Sean McDermott planted the seed the day after Christmas.
During his postgame news conference following the biggest win of the season, the Buffalo Bills’ coach provided the type of insight that can sometimes be rare from the leader of an NFL team.
Allen arguably carried an even heavier load of the Bills’ offense in 2021 and produced one of the best quarterbacking seasons in Bills history.
A victory over the rival New England Patriots had reclaimed first place in the AFC East. When asked about the team coming together at the right time, McDermott went in a different direction with his answer. He expounded on the challenges his team had faced in the regular season to that point, especially when considering all that was expected of the franchise heading into the year.
“I think we continue to learn lessons with, in some ways, a young football team and a young leadership group,” he said. “It’s hard to follow up a season like last year with a similar season the next year. That’s part of the challenge and so I’m just very proud of the way the guys have persevered.”
It’s true that after a 13-3 regular season and a trip to the AFC championship game in 2020, things were supposed to be easy for this year’s version of the team.
In every win and loss, there was good and bad and a lesson to be learned.
The Bills were a popular preseason Super Bowl pick. They were supposed to waltz to a second consecutive divisional title, but the reality has been something far different. After back-to-back losses to the Patriots and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Weeks 13 and 14, the Bills dropped to 7-6 for the season, perilously close to falling out of the playoffs entirely.
To their credit, however, they fought and clawed their way to a second divisional crown. Despite doubling their regular-season loss total from a year ago, the team ended the year with a four-game winning streak, the last of which came Sunday over the New York Jets.
“You know, last year, damn near we had smooth sailing,” wide receiver Stefon Diggs said. “We barely lost. We barely had slow days. Things weren't off cue. But I feel like this team, we have built a little more character this year. ... We took our lumps. You've got to take your lumps like a man. You got to take your ‘L’s good and you got to take your wins good, so I feel like this team does have a lot more character and we know what we've got to do to win. We know the stuff we shouldn't be doing in game to cost us the game.”
Indeed, the journey to the postseason – which begins Saturday when those same Patriots visit Highmark Stadium for an AFC wild-card playoff game – has been full of adversity. Some of that is the same type as every NFL team goes through, and some of it has been self-inflicted and unique to the Bills.
“When you have success, there is pressure to repeat it, and you also set a standard,” center Mitch Morse said. “So for us, that standard has never changed, regardless of wins and losses this year. You know, there's only one winner in this league, right? It was a special year last year. Every team is different. Every team's identity is different. Every team's trials and tribulations are different, but we do know what we're capable of. We've done it before, but that doesn't mean anything to help you the next year. If anything, there's a target on your back.”
The News created a Fan Meter to measure moments ranked on this scale: 1 (panic or gloom), 2 (worry or doubt), 3 (uncomfortable optimism) or 4 (excitement and joy).
A tough start
That was apparent right from the start of the season. Sept. 12, 2021 promised to be a fun day in Orchard Park. The Bills were set to welcome the Pittsburgh Steelers to town for the season opener – in front of a capacity crowd.
Highmark Stadium was closed to fans during the magical 2020 season, save about 7,000 or so who were lucky enough to attend the two postseason games. The opener was the first time a crowd 10 times that size could both celebrate 2020 and cheer on a team expected to do big things in the current season. The Bills had 17 players who started in the AFC championship game in the lineup against the Steelers, and if you count running back Devin Singletary and defensive end Mario Addison, even though they weren’t on the field for the first play against the Steelers, that number jumps to 19. That’s remarkable continuity.
Only the Steelers spoiled the party. Pittsburgh’s 23-16 victory sucked the air out of the stadium.
As they exited their postgame news conference, safeties Jordan Poyer and Micah Hyde sent a message to the media, and by proxy, fans at home.
CBS play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle and analyst Charles Davis, who called Bills-Pats II, Buffalo’s 33-21 road victory on Dec. 26, are back for the rubber match.
“Don’t panic,” Poyer said, unprompted.
