The Buffalo Bills announced Monday the firing of head coach Sean McDermott after nine seasons in which the team failed to make the Super Bowl.
The Bills lost 33-30 in overtime in Denver on Sunday in the second round of the playoffs. NFL.
McDermott’s reign ends after nine seasons in which he transformed the Bills into a winning team, but never made it to the Super Bowl. The Bills became the first NFL team to win a playoff round six years in a row without reaching the Super Bowl.
Club owner Terry Pegula also changed the structure of the club’s football operations. General manager Brandon Beane has been promoted to president of football operations and will oversee the search for a new coach. He has also been stationed in Buffalo for nine years.
McDermott, 51, finished his tenure with a 98-50 season record and 8-8 playoff record, ranking him second among Bills coaches in wins behind legendary Hall of Famer Marv Levy (112-70, 11-8). Levy accomplished that feat in 11 seasons during which the Jim Kelly-led team reached — and lost — four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990s.
McDermott’s inability to reach the Super Bowl with Josh Allen as his starting quarterback was his undoing. Allen broke many records that previously belonged to Kelly, but the Bills only advanced to the AFC championship game twice, losing each time to the Kansas City Chiefs.
The Bills’ last three playoff losses have all been decided by three points. And three of McDermott’s playoff losses came in overtime.
The latter stat includes a 42-36 loss to the Chiefs in the 2021 sectional playoffs, dubbed 13 seconds
the time it took Patrick Mahomes to complete two passes for gains of 44 yards, which allowed kicker Harrison Butker to tie the score with a 49-yard field goal on the last play of the fourth quarter.
Despite his disappointing playoff results, McDermott led the team to at least 10 season wins in seven consecutive campaigns, including two 13-win seasons, in 2022 and 2024, which tied the team record.
The Bills have qualified for the playoffs in eight of McDermott’s nine years at the helm, including in 2017, when they punched their ticket on the final day of the schedule. Buffalo thus ended a 17-year drought, the longest in progress at the time among the four main North American professional leagues.
