Why did the Buffalo Bills fire Sean McDermott?

The Buffalo Bills moved on from head coach Sean McDermott on Monday, just days after the team’s latest playoff exit. It came as a shock to Bills Mafia and reporters alike, who had been digging for information for weeks on the status of the head coach.

Now that some of the dust has settled and before general manager and new Bills president of football operations Brandon Beane meets the media this week, we are starting to get word on what exactly happened. Some of it is speculation. Some of it is genuine reporting. Let us sift it all out.

Sean McDermott wasn’t aligned with Brandon Beane and Terry Pegula

I had been hearing more about this heading into the 2025 season than I had in the past. While most people assumed the pair of Brandon Beane and Sean McDermott were in lockstep because of their history in Carolina, their personalities were never 100% in sync. That isn’t the same as saying there was a rift, but it opened the door that they weren’t a package deal and you could move on from one and keep the other.

There apparently was a divergence opening behind the scenes, too. Vic Carucci of WGRZ has a good connection with the ownership side of the organization and wrote this Tuesday morning.

“I’m told that during a meeting held five weeks ago between McDermott, Beane and Pegula, the coach pointed out what the roster lacked to win a Super Bowl. I don’t know the specifics McDermott mentioned, but I’m told neither Beane nor Pegula was pleased with McDermott’s assessment.”

I wish we had more details to work with regarding the roster disagreement. Five weeks ago puts us in mid-December, well after the trade deadline.

Tom Pelissero of NFL Network was on the Rich Eisen Show Monday discussing the football relationship, as well.

“Certainly with Sean McDermott there were some frustrations that he had and you saw it in terms of certain players who were inactive on game days, kind if a revolving door at wide receiver and whatnot. But ultimately Terry Pegula not only decided to pick, essentially, Brandon Beane over Sean McDermott, he promoted Brandon Beane. He gave him a larger title. Brandon Beane is now going to lead the search for a new head coach and also the coaching staff is now going to report to Beane.”

Taking that information, I also think two more things are clear. Terry Pegula and Brandon Beane share a football vision for the franchise and they feel Sean McDermott didn’t buy in or couldn’t develop the talent to get there.

“Sean McDermott did have significant say over personnel. They were on a horizontal plane in terms of both reporting directly to Terry Pegula.

Sean McDermott didn’t get to the Super Bowl

Nine years is a long time in the NFL and with Josh Allen’s prime, the team had bites at the apple and couldn’t get it done.

Pelissero reported that was a defining factor in the move. The team was good enough to always be in the mix for a Super Bowl, but not prepared or able to win the game to get there.

“They feel like this is a team that should be competing at the highest level. They have not achieved that highest level in terms of getting to a Super Bowl. There are times when owners simply feel it is time.”

Surely McDermott had a large hand in several of the team’s playoff exits. With “13 seconds” being the most egregious mistake, the Bills’ defense also allowed more points to the Kansas City Chiefs in last year’s AFC Championship Game than KC had put on the board all season.

The Bills loss to the Denver Broncos was the latest and probably the worst defeat on paper. It is one thing to lose to Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes or bow out two weeks after the most emotional moment in franchise history with a spent team. It is another to lose to Bo Nix and the upstart Broncos with the New England Patriots heading back to the AFC Championship Game.

Sean McDermott was the last coach left to fire

McDermott has pulled multiple levers on his coaching staff through the years. While Brian Daboll was hired away, McDermott has also willingly made multiple changes to his coaching staff.

He moved on from his defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, his offensive coordinator that replaced Daboll in Ken Dorsey, he even changed special teams coordinators.

For better or worse, each time after hiring Daboll, McDermott promoted from within. It was a staff made in his image.

Roster development was spotty under Sean McDermott

We have already established that McDermott played a pivotal role in the personnel of the team. The Bills invested heavily in the defensive line through McDermott’s tenure and threw a lot at the wall at wide receiver since McDermott’s public spat with Stefon Diggs forced his trade.

Greg Rousseau has developed into a serviceable every-down defensive end and A.J. Epenesa has been a solid-not-great DE. Ed Oliver emerged as a go-to defensive tackle with DaQuan Jones holding down the fort. Beyond that, the Bills have lacked success. Poona Ford has been very good for the Chargers and Rams the last two years, but three years ago in Buffalo he was inactive for a majority of the games. Tim Settle had five sacks for the Texans in 2024 with 31 tackles after two years in Buffalo where he didn’t combine for those numbers. It isn’t just the collection of talent, which would point to Beane as the major decision-maker.

At wide receiver, fans lamented the lack of a true number one receiver without talking about the deterioration of the relationship that led to Diggs being traded in the first place. Then there was the lack of development for Keon Coleman (though I suspect a lot of that can and should be placed at the player’s feet). Buffalo signed Curtis Samuel and Josh Palmer, added Elijah Moore and Gabe Davis, eventually bringing in Mecole Hardman and Brandin Cooks. You may look at this and think about them underperforming in Buffalo, and they did. But they all also underperformed their own best seasons. They didn’t play up to their talent level in Buffalo.

• Josh Palmer: 72 catches for 769 yards in 2022 and 58.1 yards per game in 2023
• Elijah Moore: 59 catches for 640 yards in 2023 and 48.9 yards per game in 2021
• Gabe Davis: 48 catches for 836 yards and 55.7 yards per game in 2022
• Brandin Cooks: 80 catches for 1204 yards and 75.3 yards per game in 2018
• Mecole Hardman: 59 receptions for 693 yards and 40.8 yards per game in 2021
• Curtis Samuel: 77 catches for 851 yards and 56.7 yards per game in 2020

Instead of getting close to their career highs with Josh Allen as their quarterback, they had career lows. So it’s not simply a talent issue, it’s a utilization issue.

• Palmer: 22 catches for 303 yards and and 25.3 yards per game
• Moore: 9 catches for 112 yards and 12.4 yards per game
• Davis: 12 catches for 129 yards and 21.5 yards per game (recovering from injury)
• Cooks: 5 catches for 114 yards and 22.8 yards per game (late addition)
• Hardman: 0 catches in the regular season
• Samuel: 7 receptions for 81 yards and 13.5 yards per game

No one was expecting all of them to have their best seasons ever, but just getting an average season out of them instead of their career-worst years feels like it is a coaching problem and not a talent problem.

Taken individually, each one of these things could have sunk the ship but collectively, it feels like McDermott was probably already on borrowed time heading into 2025, probably all the way back to 13 seconds.