Keep telling us McD wasn’t the problem…

[MJS]

12 minutes ago, gonzo1105 said:

The biggest hit that can hurt McDermott as a coach is as a developer if all of a sudden the lightbulb comes on for some of the Bills younger defenders. 
 

If Landon Jackson, Dewayne Carter, TJ Sanders, Dorian Williams etc start playing at a higher level that will be McDermotts biggest knock to me. If Rousseau all of a sudden gets 10 sacks. It’s one thing I don’t think people talk about. They developed back end players but never really anyone in the front 7 besides maybe Milano. 

Jackson and Sanders were rookies, though. And Jackson got hurt and didn't play all that much. Even if McDermott was still here, the expectation would be that they play better. I agree with your overall point, though. Let's hope some of these players are unlocked. I'm just hoping we don't get the opposite with some guys, that the scheme change renders some players ineffective and then we have to move on.

[GaryPinC]

44 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

It is that calculation I disagree with. In terms of what the main problem was, it was and still is IMO lack of elite talent aside from Josh. Lots of good players. Not enough great ones. That isn't to say it wasn't time for a coaching change. I think Terry's actual reason which was looking around the locker room after Denver and not knowing how the same coach would be able to pick those players up again and therefore it was time for a new voice is a more logical conclusion than the coaching was the problem more than the talent, personally. 

Talent level is/was truly a factor, and I agree with Shaw's take.  Here's a few other factors behind the talent:

 

-Sean and Beane were at the same organizational level.  I think Beane had the final word in draft selections, but this relationship, coupled with him being first hired may have given Sean extra influence.  Terry already bumbled the curtain open that Beane didn't initially want Coleman but Brady stood on the table to get him.

-Sean's general philosophy with his defensive front didn't seem to allow for player's intuition to try and make a great play.  It seemed very rules based "stay in your lane" type that discouraged situational adjustments.

-Sean is known for being one of the best at disguising coverages on the back end, I would ask him why he didn't do more creativity up front?  Especially with less talent, confusing the offensive line takes on more importance. 

-It was clear from 2017 by Peterman, that Sean emphasized hard work and excelling in practice over raw talent.  How much did this change over his tenure, as it colored his influence over the draft.

 

We don't know the answers to many of these questions, but Pegula does and he made his choice.

 

But, Beane's contract runs out after the 2027 season, so until I hear otherwise, Beane is not off the hot seat and he may see his own exit while also giving Brady 1-2 seasons to show out.  Which I think is the smart way to play this situation as it gives another chance to get it right while we have Josh.

[BurpleBull]

Well, he’s not here anymore soooo….

[Orlando Buffalo]

To not recognize that McD made this organization a winner when we had been losers for 17 years makes you stupid. McD could not get over that hump in the playoffs but this bashing is so dumb. This past year I was so certain we would make the playoffs I did not even care until the playoffs started, he raised the bar from "just get out of the basement" to "anything less than a SB is not good enough". 

[GunnerBill]

15 minutes ago, GaryPinC said:

 

-Sean's general philosophy with his defensive front didn't seem to allow for player's intuition to try and make a great play.  It seemed very rules based "stay in your lane" type that discouraged situational adjustments.

-Sean is known for being one of the best at disguising coverages on the back end, I would ask him why he didn't do more creativity up front?  Especially with less talent, confusing the offensive line takes on more importance. 

 

 

There is certainly some truth to these observations. As @gonzo1105 eluded to if some of the front players have big break outs this year that will be a particularly pertinent question. Although I do slightly exclude Groot from that list because I think he was brilliant in 2025 - even if he didn't have huge sack numbers. 

[HoofHearted]

12 minutes ago, Dr. Who said:

Folks are putting a lot of hope in Leonhard's system and supposedly a more aggressive approach. I've been under the impression that McD's system was complex and took away from a simpler, more instinctive approach, though @HoofHearted asserts that every defensive schema is fairly complicated, so maybe that is untrue. And then, there is the unknown of how well players will fit into the new defense. One surmises growing pains and some less than perfect matches.

