Safety Jordan Poyer was sitting on the beach, but still thinking about football. Quarterback Josh Allen said he’d prefer to play every week. After the loss in Tennessee, the Buffalo Bills were ready to get right back to work. The only thing stopping them was their bye week.
If the bitter loss lingered, history says there’s something more palatable up next. Sean McDermott is 4-0 coming out the bye as head coach of the Bills.
There’s a few contributing factors: McDermott’s approach to making sure the team truly recharges, the Bills’ locker room upholding that value, and the way the schedule’s worked out among them.
McDermott has said in previous years that he soaked in some of Andy Reid’s methods around the bye week, something offensive coordinator Brian Daboll alluded to Thursday. Reid has an 18-3 record after the bye week as a head coach.
“I think it's a formula that he's (McDermott’s) been around in his past, and obviously something I've taken note of because you do come back reenergized, you do come back with a fresh outlook and you do come back ready to work,” Daboll said.
The theme of giving players and coaches some true time away is constant. But other exact bye-week tendencies vary based off the year. Daboll says that’s a strength of McDermott’s.
“I just think he's got a good pulse of the team. He’s a very good organizer,” Daboll said. “He's well thought out. He plans things accordingly based on what our team needs. And he’s just got a good beat on the guys and he's been really good in that aspect. (I’ve) learned a lot from him in regards to taking care of your body, getting rest.”
From there, it then flows through to the players. A number of Bills pointed out this week that there was no problem keeping guys focused over the break.
“I think we're a mature team,” Poyer said. “I think guys handled the bye week the way they're supposed to, resting and recharging, self-scouting and self-reflecting.”
Five years in, McDermott has the team running in a way that he doesn’t necessarily have to remind players of the task at hand. Even in just two years with the team, wide receiver Stefon Diggs has seen that culture seep into the players.
“He's not gonna be a ‘rah-rah’ guy,” Diggs said Wednesday on McDermott. “He's straightforward. He's a straight shooter. He likes his team to be workers. I feel like he's put together the right kind of team of guys that go out there and he can kind of like, I'm not saying just give the reins to, but he can trust his guys. He can trust the guys that he made captains, and even the guys who aren't captains, all leaders on this team.
“Everybody’s gonna have the right mindset and he can kind of be like this, I can trust my guys to lead the way do what we need to lead or practice the way we need to practice and hold everybody to the standard. If it's not, we will hold everybody accountable.”
Players and coaches don’t need much to stay accountable this year. That extra layer of wanting to get back on the field after defeat has them ready. Starting right after the Monday night loss to the Titans, the Bills were quick to draw parallels to their loss in Arizona last season. Allen noted it again this week.
“This is a position that feels eerily similar to the bye week last year: losing the way we did, everybody wanted to count us out again and all that,” Allen said Wednesday. “But we don't really care about that. We're a resilient group.”
Poyer felt the same hunger, too. The Bills rattled off eight straight wins after the bye last year, the Arizona loss as partial fuel. The earlier bye week and the added 17th game make that an unlikely streak to replicate this year, but their next stretch of schedule allows ample opportunity to stack some wins. After the Dolphins this Sunday, they face the Jaguars and the Jets.
In three of the last four years, the team the Bills beat off the bye went on to finish 5-11. The outlier, the 2020 Chargers, finished 7-9. The 1-6 Dolphins are reeling, but the divisional matchup means McDermott and his players won’t overlook them.
“It's a really good football team with talent starting with the quarterback all the way through their entire roster,” McDermott said Wednesday. “I mean, look at the number of first-round picks they have on their football team, high picks. So I think you just start there and then you watch the games that they've played, especially the last two, I mean, they're right there.”
McDermott surely spent plenty of time watching those games. But he tried to get away, even just mentally, for a bit, too. The bye week is for everyone to recharge, after all.
“As you know, there's long hours,” Daboll said. “In our business, we like that, but I think getting rest and downtime – particularly how today's world's going with mental health issues and things like that – I think that helps everybody. And that's a credit to Sean to me, and his leadership and how he approaches it.”
Injury report
Bills offensive lineman Spencer Brown (back), tight end Dawson Knox (hand) and defensive end Boogie Basham (illness) did not practice Thursday. Wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders had a veteran's rest day. Defensive tackle Justin Zimmer (foot) was limited.
For the Dolphins, the following players were limited Thursday: linebacker Jerome Baker (knee), cornerback Xavien Howard (shoulder/groin), cornerback Noah Igbinoghene (knee/ankle), safety Brandon Jones (ankle), cornerback Byron Jones (Achilles/groin), center Greg Mancz (groin) and wide receiver DeVante Parker (shoulder/hamstring).
