The decisions are final from Buffalo Bills head coach Terry Pegula. He and the franchise have moved on from head coach Sean McDermott and embraced general manager Brandon Beane, who was also promoted to President of Football Operations.
That duo of Pegula and Beane is now looking for their next head coach. While Pegula insists the next head coach isn’t under immediate Super Bowl-or-bust expectations, he did clarify that McDermott was fired because the team kept hitting the “proverbial playoff wall, year after year,” as Pegula put it. So, it’s not as though the next guy will have much longer of a leash.
The heat under the next coach’s seat to get the job done that McDermott couldn’t might start at a low temperature from the front office. But after that press conference, there’s a fire under the franchise’s leadership that, at the moment, carries much more weight with Bills Mafia.
Terry Pegula and Brandon Beane own the Buffalo Bills’ next chapter, for better or worse
As The Athletic’s Joe Buscaglia pointed out in a column earlier this week, the Bills’ front office over the past few days has diluted the trust Bills Mafia had in it. The past nine seasons under McDermott have been a breath of fresh air for fans after a 17-year playoff drought. Then, over the span of the past five days, that fresh air got knocked out of them – over, and over, and over again.
The press conference was a chaotic show of Pegula defending Beane at every turn while pinning other mistakes on McDermott and his staff. Pegula even threw Keon Coleman under the bus by saying that Beane took the advice of the coaching staff to draft him and would have gone in another direction if it was up to him. Video evidence from the lead-up to the 2024 NFL Draft strongly suggests that Beane was all-in on Coleman.
Pegula also blamed the Bills’ playoff loss on the controversial call that ruled Brandin Cooks didn’t complete the process of the catch to the ground, allowing Denver to come away with an interception before driving the field for the game-winning score. Pegula didn’t fire McDermott because of that play, but the outcome of that play directly led to his firing, no matter how you spin it.
Yes, it was McDermott’s defense that allowed Denver to drive the field for the game-winning field goal. That and too many similar endings are why it was time to part ways with him. Bills Mafia can live with that.
What’s harder to swallow is this public power struggle that Pegula and Beane are trying to feign innocence in creating. Pegula tried to squash Vic Carucci’s report on NBC WGRZ from Tuesday that McDermott pointed out the roster flaws that were holding the team back. But everything the owner and general manager said on Wednesday seemed to give credence to the report.
Nonetheless, Bills Mafia has no choice but to trust Pegula and Beane to knock this head coaching search out of the park by bringing in someone with the resume to suggest they can get the Bills over the hump. After all of this chaos to begin the offseason, it’ll be a welcome breath of fresh air if they can pull it off. Here’s hoping it doesn’t get knocked out so violently and persistently again as it has the past few days.