 

I do think overall talent is an issue, though a few pieces moving in the right direction could transform the situation.

I wouldn't say JL's system is going to be any more aggressive than McDermott's. The goal of any defensive coordinator is to be able to get home with 4 and drop everyone else. This creates the least amount of stress on your backend as possible. McDermott's undoing was we continually, over the last few seasons, have been able to get home with four which led to us having to play a lot more man coverage as we relied on our pressure packages. Our roster had not been built around that. Our backend was old, slow, and too unathletic to hold up in that type of environment. Everyone wants to point fingers, I get it, but it was an organizational failure.

 

The article isn't wrong though, we were stupid simple defensively under McDermott. A base 4-2-5 puts those types of limitations on you because it is an asymmetrical personnel grouping. You want to avoid putting your Nickel in the box as much as possible. Teams know this, and will scheme you to try and force that player into the box (this is why you saw Taron running across formations all the time despite the fact we were playing zone coverages behind it - the offensive strength changed with motions/shifts and he was the adjuster). That's why that Nickel role, and Taron himself, were so vital to our success. Now, the great thing about the 4-2-5 is that the front and the backend are disconnected so that you're able to change the front without necessarily having to change the backend with it as well, but ultimately your goal is to keep your athletes in space to the wide side of the field and your lesser athletes (Will) more protected to the boundary. It forces you to be extremely disguise heavy in the backend because that overhang (Nickel position) is such a tell, based on his alignment pre-snap, what you're planning to run. The disguise masks that, but any good Quarterback will be able to decipher the look post-snap.

The advantage of the three down front is that it's balanced. You have the same number of guys on either side of the center on both sides of the field. This allows you to be so much more creative with pressure packages, sims, creepers - all that good stuff. Like I said earlier though, JL's intent is going to be to get home with 4. Now because of the 3 down front he'll be able to bring sims and creepers that still rush only 4, but we can change the math up front by bringing the four from wherever we choose to versus the 4-2-5 which limits you more because of the unbalanced nature of the defense. This make it easier to disguise (hold a two high shell and roll to replace a blitzer late for example) because of the balanced nature of the defense. JL combats the weaknesses of the 4-2-5 in his "Peso" package by playing more single high coverages out of it (Cover 1 and Cover 3), and uses it against lighter sets (11p and lighter) so that his Nickel is never asked to be a box fitter. Against the heavier sets (12p and heavier) we'll be in our base Tite front (a 44 front - two 4i's and a shaded nose) which will look like a 5-2 box. As I've stated in previous posts - getting the 5th player at the LoS alone will help the run game because it cuts down the number of doubles that are possible. It also creates poor angles for most run schemes which makes it a lot harder for offenses to double up to the second level. Our backers should be kept way more clean in these sets allowing them to flow A to C gap with run flow.

 

Where I will be watching closely is what JL does with the front out of the "Peso" package. We've consistently drafted and signed power rushers (guys who win with long arms and bull rushes) and have never really had those athletic bendy guys off the edge who can win with speed. It will be interesting to see how JL schemes pressures out of this in four man rush situations. One thing that continually bothered me about McDermott's defense was our stunt game up front was severely lacking. Outside of your basic twist games (Tex and Ex) there wasn't a whole lot of creativity there. He tried to overload one side pre-snap, but we'd stunt back to 3's and 2's every time out of it - crossing the face of the center, but never fooling anyone. We ran some Pirate stunts (End and Nose crash while Tackle loops) early in McDermott's time here, but those seemingly disappeared the past few years. Even our Tag stunts where tackle and nose are reading the block of the center and looping based on which directly that center blocks to was run very infrequently.

 

All in all, I'm excited to see what JL can do with this defense. I've coached both of these defenses and much prefer the versatility of the three down versus the issues you can get into structurally in the 4-2-5.

