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Fan confidence in Sean McDermott never has been lower.
There have been darker times than these. A profound misery descended upon Buffalo Bills fans the past two winters, when promising seasons imploded without reaching the AFC title game, let alone the Super Bowl.
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But at least the hope of “next year” beckoned each time. The Bills continued to dominate the AFC East. They looked like perennial contenders. They were elite.
Hope is fragile now. When it comes to a title run, there might not even be a “this year” anymore.
The Bills have lost four of their past six games, three of them blowing a lead inside the final two minutes. They are 6-6, in the bottom half of the conference and three slots outside the playoff picture. The Miami Dolphins are heavily favored Sunday to extend their division lead over the Bills to three games with five to play.
All that, compounded by the agony of those previous letdowns, is why many Bills supporters want McDermott fired.
They probably won’t get their wish.
Although additional calamities may befall McDermott over the next month and a half and alter the organization’s plans, four sources familiar with Terry Pegula’s thinking tell The Athletic the Bills’ owner has neither the desire nor plans to make a coaching change.
The sources requested anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak on the record.
Asked if there was any chance Pegula would fire McDermott, two of the sources replied “Zero.” The other two sources said they would be shocked if Pegula made such a move. All four sources have intimate knowledge of the Pegula-McDermott relationship.
The sources said Pegula still holds McDermott in high regard despite this year’s dip and doesn’t want to meddle with the strong working bond McDermott has with Bills general manager Brandon Beane. The Bills announced in June they had signed McDermott and Beane to contract extensions through 2027.
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McDermott has been an uncommonly good coach for Pegula, whose NFL and NHL hiring record is bleak.
Pegula bought the Bills in September 2014 and wanted to retain Doug Marrone, but a contract clause allowed Marrone to leave with a $4 million payout in the event of an ownership change. The Bills filled the vacancy with Rex Ryan but fired him before the end of his second season. Since buying the Buffalo Sabres nearly 13 years ago, Pegula is on his seventh coach. Don Granato, at just 214 games, has stood behind Pegula’s bench the longest.
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McDermott’s and Granato’s tenures have provided a level of stability Pegula has craved since getting into the sports business.
McDermott also wins a lot. His .624 win percentage is the highest in Bills history and eighth among active NFL coaches. Five current coaches with Super Bowl rings own lower win percentages. He is instrumental in transforming the culture at One Bills Drive, ending a 17-year playoff drought in his first campaign, making the playoffs five times in six seasons and claiming the past three AFC East crowns.
For a growing number of frustrated Bills fans, all that amounts to jack squat without a championship.
Buffalo hasn’t been to the Super Bowl in three decades. McDermott this summer hung a large Lombardi Trophy banner with the message “ONE TEAM, ONE GOAL” inside the Bills fieldhouse. Yet they’ve slid further away each of the past three winters.
They lost to the Kansas City Chiefs in the 2020 AFC Championship Game, were dragged into overtime and lost to the Chiefs in the divisional round a year later and were manhandled by the Cincinnati Bengals in the divisional round a year ago.
Now, the Bills are fighting merely to make the tournament.
AFC playoff picture
A loud Bills Mafia contingent doesn’t want to hear anymore how McDermott helped navigate the organization through a brutal 2022, when co-owner Kim Pegula suffered a debilitating cardiac arrest, the community endured a racist mass shooting that killed 10, destructive winter weather forced the Bills to play three road games in a 12-day stretch (winning them all) and Damar Hamlin nearly died at their feet.
They also don’t want to hear much about this year’s injuries to defensive tackle DaQuan Jones, All-Pro linebacker Matt Milano and cornerback Tre’Davious White.
Fans are angry and worried franchise quarterback Josh Allen seemed to somehow lose his zest for the game until recently, that Buffalo has been flubbing so many close games, that McDermott hasn’t appreciably sharpened the team, that perennial Super Bowl contention no longer feels secure.
