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It happened again. The Buffalo Bills had a chance to beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs and they blew it, losing 32-29 in the AFC Championship Game. It is a gut-punch to Bills Mafia, but also a feeling they know all too well. Now the fanbase and the team must pick themselves up off the mat, dust themselves off, and do what Buffalo fans do best: Hope that next year is finally the year. But the truth is, it won’t be unless the Bills fire head coach Sean McDermott.
If you are a member of Bills Mafia, you are all too familiar with this feeling. It was the feeling you had every post-Super Bowl Monday from 1991 to 1994. It was the feeling you had somewhere between Week 4 and Week 8 or so when the playoff hopes mercifully ended from 2000 to 2017 when the Bills finally broke their playoff drought.
Yes, this season seemed different. Josh Allen was the MVP of the league in the regular season, having one of the greatest quarterback campaigns in NFL history. But that wasn’t enough in the end.
And sure, Allen didn’t play great in the AFC Championship and the referees made some unconscionable spots that hurt the Bills and Dalton Kincaid dropped a pass that would have extended the game but none of those are the biggest reason the Bills lost to the Chiefs.
The biggest reason is that for the fourth time in the NFL playoffs, Andy Reid outcoached, outclassed, and out-just-about-everything-else’d McDermott.
Let’s start by saying that McDermott is not a bad coach. He seems like a good coach who can obviously help guide a team to the playoffs, and pretty far in the playoffs at that. But when the rubber meets the road and the best of the best face off, Reid, and even Zac Taylor, have shown that they are much better head coaches.
That’s why Buffalo must fire Sean McDermott in a nutshell. But now let’s get into all the much more specific reasons, many of which showed up in the Bills’ AFC Championship Game loss to the Chiefs.
Sean McDermott cannot bring the Bills to a Super Bowl
There are two overarching reasons the Bills must fire Sean McDermott. One is that he is a defensive coach in charge of a team that desperately needs an offensive guru at the helm, and the other is that he has poor judgment and decision-making.
Starting with the judgment and decision-making and working backward, this is a coach who once extolled the teamwork of the 9/11 hijackers in a motivational speech. That stunning lack of awareness (at best) is a fire-able offense on its own.
McDermott’s bad moves showed up during the season, too, like when Josh Allen threw three times and then the team punted to ultimately lose the game in Week 5 against the Houston Texans.
In the AFC Championship Game, McDermott settled for a field goal in the first drive, and that was ultimately the difference in a three-point game. He also — either himself or by allowing offensive coordinator Joe Brady to do it — is responsible for the Bills running failed QB sneaks time after time after time against the Chiefs.
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This is the perfect segue because the sneaks perfectly illustrate both McDermott’s poor decision-making and the issue with him being a defensive head coach.
The most obvious flaw in the Bills’ coaching against the Chiefs was their inability to pick up first downs with a sneak on 3rd- and 4th-and-1 or goal to go. They only gave it to Cook once in those situations (and he scored) and the sneak simply didn’t work. They also couldn’t stop Patrick Mahomes from rolling out and running on big downs.
This is all because Reid is one of the best offensive-minded head coaches of all time, and McDermott is not. His defense stunk this season and the offensive play-calling was wanting in the biggest moments.
Allen turns 29 in May and has seven NFL seasons under his belt. If the Bills organization does not at least give him a chance with a new, offensive-minded head coach, they will have wasted one of the most promising careers in league history.
And while we’re at it here, Bills owner Terry Pegula can fire general manager Brandon Beane, too.
Beane drafted Josh Allen and some other very good players (James Cook, Ed Oliver, Gregory Rousseau) and has been good at signing minor free agents who contribute (see: Mack Hollins). However, he has only drafted one real Pro Bowler outside of Allen (Cook, although Dawson Knox did make it as an alternate one season) and his last three top picks came back to bite the Bills in the AFC Championship Game.
Last draft, Beane traded down with the Chiefs, who picked Xavier Worthy and took Keon Coleman. On Sunday night, Worthy had six catches for 85 yards and a touchdown while Coleman had one catch for 12 yards.
The year before that, Beane took tight end Dalton Kincaid, who made the game-losing drop, and the year before that, it was cornerback Kaiir Elam, who the Chiefs targeted all game after Christian Benford went out and forced McDermott to play the first-round bust.
So, there it is. If the Bills have any chance of not wasting Josh Allen’s career, they must fire Sean McDermott — and probably Brandon Beane, too — now.