[nuklz2594]

sean...made bills a respectable team, where free agents actually wanted to be here. he changed the culture. that being said...he had a defense that played not to lose. paralysis by analysis. Sean...wish you well

[Mikie2times]

51 minutes ago, Don Otreply said:

Using kinder words would create a more thoughtful image of yourself, no need to be a savage with your verbiage, like him or not he is a human being and deserves your respect wether you realize it or not, likely without Sean we are a different version of the Cleveland Browns/ New York Jets, be grateful the turn of events gave us Sean as the perfect bridge HC. 

Some people just don't have this POV of him. They credit Allen for the franchise turnaround and if anything, they felt McD was holding the franchise hostage from something much greater. Then having to battle fans for years crediting him for things that they felt weren't a result of him. Still doing that to this day. None of us truly know this man. His fans call out how good of a person he is. Is a person who clearly cares about his public perception and the perception he puts out who that person actually is? Behind the scenes we saw stubbornness, control issues, and general awkward communication. All this is to say, I just don't feel like I know the man where others here seem to feel very confident they do. All I know is his tenure led to some of the best and simultaneously worst moments for Bills fans the last decade. He is going to remain a very polarizing figure to many.     

[finn]

11 hours ago, Ray Stonada said:

Watching McD's interview last week, I noticed how uptight he is, and how rigid about his routine. The guy is at his desk 9 hours a day on his year off.

 

Sometimes you need the crazy, the inspired, the unpredictable, in the biggest moments. McD never found that level. 

You nailed it. I've called it creativity or imagination, but it amounts to the same thing. Not erratic or reckless but spontaneous and bold. Aside from going for it on fourth down often (for which I give him full credit), he was plain Jane during games. The few times he did try something, like fake punt to Damar Hamlin (forgot which game), it was both awkward and predictable. To be fair, Brady has been pretty predictable, too. The man loves, just loves, throwing to Shakir behind the line of scrimmage; he even mentioned that Skylar Bell would be great for--you guessed it--throws behind the line of scrimmage. 

 

But, yeah, in the final analysis, McDermott does not have the "it" factor to be a successful head coach. I won't be surprised if he retires without another HC gig. 

[blacklabel]

11 hours ago, Ray Stonada said:

Watching McD's interview last week, I noticed how uptight he is, and how rigid about his routine. The guy is at his desk 9 hours a day on his year off.

 

Sometimes you need the crazy, the inspired, the unpredictable, in the biggest moments. McD never found that level. 

 

Yeah I'm inclined to agree. I'll always give the guy credit for restoring the culture and I'll even give him credit for making the attempt to evolve and progress as a coach. But the more we learn the more it seems that when the chips were down, the dude would revert back to his old ways which, as you said, are rigid. 

 

And I'm sure that's a tricky thing to wrestle with, knowing you've gotta make an attempt to stay ahead of things and evolve in certain ways but he certainly strikes me as the type to think "well, I'm gonna stick with what got me here" and very easily fall back into those old habits and methods. 

[Juice_32]

1 hour ago, Don Otreply said:

It’s shows a lack of personal introspection, on your behalf,  being crude on purpose isn’t an attribute to be proud of…. How should we describe your shortcomings?  It’s a two edged sword my friend, 

Shortcomings? I have a lot more than most people I'm sure. Thankfully, I'm surrounded by people, who tell the truth. 

 

McD is being characterized as a saint by many, he was an average coach who was super lucky to have the best player on earth. I'm really glad he's gone. Really really glad.

[ColoradoBills]

2 hours ago, noacls said:

Can't wait for the excuses on defense sucking this year!🤣

 

I can't believe you are looking forward to the Bills sucking.  LOL.  What a fan.

[Dr. Who]

43 minutes ago, HoofHearted said:

I wouldn't say JL's system is going to be any more aggressive than McDermott's. The goal of any defensive coordinator is to be able to get home with 4 and drop everyone else. This creates the least amount of stress on your backend as possible. McDermott's undoing was we continually, over the last few seasons, have been able to get home with four which led to us having to play a lot more man coverage as we relied on our pressure packages. Our roster had not been built around that. Our backend was old, slow, and too unathletic to hold up in that type of environment. Everyone wants to point fingers, I get it, but it was an organizational failure.

