Sean McDermott will be entering his sixth season as head coach of the Buffalo Bills in 2022 and already ranks third in franchise history in wins. He is only behind Marv Levy and Lou Saban in that category and with the talent on the roster, particularly Josh Allen at quarterback, McDermott has a great chance to add a lot of wins in the coming years to his current total of 49.
The question is what might be a realistic timeline for him to surpass Lou Saban’s win total of 68 and ultimately Marv Levy’s total of 112 wins.
Predicting when Sean McDermott might become Buffalo Bills’ winningest head coach
In McDermott’s five seasons as head coach of the Buffalo Bills, he has a win percentage of .605 and has averaged 9.8 wins per season. That total has increased recently to 11.3 over the past three seasons in which the Bills have had double-digit wins each year. This is a reflection of the roster but also is helped by the league expanding the regular season by one game last year.
The first coach McDermott will need to surpass is Lou Saban, who was the Buffalo Bills’ second coach in franchise history and won two AFL championships with the team. He currently has 19 more wins than the current Bills coach and if McDermott continues his pace of double-digit wins, he will move into number two in franchise history sometime during the 2023 season.
However, to pass Marv Levy will take a little more time as McDermott is currently 63 wins behind. This would likely occur sometime in the beginning of the 2028 season if he averages only 10 wins per season but if the Buffalo Bills continue their pace of averaging 11 wins per season, Sean McDermott would become the winningest coach in franchise history in 2027.
It is worth noting that if McDermott becomes the winningest coach, it likely would not be on his current contract which runs through the 2025 season. However, if he continues to have double-digit win seasons and the Bills continue to be an annual playoff team, it is hard to imagine the Buffalo Bills not finding a way to reach another contract extension with their current head coach.
Sean McDermott already is one of the best coaches the Buffalo Bills have had in their franchise history and it seems like it’s only a matter of time before he moves into that top spot.