A very sad story has been written in Buffalo, and it’s time to change one of the key characters. The Bills are almost always of the best regular-season teams in the league, but they have never been able to find success in the postseason under head coach Sean McDermott.
There is no suggestion that McDermott is a poor coach and should be drummed out of the profession, but there is no reason to believe that he is the right coach for the Buffalo Bils at this point. He has taken the Bills to the playoffs seven straight times and in eight seasons out of nine, but they have always failed to get to the Super Bowl. The Bills have lost twice in the AFC title game, they always fail at the most important moments.
The losses and disappointments have piled up, but this year’s postseason performance may be the most disappointing of them all. The Bills have been stopped in the postseason by the likes of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens and Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals. None of those teams made the playoffs this season.
Bills should have made their championship run this season
Mandatory Credit: Ron Chenoy-Imagn Images
It seemed like it was all set for the Bills to make their run. They came from behind to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card round, and that gave the sixth-seeded Bills the opportunity to face the Broncos in the divisional playoffs. Once again, the Bills came from behind to take a 4th quarter lead. However, they could not stop the Broncos from scoring on the next drive after the Bills had extended their advantage to 4 points.
The Bills defense is supposed to be McDermott’s domain. That’s how he made his bones before the Bills hired him to be their head coach prior to the 2017 season. He had been an excellent defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles and Carolina Panthers when the Bills came calling.
He is now 9 years into his tenure, and he is not a championship level head coach. The Bills need to go in a new direction.
The defense has become a liability and while that unit will make plays during the course of the game, the Bills do not hold on to 4th-quarter leads in the biggest games. That was the case in the divisional playoff loss to the Broncos even though they were competing against a 2nd-year quarterback in Bo Nix who is still learning how to finish NFL games against top opponents.
The Bills had shut down the Broncos throughout the majority of the second half. Josh Allen had thrown a pair of TD passes and Matt Prater had kicked a 31-yard field goal, allowing the Bills to take a 27-23 lead after trailing 23-10 early in the third quarter.
Broncos come through with late TD drive
However, the Buffalo defense could not stop Nix and the Broncos from responding late in the final quarter. Nix threw a 26-yard TD pass to Marvin Mims with 55 seconds left in regulation, culminating an 8-play, 73-yard drive. The Bills had the Broncos in 3rd-and-11 and 3rd-and-4 situations on that drive, but the Bills failed to shut the door.
While Allen responded with a late drive that sent the game to overtime, it seemed inevitable that years of postseason heartbreak would visit the Bills again. That’s just what happened again, as the Bills were victimized by an interception in the extra period that Nix and the Broncos would turn into the game-winning field goal.
McDermott felt his team had been hurt by a brutal officials’ call on the interception, because he thought wideout Brandin Cooks had come down with an Allen pass and that the play was over at that point. However, Denver’s Ja’Quan McMillian took the ball away at the same moment, and the interception call stood.
McDermott blamed the officials
“That play is not even close,” McDermott complained after the game. “That’s a catch all the way. I sat in my locker, and I looked at it probably 20 times, and nobody can convince me that that ball is not caught and in possession of Buffalo. I just have no idea how the NFL handled it, in particular, the way that they did andI think the players and the fans deserve an explanation.”
That was nothing but whining and excuse-making. It is not how winning coaches behave.
McDermott has had a long and somewhat successful run in Buffalo. However, he will never bring this championship-level team with one of the most talented quarterbacks of his generation the ultimate prize. The Bills need to replace McDermott with a new coach who will give Allen & Co. a much better chance to fulfill their destiny.
The post It’s clear Sean McDermott isn’t the right coach to lead Josh Allen to Super Bowl after Bills’ latest playoff loss appeared first on ClutchPoints.