 

The article isn't wrong though, we were stupid simple defensively under McDermott. A base 4-2-5 puts those types of limitations on you because it is an asymmetrical personnel grouping. You want to avoid putting your Nickel in the box as much as possible. Teams know this, and will scheme you to try and force that player into the box (this is why you saw Taron running across formations all the time despite the fact we were playing zone coverages behind it - the offensive strength changed with motions/shifts and he was the adjuster). That's why that Nickel role, and Taron himself, were so vital to our success. Now, the great thing about the 4-2-5 is that the front and the backend are disconnected so that you're able to change the front without necessarily having to change the backend with it as well, but ultimately your goal is to keep your athletes in space to the wide side of the field and your lesser athletes (Will) more protected to the boundary. It forces you to be extremely disguise heavy in the backend because that overhang (Nickel position) is such a tell, based on his alignment pre-snap, what you're planning to run. The disguise masks that, but any good Quarterback will be able to decipher the look post-snap.

The advantage of the three down front is that it's balanced. You have the same number of guys on either side of the center on both sides of the field. This allows you to be so much more creative with pressure packages, sims, creepers - all that good stuff. Like I said earlier though, JL's intent is going to be to get home with 4. Now because of the 3 down front he'll be able to bring sims and creepers that still rush only 4, but we can change the math up front by bringing the four from wherever we choose to versus the 4-2-5 which limits you more because of the unbalanced nature of the defense. This make it easier to disguise (hold a two high shell and roll to replace a blitzer late for example) because of the balanced nature of the defense. JL combats the weaknesses of the 4-2-5 in his "Peso" package by playing more single high coverages out of it (Cover 1 and Cover 3), and uses it against lighter sets (11p and lighter) so that his Nickel is never asked to be a box fitter. Against the heavier sets (12p and heavier) we'll be in our base Tite front (a 44 front - two 4i's and a shaded nose) which will look like a 5-2 box. As I've stated in previous posts - getting the 5th player at the LoS alone will help the run game because it cuts down the number of doubles that are possible. It also creates poor angles for most run schemes which makes it a lot harder for offenses to double up to the second level. Our backers should be kept way more clean in these sets allowing them to flow A to C gap with run flow.

 

Where I will be watching closely is what JL does with the front out of the "Peso" package. We've consistently drafted and signed power rushers (guys who win with long arms and bull rushes) and have never really had those athletic bendy guys off the edge who can win with speed. It will be interesting to see how JL schemes pressures out of this in four man rush situations. One thing that continually bothered me about McDermott's defense was our stunt game up front was severely lacking. Outside of your basic twist games (Tex and Ex) there wasn't a whole lot of creativity there. He tried to overload one side pre-snap, but we'd stunt back to 3's and 2's every time out of it - crossing the face of the center, but never fooling anyone. We ran some Pirate stunts (End and Nose crash while Tackle loops) early in McDermott's time here, but those seemingly disappeared the past few years. Even our Tag stunts where tackle and nose are reading the block of the center and looping based on which directly that center blocks to was run very infrequently.

 

All in all, I'm excited to see what JL can do with this defense. I've coached both of these defenses and much prefer the versatility of the three down versus the issues you can get into structurally in the 4-2-5.

Thanks very much for the breakdown. I see where there are opportunities for disguise and creativity that are exciting. Do you have any thoughts on the plan for Jackson to bulk up and move inside or whether there's much hope that Carter will be useful? It would be nice to not have to just write off recent investment in the DL.

