that football team.”
All of Bills Mafia can be heard proclaiming: Amen.
McDermott constantly preaches that a good defense starts with a dominant front four. It is a sound philosophy that was as true in 1985 as it is in 2025.
“A really good defense starts up front,” he said again Thursday. “Winning games, winning the line of scrimmage, is critical. And I felt like we did that at some times this year, not enough.”
Let’s start with getting a little bigger and stouter up front. That means more talented beef.
DaQuan Jones is 33 and has had three good years in Buffalo. It would be nice to have someone even bigger next to Ed Oliver.
Here’s a second guess: Maybe the Bills should have traded down in April and taken 355-pound T’Vondre Sweat, who went 38th overall to Tennessee. (I was not calling for this at the time.) Sweat was great for the Titans this year. McDermott has resisted getting space eaters because he wants all of his front four attacking gaps and getting up field. Maybe Babich and general manager Brandon Beane will put a little more emphasis on the beef and a little less on the get-off in this draft class.
The other aspect of McDermott winning with the front four relates to the edge rush. Houston put the Chiefs’ offense under wraps just two weeks ago with its great edge talent. But the Texans have the No. 3 overall pick in Will Anderson.
A dominant edge rushing cast probably is not walking through the Orchard Park door in 2025.
The Bills are drafting 30th this year. You’re very unlikely to get a game-wrecking edge rusher at No. 30. In fact, the best edge rusher you’re likely to get at that spot is Greg Rousseau, picked by Beane at No. 30 in 2021. He’s very good. The Bills need to give him an extension. But he’s not Houston’s Anderson.
Obviously, the Bills are going to need to add another couple edge rushers somewhere, since Von Miller has to go for age and financial reasons.
Regardless of who the Bills add, they’re going to need Babich to do a better job of manufacturing a rush.
This doesn’t mean the Bills need to become Rex Ryan reckless. But they ranked 27th in the NFL this year, blitzing at a 20.4% rate (according to Buffalo News charting). Not high enough. Babich needs to be a little more aggressive. Who’s the best on the planet at manufacturing pass rush? You know it. It’s Kansas City’s Steve Spagnuolo. Is it that hard to copy some of his rush packages?
Oh, wait. You need to play more man coverage to blitz. The Bills played man coverage on nearly half of Mahomes’ drop backs (47.1%), according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Mahomes was 12 of 15 for 169 against man. Spagnuolo has a more talented defensive cast than Babich.
McDermott was honest on this one.
“You guys saw, they’re getting the ball out fast,” he said of the Chiefs’ first drive. “We’re playing zone, and so we’ve got to tighten it up. ... When they’re getting the ball out fast and you’re in zone, you can sit there and go live a slow death, or you can tighten it up and play man. We call it dog when you’re trying to blitz. Or (you) play front and covers, which we just call man (meaning a safety or two protecting deep). So, in this case, we did both. It didn’t go great, you know, as everyone saw.”
Obviously, losing cornerback Christian Benford to injury early in the game hurt. Last year the Bills had legitimate injury excuses vs. Kansas City. There were enough healthy people this year.
“Unfortunately, the matchups weren’t great for us, and so you’re seeing some things happen in the back end,” McDermott said. “Losing CB was not easy, and they exposed us in some spots there.”
Find some corners who are better at playing man coverage. Kaiir Elam was supposed to do it. He has flopped. Find other options.
McDermott has done great things in Buffalo, obviously. The team exceeded expectations this year. It would be wrong to let the emotion of the K.C. loss overshadow all these wins. McDermott is a strong leader. His coaching staffs are excellent overall. He sets a great tone. His ability to build and motivate a cohesive, unselfish locker room is a huge part of the team’s sustained success. Yes, his culture works.
He needs to do more to get to the Super Bowl.
“You should know, it’s not like we stick with things, just to stick with things, because that’s how we’ve always done it,” McDermott stressed, unprovoked. “That’s the last thing we do. We do throw a million things at the wall. It’s already begun up in my office, in Brandon’s offices. That’s part of what becoming better is.”
Good. Let’s see what the head coach comes up with.
