The Buffalo Bills fired head coach Sean McDermott after another playoff loss, despite his 106 wins over nine seasons.
Owner Terry Pegula said McDermott’s team hit a ‘proverbial playoff wall,’ citing recent postseason disappointments.
The team has reportedly interviewed former quarterback Philip Rivers, who has no NFL or college coaching experience, as a potential replacement.
Hiring an inexperienced coach like Rivers is a significant risk for a team in a ‘win-now’ window with quarterback Josh Allen.
The Buffalo Bills are desperate to win a Super Bowl, something the 66-year-old franchise has never done.
It was plainly evident when they lost on Super Sunday four straight times between the 1990 and 1993 seasons, the Lombardi Trophy seemingly straying further from their grasp with each successive failure – despite Buffalo’s admirable (not admiral) bridesmaid run.
It was plainly evident Wednesday, when Bills owner Terry Pegula attempted to explain his decision to fire head coach Sean McDermott after nine seasons – and 106 wins – with eight playoff appearances. Pegula was still clearly upset about Buffalo’s final offensive snap in its 33-30 overtime loss at Denver in the divisional round of the AFC playoffs, Broncos cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian’s controversial interception/takeaway from Bills wideout Brandin Cooks.
Yet Pegula wasn’t upset with quarterback Josh Allen, that final pick his fourth turnover of the day – to say nothing of the potential game-winning TD pass he missed at the end of regulation by overthrowing tight end Dawson Knox in the final seconds of the fourth quarter. Pegula apparently isn’t overly upset with GM Brandon Beane, who was also just awarded the title of president of football operations despite some questionable salary cap management and draft decisions.
Nope. Pegula saw a distraught locker room after the game and heaped the blame for Buffalo’s latest postseason shortfall on McDermott (with a side reserved for receiver Keon Coleman).
‘I felt like we hit the proverbial playoff wall, year after year: 13 seconds, missed field goals, the catch. I just sensed in that locker room, (players wondering) ‘Where do we go from here?” said Pegula.
Apparently – maybe – to Philip Rivers, whom the team reportedly interviewed to replace McDermott on Friday?
Say what?
Philip Rivers getting Bills past ‘playoff wall’ would be a career first
Let’s get this straight: A team that’s never won the Super Bowl, nor been to one in 32 years, is considering a former player, one with no coaching experience at the NFL or college football levels, to replace a guy who’d been grinding in the NFL for more than a quarter century and won two-thirds of his games as Buffalo’s HC? A team that’s never won the Super Bowl, nor been to one in 32 years, is considering a former player to break through that “proverbial playoff wall” even though, as a Hall of Fame-caliber quarterback himself, Rivers never broke through that “proverbial playoff wall?”
McDermott was 8-8 in the playoffs with two losses in the AFC championship game. As the QB1 of the San Diego and Los Angeles Chargers and, briefly, the Indianapolis Colts, Rivers was 5-7 in the playoffs (in 17-plus seasons). The Bolts, armed with Hall of Famers LaDainian Tomlinson and Antonio Gates and a championship-caliber defense, went one-and-done in the 2006 and 2009 playoffs despite first-round byes and home games in San Diego.
That’s not to say those failures lay solely at the feet of Rivers, who famously played the 2007 AFC championship game on a torn right ACL and meniscus. But how much of Buffalo’s failures were McDermott’s fault? Maybe the Bills did their version of the “Tush Push” once too often in last year’s three-point AFC title game loss at Kansas City. Maybe Buffalo’s defensive approach was tactically flawed when it allowed the Chiefs to tie the game with 13 seconds left in regulation before winning a coin toss and an epic divisional round in overtime 42-36 four years ago – at a time when Allen didn’t get his shot to possess the ball in OT.
Yet McDermott didn’t officiate Sunday’s loss. He didn’t fail to protect the ball. He didn’t miss big kicks in previous years. (He did shepherd an emotionally spent team to an AFC East crown and playoff win three years ago, in the intermediate aftermath of Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffering cardiac arrest on the field in Week 17, but that’s a story for another day.)
What we’d talking about here is a guy who had yet to win the big one being replaced by one who never has, either.
Bills, in Josh Allen’s prime, lack time for Rivers to learn on the job
Perhaps you say, Rivers – if hired – would be brought in as the head man, not quarterback, and he’s been quite successful coaching at St. Michael Catholic High School in Fairhope, Alabama, where he’s gone 43-15 since (temporarily) retiring from the NFL after the 2020 season.
I would say the last two former NFL players to become head coaches without the benefit of coaching experience at the NFL or college level are Jeff Saturday (1-7 as the Colts’ interim coach in 2022) and Hall of Fame quarterback Norm Van Brocklin, who went 66-100-7 over 13 seasons between 1961 and 1974 and never reached the postseason. (FWIW, Rivers hasn’t won a high school championship, either.)
Perhaps you say, it’s better to hire a potentially high-end prospect like Rivers a year too early rather than wait and lose him. Just look at what Sean McVay, 30 when he was hired by the Los Angeles Rams in 2017, has done while becoming one of the best coaches in league history while not even on the job for a decade. (Note: McVay had eight seasons of NFL experience prior to joining the Rams.)
I would say whoever takes the Bills job doesn’t have the luxury of on-job training. Sure, Rivers knows how to deftly handle the media and immerse himself into the NFL’s weekly cadence − freshly reacquainted after coming out of retirement to start three games for the Colts in December. And while he wouldn’t be charged with maintaining the field, as he’s done in Fairhope, the demands on an NFL coach – never mind one with a family as large as Rivers’ – are infinite.
And this assignment doesn’t have the runway of a rebuild. The Bills are a win-now team with a generational quarterback, but one who will enter his ninth NFL season in 2026. (FWIW, Cam Newton, a former MVP whose game was very similar to Allen’s − including the punishment he absorbed − lasted 11 years, though the last few weren’t very pretty.) And while Rivers wore No. 17 like Allen, his game was completely dissimilar, so it’s not like he could lean on his own professional experience all that much while translating the NFL-adjacent offense he’s run at St. Michael’s to the one he’d potentially ask Allen to execute.
Yet the paramount consideration is that this is a Super Bowl-or-bust scenario, even if Pegula wasn’t willing to co-sign that label for his team – one just knocked off its AFC East perch by the younger New England Patriots in 2025 and now fighting to keep its championship window open.
“I don’t know about pressure right now, but there’s a lot of people that want to look at taking this job,” Pegula said Wednesday. “There’s a lot of interest.”
Undoubtedly. Despite cap issues. Despite pending roster turnover. Despite Allen having played the final game of his twenties. Despite the obvious championship mandate Pegula won’t admit exists as his team moves into a new stadium and era.
Added Pegula: ‘We’re making a change and, you know, it’s ‘do your best job,” meaning the message to McDermott’s successor.
It’s just unfair to Allen, his teammates and – frankly – Rivers to think he’s the best man for this job. Right now.
The Mafia needs to look for a made man. Elsewhere.