Sean McDermott got fired by the Bills eight months ago. He still thinks Buffalo is going to the Super Bowl.
Appearing on The Rich Eisen Show Friday, McDermott didn’t hedge when Eisen pushed him for an actual prediction. “It’ll be Bills-Rams,” McDermott said. “It’d be a great Super Bowl, those Rams.”
That’s a pretty classy move, suggesting his team will get to that elusive Super Bowl without him. McDermott gave specific credit to the front office that moved on from him, praising Brandon Beane’s offseason work building this roster. “The moves that Brandon Beane has made, and the activity they’ve had on the roster, just over the last X amount of months, is I think been very important,” McDermott said. “So I think if you’re betting on a Super Bowl contender, there’s certainly one of them. I don’t see why you wouldn’t bet on them, because the games at the end of the day have to be played, right? It’s one thing on paper, but it’s another thing to play the game.”
That last line is worth sitting with. McDermott spent nine years learning exactly how hard the gap is between a roster that looks great in July and a team that actually closes it out in January. He took the Bills to the playoffs eight times, won five straight AFC East titles, and still walked away without ever reaching a Super Bowl. When a coach with that specific résumé, and that specific heartbreak, tells you not to overthink the “paper vs. real life” gap for his old team, it carries weight.
What made the moment land even harder wasn’t the prediction. It was what came right after it, when Eisen asked if McDermott still roots for Buffalo at all after getting let go.
“Why wouldn’t I? Of course I do,” McDermott said. “I mean, the impact that you want to have as a head coach on a team and a community, that’s one thing. But man, oh man, the impact that that team, that building, and that community had on me and my family, we’ll remember that for the rest of our lives, Rich. And that’s part of sports, right? The wins and the losses are important, but it’s like the impact you leave, or that is left on people and the fan base, and them on you. That’s the real part of sports.”
That’s not the sound of somebody bitter about getting shown the door. That’s a coach genuinely separating the business decision from the years he actually spent in that building, and it’s a pretty rare thing to hear from someone who got fired specifically because the job wasn’t finished.
McDermott made clear he’s not done coaching, either. He’s said in the same appearance that he still wants an NFL job and has “this burning desire in my heart to win a world championship,” and he reportedly spent part of his year off visiting the Rams during training camp, the very team he just picked Buffalo to beat. There’s a version of this story where McDermott ends up coaching against the Bills again sooner than anyone expects. For right now, though, he’s still rooting for the team, the building, and the city that let him go, and predicting they finish the job he couldn’t.
