Joining Sean McDermott as he takes one final trip through Highmark Stadium
Sunday afternoon, McDermott will coach his 97th game in Orchard Park. Barring a strange turn of events leading into and including the first round of the postseason, it will likely be the final one in the stadium the Bills have called home for the past 53 years.
One day this season, Sean McDermott stopped to do the math.
The Buffalo Bills’ head coach figures that, over his nine years on the job, he has spent at least a good month of his life on the home sideline at Highmark Stadium.
His calculation is almost dead on. An eight-hour shift for 96 home games − preseason and postseason included, starting a few hours before kickoff and ending when his postgame news conference concludes − comes out to 768 hours, or 32 days.
Bills coach Sean McDermott takes in a quiet moment Saturday night in the tunnel of Highmark Stadium the night before the final regular-season home game.
Derek Gee/Buffalo News
Sunday afternoon, McDermott will coach his 97th game in Orchard Park. Barring a strange turn of events leading into and including the first round of the postseason, it will likely be the final one in the stadium the Bills have called home for the past 53 seasons.
Immediately after Sunday’s postgame news conference wraps up, McDermott will walk over to his office inside the team’s fieldhouse, where he will start preparations for the Bills’ first postseason opponent. His schedule won’t leave time for a proper goodbye to the stadium in which he has spent so much time over the last decade, which is why he was determined to make that time.
Fulfilling a lifelong dream
Saturday night, after the Bills had concluded their final team meetings ahead of facing the New York Jets, McDermott invited The Buffalo News to accompany him on a walk through of what has become his home away from home.“I wish I could bottle it up,” he said. “I really do. I love this stuff, man. I'm very thankful to be able to go out here one more time tonight, because God has been so good to me and my family, bringing us here.”
McDermott’s first stop Saturday night was the small office he uses in the home locker room. It is the same one Marv Levy sat in – a realization that is not lost on McDermott. A Bills backdrop that McDermott had up behind him for his Zoom calls during the Covid-19 season remains on the wall. The black leather couch that he slept on that season ahead of the team’s first home playoff game in 24 seasons is still there. A family member had falsely tested positive for Covid-19 ahead of the wild-card game against the Indianapolis Colts. McDermott was forced to quarantine in his office until both he and the family member he had been in close contact with returned negative tests. That didn’t happen until about three hours before kickoff.
From there, McDermott headed into the locker room. The uniforms had already been hung in each player’s locker, complete with the legendary red helmets that fans are so excited to see.
“It's probably a good thing you guys are here, because I'm not crying as much as I probably would if I was here by myself,” McDermott said.
His whole life, McDermott wanted nothing more than to be in a locker room. His father, Rich, coached at the Division III level, and instilled that excitement in his son.
“I'm like, 'Oh, man, I get to go in a locker room. It's so cool, seeing the helmets,' " he said. "Now, this is a pro locker room. These red helmets, that's special. You think about how many times these uniforms have been put out the night before a game here. I mean, how many years is it?”
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott stops to take in the locker room the night before the final regular season home game at Highmark Stadium, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026.
Derek Gee/Buffalo News
More than 50. More than 50 years of blood, sweat and tears have produced even a smell that is distinctive to the Bills’ home locker room. McDermott couldn’t help but laugh at how much he’ll miss that smell. He paused in the middle of the room at the Bills’ logo on the carpet, where the team holds its pre-game prayer. These traditions will undoubtedly continue in the fall when the new stadium opens, but they won’t be quite the same.
“If you could hear all the conversations that took place before a game, at halftime. Some really good, some really bad,” McDermott said. “Coaches yelling at players, players yelling at coaches, coaches yelling at coaches. ... I'm sure that's what some of the coaches who have retired miss. They miss that part.”
The first snow storm
When McDermott first came to Buffalo in January 2017, he really had no idea what he was getting into. He just wanted a chance to be a head coach. He knew that the Bills hadn’t made the playoffs in some time, but truthfully, he was unaware that the drought was 17 years.He also knew that it snowed a lot … but maybe not this much.
As he stood in the tunnel Saturday night, he thought back to Dec. 10, 2017, when a lake-effect storm dumped feet of snow on the stadium − immediately before and during a game against the Colts. Before kickoff, McDermott turned to one of the security guards and asked if the accumulation was normal, fearing the answer would be yes.
“Not at all,” was the response.
“Our coaches had to come down to the sideline from the booth, because they couldn’t see the field,” the coach recalled with a laugh.
It was fitting, then, that snow began to fall at a greater rate Saturday night at the exact time he thought back to that game. The constant buzz of a snow-removal tractor on the field pierced the otherwise quiet night sky.
“A kid from Philadelphia, coaching in Buffalo, and gets to experience this. How awesome," McDermott said. "I mean, this is it right here. This reminds me of the San Francisco game from last year. We should just play right now.”
