The Buffalo Bills surprised the football world on Monday morning, firing head coach Sean McDermott after nine seasons with the team. The move came after the team’s loss to the Broncos in the AFC Divisional Round of the playoffs.
Buffalo becomes the tenth team in the NFL to undergo a head coaching change this offseason, further adding to what’s been a chaotic coaching carousel in January. They’re the eighth team with a vacancy, as the New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons filled theirs with John Harbaugh and Kevin Stefanski, respectively.
As the Bills part ways with their longtime head coach, there have already been plenty of strong reactions to the bold firing. Join us as we grade Buffalo’s decision.
Grading the Sean McDermott Firing
All things considered, the Bills had a hump they just couldn’t get over. They’d made the postseason in eight of the nine seasons McDermott was their head coach, but they didn’t win the AFC Championship in any of them. They won the AFC East five times in a row before their streak ended in 2025, and despite Josh Allen playing at or near an MVP level throughout that time, they just couldn’t get the job done.
In a sense, this is a more extreme version of the Baltimore Ravens firing John Harbaugh. Just as the Ravens did, the Bills achieved plenty of success under McDermott. In this particular case, he led the franchise to its most sustained success since the days of Marv Levy in the 1980s and 1990s.
Was McDermott really the problem in Buffalo, though? Over the last few years, they’ve had a few missing pieces at key positions, including wide receiver, cornerback, and defensive end. Their swings at such positions in the draft include Keon Coleman, Maxwell Hairston, and Landon Jackson, respectively. The latter two are still rookies, but the early returns on those players haven’t been great.
Firing McDermott has already brought out intense reactions from the Bills’ locker room. Among other reactions, defensive tackle Jordan Phillips called the move “stupid” and “sickening”. Cornerback Taron Johnson posted the comment “smh” on Instagram, and other anonymous players responded with “WTF” and “I’m shook”.
McDermott was clearly a well-liked leader within the Bills’ organization, and making him the scapegoat for the team’s inability to reach the Super Bowl is a bold choice. However, given general manager Brandon Beane’s inability to address glaring roster needs, I’d argue McDermott isn’t the most responsible.
Should McDermott want to coach again in 2025, he’ll get a head coaching job somewhere else in the NFL. There are multiple head-coaching vacancies available, and it would be smart for all of them to include him in their search. He’s been far too successful as a head coach to settle for a defensive coordinator job, too.
The Bills had a clear hurdle they couldn’t overcome, and it’s clear they needed to be more aggressive making chances to hunt for a Super Bowl appearance, let alone a victory. But I don’t believe firing McDermott was the move they needed to make. It will be very difficult for them to find a better head coach on the open market right now.
