The Buffalo Bills fired Sean McDermott on Monday morning. Nine years, 98 regular season wins, zero Super Bowl appearances. Let that sink in for a second.
The official statement from owner Terry Pegula did what official statements always do—praised the departing coach while stabbing him in the back. "Sean has done an admirable job of leading our football team for the past 9 seasons," Pegula said. Then came the knife: "But I feel we are in need of a new structure within our leadership to give this organization the best opportunity to take our team to the next level."
Translation: we're wasting Josh Allen's prime and we finally noticed.
The numbers tell a damning story
McDermott leaves Buffalo with a 98-50 regular season record. Eight playoff appearances in nine years. Five consecutive AFC East titles from 2020 to 2024. And yet—four divisional round exits in five seasons. Two AFC Championship losses to the Chiefs.
The Bills have accumulated 91 victories (including playoffs) from 2019 through 2025. That's the most over a seven-season span without a Super Bowl appearance in NFL history. Read that again. The most wins ever without getting to the big game.
Saturday's 33-30 overtime loss to Denver was the final straw. But anyone paying attention knew the dam was cracking. McDermott's defense has been getting progressively softer. The aggressive schemes that defined early Buffalo teams gave way to something safer, more conservative. And safe doesn't beat Patrick Mahomes.
J.J. Watt isn't wrong about the carousel
Former NFL star J.J. Watt took to social media after the news broke, pointing out the absurdity of the current NFL coaching landscape. Both Josh Allen's team and Lamar Jackson's team—two of the best players in the league—are now searching for new coaches.
The Bills and Ravens vacancies stand out because they have franchise quarterbacks. Meanwhile, Ben Johnson, Mike Vrabel, and Liam Coen all made the playoffs in their first seasons with Chicago, New England, and Jacksonville respectively.
The bar, as Watt noted, is "extremely high" for whoever takes these jobs.
What actually happened in Denver
Let me be blunt: Josh Allen had four turnovers against the Broncos. Four. That's not exclusively on coaching—Allen has to protect the football in playoff games. But McDermott's fourth-quarter play-calling was baffling. Conservative when they needed aggressive, predictable when they needed creative.
The Broncos had no business being in that game in the fourth quarter. Yet there they were, forcing overtime, then winning on a Ja'Quan McMillian interception that McDermott questioned in his postgame presser. Blame the refs all you want. A team with Buffalo's talent shouldn't be in a position where one call decides their season.
The real problem nobody's addressing
Here's what Terry Pegula didn't say: the roster construction has been inconsistent for years. Brandon Beane—who got promoted to president of football operations Monday instead of fired—has made some head-scratching moves. Wide receiver acquisitions that never panned out. Defensive pieces that didn't fit McDermott's scheme. Draft picks that disappeared.
McDermott told his staff Monday that he intends to continue coaching, per ESPN's Adam Schefter. With vacancies in Miami, Tennessee, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Arizona, and Cleveland, he'll have options. The irony? He might end up with a worse roster elsewhere and produce similar results—because Buffalo's problem was never just coaching.
But ownership needed a sacrifice. McDermott was it. Beane survives to build another roster that might or might not support whoever they hire next.
Who's next?
John Harbaugh went to the Giants. Kevin Stefanski landed in Atlanta. The Bills will now compete for whoever's left. Klint Kubiak? Jesse Minter? A retread like Mike McDaniel or Brian Daboll coming back?
Buffalo will debut a new stadium next season. They'll have a shiny new coach on the sideline. And Josh Allen will turn 30 in 2026 with still no Super Bowl ring.
Something tells me we'll be having this same conversation in three years. Different coach, same result. Because until Pegula understands that winning in the NFL requires more than just swapping faces, the Bills will keep being the team that almost gets there.
Nine years wasn't too long to keep McDermott. It was too long to keep pretending the problems stopped at coach.