Just over a week ago, the Buffalo Bills were considered one of the best-run franchises in the NFL. How quickly things change. Between firing Sean McDermott, promoting Brandon Beane, elevating Joe Brady, and the disastrous Terry Pegula press conference, the Bills are now perilously close to being the laughing stock of the league, like they were for the first two decades of the 2000s.
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results”
Having a Hall of Fame-level franchise quarterback is not something to take for granted. Bills Mafia knows this as well as any fan base. From 1986 to 1996, the Bills had Jim Kelly. And while he never got over that final hurdle, making four consecutive Super Bowls is still one of the most impressive accomplishments in NFL history.
Then, from 1997-2017, the Bills had what felt like a million quarterbacks. And while some became beloved (Doug Flutie, Ryan Fitzpatrick, etc.), none of them were elite, and most were not even that good.
Things changed when the team drafted Josh Allen. Under the tutelage of Brian Daboll and the watchful eye of Sean McDermott, Allen developed into the best football player on earth right now. However, with Daboll bolting to New Jersey, McDermott could never get the team over the AFC playoffs hump, whether it was Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, or now Bo Nix in the way.
McDermott was and is a good coach. But the Bills have now wasted several years of Allen's prime by keeping a conservative, defensive-minded head coach at the helm. The QB needs an offensive coach who can rein in his worst tendencies and scheme Allen into some success when the QB or the team as a whole is having an off day. McDermott—and by extension Joe Brady—have proven they couldn't do that.
Firing McDermott made sense. The team and the signal-caller desperately needed a change of leadership, if for no other reason, to get some fresh ideas and vibes in the locker room. Promoting the offensive coordinator who worked under the now-former head coach absolutely does not do any of that.
Why would the Bills go through the whole charade of making a fresh start with Daboll or a young, innovative offensive mind like Davis Webb or Grant Udinski? Well, Bills fans got that answer when owner Terry Pegula stepped to the microphones the Wednesday after the season ended and took questions for the first time in six years.
“It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than open it and remove all doubt”
Terry Pegula, who owns the Buffalo Sabres as well as the Bills, has presided over the Josh Allen era, but also a historic run of ineptitude for the town's hockey team. The Sabres haven't made the playoffs since the 2010-11 season, putting them alongside the New York Jets as the North American pro sports teams with the longest playoff drought.
Pegula finally fired inept Sabres general manager Kevyn Adams in December, and the team is 15-4 since and on pace to finally return to the postseason.
Seeming to learn from this lesson, many Bills fans were optimistic that the McDermott firing would have a similar catalytic result and get the football team over its own seemingly impassable obstacle.
Then the press conference happened.
Before Pegula sat down in front of the media, though, fans were already less enthused about the McDermott situation. That's because many blamed general manager Brandon Beane for the team's failures just as much (if not more) than the head coach. Yes, Beane drafted Allen, but since then, he's only picked two Pro Bowlers—James Cook and Dawson Knox—in the 47 selections he's made.
So, was Beane fired, too? No, he was promoted.
And in the announcement for the McDermott firing and Beane promotion, there was a typo (admiral instead of admirable) in the first sentence of the press release. Is that a little nitpicky? Sure. There's a solid chance there is a typo somewhere in this article. Still, after things like that and the press conference, it's understandable to ask questions about the leadership of the Bills franchise.
Under scrutiny from reporters, Pegula said he fired McDermott because of the loss to the Denver Broncos, but also that he didn't fire him because of one bad call… even though he implied they only lost because of one bad call.
He also placed no blame on Beane and threw second-year wide receiver Keon Coleman under the bus while answering a question that wasn't directly about Coleman and wasn't even addressed to the owner.
Finally, when asked if now that he has taken $850 million in taxpayer money to build a new stadium, would he be more available to the media for questions (his last presser was in 2019), Pegula gave the uninspiring answer of, “I… I think that's a possibility in the future.”
The moral of this story is that Josh Allen covers up a lot of flaws. Because the Bills have won enough in the past eight years and Allen has been so fun to watch, it has covered up the fact that the general manager has not done a good enough job, and the owner might not be very good either.
Those sentiments are now amplified by the fact that the Beane-led coaching search—that was supposed to be a “wide-open” process and turn over every coaching rock in the NFL—came full circle and landed on the OC who couldn't get it done in recent years either.
Maybe Joe Brady is the answer. Maybe this was all Sean McDermott's fault. Maybe the head coach couldn't get the best out of Beane's great draft picks and was hampering Brady's offensive genius.
Unless all those things are true, though, the ending of this story is looking more and more clear by the day.
The Buffalo Bills have the best player in football, and they are going to waste his entire career due to bad coaching, bad general management, and bad ownership.