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McDermott is in the bull’s-eye of blame.
And along the way, unanswered questions have accumulated. What truly caused the 13-second fiasco? Why did defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier suddenly leave the team in February? What was Stefon Diggs’ issue with the team this offseason? How much of the offense’s malaise was Ken Dorsey’s doing or residue from McDermott’s mandates?
The Bills’ plus-101 scoring differential ranks fourth in the NFL. The closest team with at least six losses is the Minnesota Vikings at plus-21.
That means Buffalo has won a lot of games comfortably. A coach, of course, deserves credit for such results with how he prepared his players throughout the week and oversaw effective game plans.
But it also means Buffalo has struggled when scores are close, circumstances that can reveal how well a coach handles pressure and manages crunchtime.
Defeats this year have been disconcerting. When laughingstock Jacksonville Jaguars coach Urban Meyer beat the Bills without scoring a touchdown in 2021, it was viewed as an unfortunate outlier.
Today, gut punches feel inevitable. The wallops started on opening night when they bowed to the New York Jets and quarterback Zach Wilson, who two months later lost his job. McDermott’s defense has squandered three victories after the Bills scored a touchdown to take a lead inside the final two minutes. Busted coverages … too many men on the field … wasted timeouts … one of those crushing drives was orchestrated by Mac Jones, another benched AFC East quarterback.
On Sunday, the Bills made history. They became the first team in 40 occasions since the 1970 NFL-AFL merger to lose despite gaining at least 500 yards, converting 10 third downs and winning the turnover battle. It’s also rare to lose when starting overtime with a field goal drive.
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Buffalo has lost both overtime games, dropping McDermott’s career record to 1-6. That’s tied with Dom Capers for the worst win percentage among coaches with at least seven OT games. McDermott’s lone victory happened almost by accident in the 2017 Snowvertime game versus the Indianapolis Colts.
The Bills are 2-6 in one-possession games. They’ve yo-yoed back and forth in this scenario since they began winning division titles. They went 6-1 in 2020, 0-6 two years ago and 7-3 last season.
Over his career, McDermott is 28-28 when the final margin is eight points or fewer, 13-10 when it’s three points or fewer.
The past three seasons, the Bills are tied with the Baltimore Ravens for the worst record when taking a one-score lead into the two-minute warning. Each owns a .600 win percentage, but Baltimore has 15 wins to Buffalo’s six. The average NFL team has an .800 success rate and 15 wins over that span.
Against opponents that qualify for the playoffs, McDermott is 11-23 in the regular season with a scoring differential of minus-256. Since 2019, when the Bills started going to the playoffs every year, they’ve gone 9-12 (their .429 win percentage ranks fifth, .105 percentage points above the league average) and minus-27 (sixth, 113.5 points better than the league average).
Another measure of a coach’s acumen is how well he handles challenges and how readily he’s willing to risk/waste timeouts.
McDermott has an awful history with the red flag. He is 7-22 at challenges. Peers also in their seventh coaching season include Kyle Shanahan at 20-16, Doug Pederson at 18-20, Sean McVay at 15-18 and Todd Bowles at 11-12. Seven coaches who got their starts later than McDermott have gotten at least eight calls overturned.
Even among Bills coaches, McDermott’s success rate lags. Ryan was 34-33 over his career, Marrone went 26-16, Chan Gailey went 6-11 and Dick Jauron went 22-30.
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All these stats get to the heart of the reason Bills fans are furious with McDermott.
But crowdsourcing doesn’t matter when it comes to his job security.
Terry Pegula is the only person who counts.
Similar to the Bills Mafia horde that begged him to build a dome stadium in Buffalo instead of an open-air arena across Abbott Road in Orchard Park, what fans desire — no matter their volume — Pegula is going to follow his plan.
Barring catastrophe, those close to Pegula insist McDermott will remain a driving force in molding the Bills’ future.
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(Photo of Sean McDermott: Perry Knotts / Getty Images)
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