Putting his stamp on his new home
Before taking the Bills job, McDermott had made only a couple trips to Buffalo as an assistant coach. Working first for the Philadelphia Eagles and then the Carolina Panthers, he was in the NFC, so the Bills weren’t a frequent opponent. None of his earlier trips to Buffalo would qualify as particularly memorable. The bus ride from the hotel to the stadium doesn’t exactly offer any million-dollar views. Even when the stadium comes into view, it pales in comparison to some of the modern behemoths in the NFL. Once inside the bowl, the signage looks … dated.McDermott didn’t have a lot of requests when he took over, but one thing he wanted fixed was … the clocks. As part of a sponsorship deal, two large clocks were installed above the 300 level before the coach arrived. The only problem was, the time on them was wrong.
“We want to have a certain standard,” McDermott remembered thinking. “The players are over here, and the clocks are wrong.”
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott takes in a quiet moment to himself in the end zone of Highmark Stadium, the night
before the final regular season home game at the Orchard Park stadium, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Derek Gee/Buffalo News)
The only other change McDermott requested was a seemingly minor one. On the half wall that separates the 100 level from the playing field closest to the visiting sideline, “Welcome to Buffalo” is spelled out in giant, white letters, at McDermott’s request.
“Right at the entrance, just so people know when you come here, where you're at,” he said. “Maybe they should do that in the new stadium. Maybe that'll be my one request.”
Making the new home special
McDermott is not much for luxury. He's never even as much as stepped foot inside his suite at Highmark Stadium. Dressed Saturday night in a blue-and-gray flannel shirt and a pair of jeans, the coach every bit the regular guy, even if he has an irregular job. He gets the business aspect of the NFL. He gets the reasons for building a new stadium, some practical and some economical. He loves the current stadium, though, both for what it is, and maybe even more, what it isn't.He purposely hasn’t had a ton of input into the process, though, with the exception of making sure the Bills’ home-field advantage goes with it across Abbott Road.
“That's what makes it special, isn't it?” he asked. “That's why it talks to you. ... That's what is sad. Maybe I'm old-fashioned, I guess. I understand why (the new stadium had to be built), but it is sad.”
“I said, ‘You've got to have the crowd. It's got to be built so the crowd noise stays in and it's an intimidating setting,’ ” he said. “If you make it too nice, you're going to lose the fabric of Buffalo. If you don't build it the right way, you're going to lose the intimidation factor.”
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott takes a photograph from the tunnel entrance of Highmark Stadium on the night
before the final regular season home game, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. (Derek Gee/Buffalo News)
Appreciating the moment
Time is a thief. It certainly doesn’t feel like the home opener of Highmark’s farewell season, that thrilling, comeback victory over the Baltimore Ravens, was almost four months ago at this point.“Way too fast. Way too fast,” McDermott said of how this season has moved. “It's like getting married, almost. We're like, ‘Oh gosh, we're here. We want it to last.’ That's what I was trying to say three or four weeks ago: ‘Let's not hurry it up.’ Life moves fast, as it is, and moments like this, to see a stadium, let's call it put to rest, it's surreal.
“All those guys that I met when I came here, that you grew up watching, you hear about their stories. The years and years and years of memories, fathers bringing their sons. ... I don't take any of that for granted.”
'Those are my people'
McDermott wasn’t quite alone in the stadium Saturday night. A smattering of snow shovelers were putting the finishing touches on getting the stadium ready for 70,000 fans to visit one more time. Slowly, they started to realize it was the head coach on the field. One by one, they came down to offer a “Go Bills!” McDermott then took time to invite each of them on the field, take a picture with them and thank them for their work.“I was in the walkway heading out, and I said, ‘I think that's Sean McDermott down there. Let's pop down there,’ ” said John Haberman, 24, of Hamburg. “It’s great to see the head coach checking out what the stadium looks like before the game.”
Kathryn Wirtanen, 26, of Buffalo, is a transplant from Wisconsin. She had never been to Highmark Stadium before coming to shovel Saturday. Meeting McDermott and taking a picture, she said, was going to leave all of her co-workers in disbelief.
"So are you a Bills fan?" she was asked.
“I am now,” she said.
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott pauses to take selfies with fans who were shoveling snow in the stands at Highmark Stadium as he heads back to work after taking a moment to soak in the empty stadium on the night before the final regular season home game, which could be the final game ever played at the Orchard Park stadium, Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. Derek Gee/Buffalo News
As he made his way back up the tunnel, McDermott paused for another look back. The green field was covered in a fresh layer of white snow.
“Those are my people, man,” he said of the stadium workers grinding into the night. “I’m very grateful as a human being to get to experience this.”
Hoping for one more game
At first, McDermott hoped there was a bit more at stake Sunday.The Bills could slightly improve their seeding with a win, but that is also dependent on what other teams do. That left McDermott feeling a bit conflicted on how he anticipates feeling as game time approaches. The coach is a realist. He sees the postseason standings and knows that a home playoff game is unlikely − that Sunday probably does mean goodbye.
The job isn't done, though. The Bills’ playoff push will then commence, but it will be away from home.
“I wish we could have done it here,” McDermott said. “Maybe we will. You never know. Maybe somehow we get to play here again. Man, that would be unbelievable.”