After yet another soul-crushing playoff loss, the Buffalo Bills have fired head coach Sean McDermott. Now the question is, who’s the next person to try to lead Josh Allen and company to a Super Bowl? To help answer that question, here are the Bills’ top five Sean McDermott head coach replacement candidates available right now.
Hired in 2017, McDermott helped the Bills break an 18-year playoff drought and led the franchise to eight playoff appearances, five AFC East titles, and two AFC Championship Games. However, he was never able to get Allen over the hump and presided over debacles like the 13-Seconds Game, Wide Right II, and whatever we will call Sunday’s Debacle in Denver in a few years.
This was ultimately a necessary move, although you can argue about whether owner Terry Pegula went far enough, keeping general manager Brandon Beane (for now). But like Tony Dungy in Tampa Bay and Andy Reid in Philadelphia, it was simply time to try something new, because what was happening year after year wasn’t working.
Now the Bills must turn their attention to head coach candidates on a market that has already started to move and was also a little slim on offensive minds to begin with. And that is what Buffalo needs. After nearly a decade of a defensive-minded head coach, the Bills need an offensive play-caller who can help take Allen to the next level.
With that in mind, the options are bringing back a familiar name, taking a gamble on a young, unproven offensive Wizkid, or digging back days of Super Bowls past and dusting off a Lombardi-hoisting head coach who has been out of the game for a while.
So, here are—not necessarily in ranked order—the Bills’ top five Sean McDermott head coach replacement candidates to help get Josh Allen over the hump.
Brian Daboll
The first and most obvious name you will hear come up is former New York Giants head coach and, prior to that, Bills offensive coordinator, Brian Daboll.
Daboll took a young, undisciplined, and wildly talented first-round pick out of Wyoming and shaped him into an NFL MVP. Based on his development of Allen (and a rumored rift with McDermott), Daboll took the Giants job in 2022.
After making Daniel Jones a Pro Bowl, playoff QB in his first season, things deteriorated from there. After winning nine games in his first season, Daboll won just 11 over his next three campaigns. He did start to do some good things with Jaxson Dart, but the dysfunctional Giants decided to let him go anyway.
Reports are that Daboll and Allen have always had a father/son-type relationship, and maybe a little parental discipline is what the QB needs after giving the ball away four times against the Broncos on Sunday.
Hiring Daboll could be the easiest path of least resistance for the Bills to pivot from the McDermott Era without totally scrapping it.
Klint Kubiak
Now we enter the young offensive coordinator section of the Bills’ head coach options, starting with Seattle Seahawks OC Klint Kubiak.
Klint is the 38-year-old son of Gary Kubiak, the longtime Broncos offensive coordinator for John Elway. He then became the Houston Texans and then Broncos head coach, and in that latter position, he won a Super Bowl with Peyton Manning.
Klint is following in his dad’s footsteps, working on his father’s staff, then branching out with the Minnesota Vikings, Broncos again, San Francisco 49ers, and New Orleans Saints before landing in the Pacific Northwest this season.
As the OC under defensive-minded head coach Mike Macdonald, Klint has taken Sam Darnold to heights he’s never reached before, helped the team get the No. 1 seed in the NFC, and aided in Jaxson Smith-Njigba becoming arguably the best wide receiver in the league.
Between his NFL lineage and overall experience, Klint Kubiak seems like the most likely sub-40-year-old coordinator to get the Bills head coach job.
Davis Webb
While Davis Webb doesn’t have the coaching pedigree that Kubiak does, he is a 30-year-old wunderkind who played five seasons as an NFL quarterback and is quickly flying up the coaching ranks as the Broncos' quarterbacks coach under Sean Payton.
He is a hot name who the insiders say is destined to be an NFL head coach someday. Much like Sean McVay, who came up under the Shanahans and got a head coaching job at an incredibly young age, Webb would be a a bit of a gamble due to his lack of experience, but to find a unicorn like McVay, you have to roll the dice.
So, the Bills would have to accelerate the timeline a bit, but this would be a swing for the fences. Outside of the job he is doing with Bo Nix, Webb knows Allen and the Bills intimately. He was Allen’s backup from 2019-21 and went with Daboll as a backup on the Giants.
Everyone seems to think that Webb could be the next McVay at some point. In order to take advantage of that, the Bills would have to pounce, possibly, a year too early instead of a year too late, and that is dicey but could pay off with Super Bowls.
Jon Gruden
In 2002, the staked Tampa Bay Buccaneers fired Tony Dungy, who had taken the team to the playoffs four times in five years, and traded for then-Oakland Raiders head coach Jon Gruden.
Gruden immediately won a Super Bowl in a seemingly similar situation to what the Bills face now. And after the Sean McDermott firing, some Bills fans are saying only a Super Bowl-winning coach makes sense as a replacement.
Enter Gruden, who has been with Barstool Sports for the past year-plus after his email scandal with the Raiders. If he is looking to get back into coaching, joining up with Josh Allen is the best opportunity he’ll get.
At the end of his second Raiders tenure, Gruden’s offensive ideas were a little tired. However, if he gets a young, innovative OC (like anyone ranging from Kliff Kingsbury to Webb), he could show the team how to win and get back to the Big Game with all the experience he has.