“A lot of games left,” Hyde added.
In that moment, it was clear. The 2020 season was over, and what the Bills accomplished then meant little to how this season would play out.
“I think that last year so many things went right, but at the same time, I don’t think people saw all the wrong things,” Hyde said last week. “Like, we failed last year. There were times we didn’t play our best ball, we just so happened to win. Last year was its own season. The longer I’ve been in this league, the more I realize, every season is tough. It doesn’t matter if the same guys come back – kind of what I was saying in training camp – a lot of the guys came back, but it’s not going to be the same season. You’re going to have injuries. You’re going to have Covid. You’re going to have distractions. You’re going to have so many other things, so it’s going to be a rollercoaster of a year, no matter what.”
To their credit, the Bills appeared to learn that lesson early. After the loss to the Steelers, they ripped off four straight wins, the most impressive of which came in the AFC championship game rematch at Kansas City. A 38-20 win over the Chiefs showed that Super Bowl hype before the season was justified.
“The snow-covered gridiron reduced the effectiveness of the power running of (Cookie) Gilchrist,” The New York Times said in its report, “but did not seem to hamper Ron Burton or Larry Garron,” the Patriots’ running backs.
A Week 6 loss in Tennessee, however, pumped the brakes on that a bit. Still, the Bills were in a good position going into their bye week, and a Week 8 win over Miami improved the team's record to 5-2 and things looked back on track.
The low point
Then, the you-know-what hit the fan.
The Bills lost to the Jaguars in Week 9, which still doesn’t feel like a real sentence to type. Suddenly, all our preconceived notions about this team went out the window.
“You become used to winning. You kind of think winning is easy and finishing games is easy, when it’s not that easy,” defensive tackle Ed Oliver said. “What we had to learn was how to finish games, how to play all the way through games. How to handle adversity, how to handle sudden change, things like that.
“I feel like that Tampa Bay game kind of got us back to where we needed to go, as far as having confidence, playing free, and playing like we know what we can play,” wide receiver Stefon Diggs said in late December.
“When you were as good as we were last year, you get accustomed to not just winning, but winning. A lot of guys from last year’s team is on this year’s team, so we just had to figure out how to put it all together.”
Last year, the Bills went 6-1 in games decided by eight points or fewer, including the postseason, with the only loss coming to the Arizona Cardinals on the “Hail Murray.” So there were challenges, even as time marches on and they’ve been forgotten. This year, they are 0-5 in such games, so the wounds are fresh.
The loss to the Jaguars started a stretch of the season in which the Bills went 2-4 – hardly Super Bowl caliber. During that stretch, All-Pro cornerback Tre’Davious White was lost for the season to a knee injury. That’s easily the most significant injury the team has had to deal with over the past two years.
At the time, plenty of comparisons were made to the 1989 Bills. For those who need a history lesson: The Bills in 1988 somewhat surprisingly advanced to the AFC championship game – like the 2020 team did – before losing to the Bengals 21-10.
The following year, the Bills struggled to a 9-7 record in the regular season and were one and done in the playoffs, losing to the Browns. That team became known as the “Bickering Bills,” because of infighting among players and coaches.
“They beat us at home, we beat them at [their] home. It's a playoff game, Buffalo, New York, on Saturday night,” Bills safety Jordan Poyer said. “I mean, it's just really everything you asked for in a football game, football season, this type of game right here.”
At the time, it was fair to question if history was repeating itself. Let’s face it – the Bills have not been strangers to controversy this season. The team is believed to have one of the lowest vaccination rates in the NFL, and that issue has lingered since the start of training camp. Defensive tackle Star Lotulelei and offensive tackle Spencer Brown missed a loss against the Colts while on the Covid-19 list. Would that outcome had been different had they played?
Wide receiver Cole Beasley – the poster child for vaccine hesitancy in the NFL – tested positive before the crucial rematch against the Patriots, as did receiver Gabriel Davis, leaving quarterback Josh Allen without two of his top weapons.
