Buffalo coach Sean Mcdermott will try to beat mentor Andy Reid of Kansas City./
Bills head coach credits influence of Reid, who fired him with Eagles
Orchard Park Sean Mcdermott’s professional coaching world came crashing down around him upon being fired by Andy Reid in Philadelphia following the 2010 season.
Already having difficulty coming to grips with being dismissed from his hometown dream job, and by his mentor, no less, Mcdermott couldn’t believe his ears when Reid suggested the setback would be beneficial in the long run for the then-36-year-old Eagles defensive coordinator.
“Oh, it crushed me early on,” Mcdermott would say in 2017, after landing his first head coaching job with the Buffalo Bills. “It crushed me from the standpoint of, I looked introspectively, just looked at myself and said, ‘ What did I do wrong ?’”
A decade later, the benefit of perspective has allowed Mcdermott to realize the wisdom behind Reid’s advice.
“Those are moments that you go through in life that you say, ‘You know what? I came out better because of it.’ And Andy knew that,” Mcdermott said this week in preparing the Bills (4-1) to host the Reid-coached Kansas City Chiefs (4-1) on Monday.
“Yeah, we kind of jab about it here and there,” Mcdermott said with a laugh. “But we can do that because he knew. He told me then, ‘This is the best thing for you.’ And he was right.”
At 46, Mcdermott has overseen a renaissance in Buffalo.
The Bills have made the play
offs in two of Mcdermott’s first three years, including 2017, when they snapped a 17-year postseason drought which had been the longest active streak in North America’s four major professional sports.
This year, despite a 42-16 loss at Tennessee on Tuesday, Buffalo is 4-1 or better in consecutive seasons for the first time since Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly ’s final two years in 1995 and 1996.
Mcdermott is credited for instilling a professional, teamfirst culture on a franchise that lacked discipline and accountability, especially under his predecessor Rex Ryan, whose brash talk fell short of performance in his two-year stint.
And Mcdermott, along with general manager Brandon Beane, have established a firewall around the team in protecting it from internal roster meddling.
That wasn’t the case under former president Russ Brandon, whose background was in marketing and not football, and led to the small-market team making decisions based as much on ticket sales as on-field results.
Also evident is how much Mcdermott’s stay-the-course approach after a win or loss echoes that of Reid, which was clearly the case this week with both teams coming off losses.
Said Mcdermott a day after losing to Tennessee: “(The Titans) were ready and like I said, I didn’t have my team ready. That chapter’s closed. We’ve got to learn from it and move on and continue to grow as a football team.”