[Homey D. Clown]

I didn't need a Tyler Dunne article to tell me McDermott's defenses were *****, I have eyeballs and mostly functioning brain (debatable).   For fun, I watched a few shortened games on youtube recently (The Tampa game to be specific)  and I just can't believe how bad they played.  This would have been a 5 win team without Allen.  I like McDermott as a person, and a man of integrity, but his defenses were Sub-CFL.

[BigDingus]

1) They were prospective head coaches... Of course they were going to tell the GM responsible for hiring them that he made the right move.

 

2) I'm sure these guys were all let go by their teams & looking for a new job because they were so amazing at diagnosing defenses. Brian Daboll, Anthony Lynn, Lou Anarumo, etc. had McDermott all figured out.

 

3) It's one thing to know what an opposing coach wants to do, and it's another thing actually taking advantage of that. The article I read showed the top 11 QBs averaged a 99.4 passer rating over the past 3 seasons, but when playing McDermott's D, they dropped down to 93.4. 

 

That's the difference between the 10th best & 16th best QBR. Is it at HUGE dropoff in results? No, but it's also not the easy gimmie game that Dunne makes it out to be. 

[chris heff]

I appreciate the part McDermott played in turning the Bills around, that being said I would have fired him after “13 seconds”.

[gonzo1105]

I think all could be true. McDermott was a good culture changer , organizer, and leader who turned around a bad organization, like any head coach in this league he’s probably a .500 coach without Beane securing Allen as his QB. 
 

Was his playoff faults all his? Of course not but I think moving on was the right move to let this team breathe and get a fresh voice to make another push. 
 

The narrative will be written by the end of Allen’s career. If the Bills win a SB or multiple the narrative will be that McDermott held them back for years 

 

If we never win one, the McDermott truthers will say see it was Beane and not McDermott or both will be blamed. 
 

Brady is going to win lots of regular season games but will be judged for his playoff tenures. I’m most curious how the young players develop on this roster in his absence because it will more show if it was Beane drafting or McDermott scheme that was holding them back 

[PoundingDog]

However you look at it, it is hard to argue that Sean's defense gets stale. The improvement is pretty much depended on the "BETTER" talent we get that fits the scheme. And when you are consistently drafting at the bottom of each round, and you are paying a top 2 QB (it is a constrain however you look at it), it's hard to get that "difference maker" on D.

 

 I'd like to see a D coordinator able to adapt to take advantage of the talent you have. We'll if Jim Leonhard is that guy, but the pick of Parker seems to me is closer to BPA than need or scheme fit or diversify skillset (as in we already signed Chubb who has similar skillset). Not drafting a NT also signals that we may see more 4-3 than we anticipated of the 3-4 shift. It also makes sense that not throwing everything out in one swoop 

[GaryPinC]

1 hour ago, GunnerBill said:

 

There is certainly some truth to these observations. As @gonzo1105 eluded to if some of the front players have big break outs this year that will be a particularly pertinent question. Although I do slightly exclude Groot from that list because I think he was brilliant in 2025 - even if he didn't have huge sack numbers. 

Yeah, it'll be fun to see how coaching change affects output of the veterans, if at all.  Same for the offensive side.  I think McD had guidelines for Brady WRT ball control offense.  Have no inside info, just a hunch.

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

13 hours ago, Avisan said:

Uh, yes?  What else would this be?

 

No offense but "interview candidate says unflattering things about guy-who-was-just-fired's system" is about as far from actual news as you can get, and it's kinda sad that you're fishing hard enough for reasons to dislike McDermott that you can't see that

 

I'm not sure that is so true as that makes the candidate look like the type of person who blames all the issues on someone else rather than taking ownership.  So a person interviewing would need to tread very lightly there.

 

We also don't know the context of how the question was asked.  The two coordinators the Bills hired both worked for teams the Bills played last year and maybe even prior years.  If you asked specifically how'd you adjust to our defenses or offenses and answering that, stating they knew what was coming would be a reasonable response and if they elaborated on the how.  And that also would be a reasonable question for the Bills to ask as they may feel they know the answer themselves so lets see if it checks out, is the person being honest.