Buffalo Authority

The Buffalo Bills fired their winningest head coach in franchise history today, at least from a win/loss percentage standpoint. In two more seasons, Sean McDermott would have passed Marv Levy in total wins, too. In a year when many believed that Sean McDermott did his most admirable (or as Terry would say, admiral) job, he finds himself looking for a new home because the season ended the same way as each of the other nine have: without a Lombardi Trophy. Ultimately Terry Pegula decided that a change of direction was needed to get the Bills to a place that Sean McDermott has been unable to get them to and he decided that the time for that change was now.

It’s an interesting decision from a few angles. Fans have been calling for McDermott to be fired since the “13 Seconds” debacle in 2021. After that game, the Bills regressed – losing in a non-competitive divisional game the next year to the Bengals and then losing once again at home in the same round to the Chiefs in the next year. Last year was a step forward – the Bills held a lead in the 4th quarter of the AFC Championship Game. Going into this year, many believed that McDermott’s seat was getting warm. If you had told fans and media at the start of the year that the team would regress once again, not win the AFC East and lose in the divisional round again, the response for firing McDermott would have been unanimous. Yet here we are hours after the announcement and the response is nearly unanimous – unanimous in the fact that Terry Pegula fired the wrong man. It is quite the remarkable turn of events, and a story you cannot tell without discussing how the season played out.

Speaking of agreement, it was universally accepted this year from fans, former players, and media analysts alike that this roster was massively flawed. Brandon Beane did not draft a wide receiver early in the draft in April claiming in his now infamous appearance on WGR550, that the defense was the problem with the team and the reason they lost in the AFC Championship Game just months prior. He defended the trading of Stefon Diggs and shift to the “everybody eats” mentality by saying the offense scored 30 points in every game last year. That was far from the case this time around. In the games that the Bills lost this year, you can point to the defense keeping them in the game, giving the offense a chance to win with miraculous 2nd half performances to shut down opposing teams. The common denominators in those losses was the inability for the offense to score, wide reciters inability to win 1-1 battles, get open, and push the ball downfield. Despite Beane’s initial belief that this was not a problem, his actions during the year looked like a man who was trying feverishly to save his job, as he scraped through free agents who nobody had wanted for months to give to his MVP quarterback to throw to. Quite the turn from his comments in April that the wide receiver room was fine.

The trade deadline offered another opportunity for Beane to upgrade the roster. When Beane stood pat at the deadline this year, despite seeing the flaws and openness of the AFC, he put even more pressure on himself – make it to the Super Bowl this year or lose your job. When the report that acquiring Jaylen Waddle required a 2026 1st round pick this year, which Beane was not willing to part with (he offered a 2027 1st), many thought he was sealing his fate if they didn’t make the Super Bowl. This year is do or die. And it turns out that it was – just not for him.

Beane bragged about how he improved the defense in the draft, but yet it was the defense who did not register a sack on Saturday night, and never has in their playoff defeats. The defense holding Denver to 30 points after five turnovers seemed like a win – and a win for Sean McDermott and Bobby Babich – who continuously made more with less after injuries piled up on the roster. The Darius Slay decision was a bad one, giving up a valuable depth piece who McDermott valued and relied on in Ja’Marcus Ingram in an attempt to upgrade a CB room all to find out that Slay would rather retire than play here. After some shots at the decision in the media, it was then that the real battle of the year had come into focus: Beane or McDermott. It seemed destined that only one would survive if this team fell short.

The draft classes have left much to be desired from Brandon Beane over the years and people had taken notice, despite Allen’s weekly performances distracting us and covering up the issues. Awful free agent contacts to WR’s such as Curtis Samuel and Joshua Palmer who were plagued by injuries (not Beane’s fault), but could not contribute even when they were healthy. The issue with the Buffalo Bills appeared to be roster construction, and nearly everyone saw it. Josh Allen most likely believed that he had to be Superman because the roster around him is not what it needs to be. To many, that smells like a Brandon Beane problem. But it appears that Terry Pegula does not see it that way. His actions today, firing McDermott and promoting Beane to president of football operations, indicate that it is the owner’s belief that it was McDemott holding the team back and not Beane.

It is fair to question if Sean McDermott knew what was at stake for him on Saturday night. I have watched nearly every press conference Sean McDermott has given since 2017 and what he said on Saturday night after the loss, and then calling Buffalo News Jay Skurski from the team plane to continue his rant is so out of character for him it, it gives the impression that he was lobbying to retain his job by trying to make the case that the NFL and their process was the real issue coming out of the game.

The big picture with Sean McDermott is the context for today – he had nine years to get it done and the closest he got to a Super Bowl was a 4th quarter lead in the AFC Championship Game, all while having the most talented quarterback in the league. From that angle, it makes sense why a changed needed to be made with Allen turning 30 years old in a few months and with about five or six cracks left with him before his level presumably tails off. But part of that big picture is where he gets his players and who has to work with. A move was needed and from what we know on the outside it appears that Beane should have always been gone, and McDermott could have gone with him. But to fire McDermott without Beane, at least from what we know, seems wrong. But what we know on the outside is key – there is much we do not know. We do know that McDermott and Beane operated as separate entities with both men reporting to Pegula. It is not a stretch to think that Beane’s roster construction was at the request of McDermott. If Beane is not his boss and McDermott lobbies to Pegula and is able to convince him of something, then that is what Beane tries to do. And there could be times when Beane’s vision won out. McDermott had a lot of power as the HC, which was warranted when he was hired with Doug Wharly being a lame-duck GM, but maybe behind the scenes that structure ran its course. That will no longer be the case, as Beane will be able to have complete control over the roster and personelle decisions with the HC now clearly under him in the higherarchy.

It’s a move that many disagree with, but one that the man paying for the majority of a 2.1 billion dollar stadium has the right to make. Time will tell if the move was justified or if it was the beginning of the end of the most promising era of Buffalo Bills football in three decades. Right move, wrong move, or indifferent you have to credit Terry Pegula for trying something different as he wants to avoid one of the greatest quarterback of a generation, and the greatest quarterback to ever put on a Bills uniform from leaving town without a shot to play for the most coveted title in sports: Super Bowl Champion. Forget saving the team and building a new stadium, many will say that this is the move that will define Terry Pegula’s legacy as owner of the Buffalo Bills for the rest of time.

Let’s hope he got it right.