The Bills, though, found a way to pull that game out, which went a long way toward getting their season back on track.
“We were able to put our heads down and continue to work through all the (stuff) that was going on around us,” Hyde said. “Every year has its own issues. I’m blessed to be in this locker room with these guys, these players, these coaches. With the expectations that we had coming in and trying to preach to the young guys and trying to preach to even you guys, like, it doesn’t matter what we did last year. We’ve got to do our own thing this year. I think that’s what we’re all realizing.”
Steve Tasker, the former special teams great and current co-host of the Bills’ official radio show, was a member of that 1989 team. He sees a key difference in this year’s squad.
“The thing that makes this team different is the leadership is the same from last year to this year,” he said. "In ’88, it was the old guys on the team who were the leaders. In ’89, it was a transition year, and at the end of the year, it became the best players on the team who were the leaders, not the old guys. This team has been led by the best players from the get-go. I think that makes a difference. There is a continuity and an ability to build on what they did last year and learn from it, rather than trying to find their way with a new culture like the Bills did back then. I think the culture they’ve created here kind of heads off any of the problems we had in 1989.”
“This team has always responded,” Hyde said. “There was never a time we were in the locker room pointing fingers at each other, saying, ‘Offense you’ve got to do this, defense you’ve got to do that.’ In our locker room, we just held it together. We understood at times we weren’t playing our best football – defense, offense, special teams – as a whole team. Whether it was players or coaches, whatever. We stuck to it. We always tried to flush the game before, move on to the next game and respond. When you have a football team that’s able to do that, you have coaches that are preaching that, you have leaders on the team that are preaching that, I think you’ll be fine. Obviously, the point of being in this league is winning football games, but you can also lose games and learn a lot about yourself, and I think that’s what we did this year.”
Lessons learned
McDermott has first-hand knowledge of the challenges that come with following up a great year. He was the defensive coordinator in Carolina when the Panthers went to the Super Bowl in 2015, only to finish 6-10 the following year. The same thing happened in 2004, when McDermott went to the Super Bowl with the Eagles as an assistant defensive backs coach, only to see the team miss the playoffs the following year.
A compulsive notes taker, the coach has relied on those lessons learned from those two seasons when things have been at their most trying in 2021.
“It’s hard to come back the next season, for a lot of reasons. And yes, the notes are long,” he said. “More than anything, these are lessons now first-hand that our team has experienced, not just by hearing someone talk about it, but now going through it themselves, and that we will use with us and carry forward with us as we move forward. I’m extremely proud, though, on the other hand, of how we’ve been able to navigate through it.”
McDermott joked recently that if he had hair, it would be more grey after this year.
“But I think that shows wisdom, though, too,” he said. “You learn a lot going through seasons like this. Every season's hard and that's life in the NFL. Some are harder than others, and that's what makes it, I guess, more enjoyable on the other hand, when you can work your way through it and have a successful season like we've been able to do.”
McDermott has talked before about peaking at the right time, and a four-game winning streak to end the regular season would suggest his team is doing that. Of course, true success will be defined by more than what happens Saturday. Teams that can take the lessons learned from earlier in a season and apply it to their current situation are the ones who have a chance to play the best in the biggest moments.
“Every year’s a different year, a new situation,” Allen said. “That’s our standard that we try to hold up to here is playoff caliber. And around the building, we’ve already got things changed to now it’s championship caliber.
“Being as consistent as possible three years in a row, it’s not easy. Winning isn't easy in this league, and you need to celebrate it when you can. But at the same time, we’re not just hoping to get into the playoffs. That’s not our goal. Our main goal at the start of the season is to give ourselves a chance to win the Super Bowl, and yes, to get to the Super Bowl, you’ve got to make the playoffs. So, we’ve accomplished that goal, but we have loftier ones ahead of us.”
The first step will be taken Saturday.
