Desperate Sean McDermott has molded the Bills in his image, but as Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs toil who will be left to blame if Buffalo falls short of the Super Bowl once again?
The Buffalo Bills are the NFL’s most desperate team. While that makes them dangerous, their constantly shifting season faces its latest test in Miami against a fellow contender with fatal flaws.
Beat the Dolphins and the Bills win the AFC East for the fourth year in a row and lock up the No. 2 seed. Lose and they may miss out on the postseason entirely.
If they do advance – and there is an 86 per cent chance they will – they are a squad no team will want to face in the playoffs. Particularly in Buffalo.
Somewhere down the line, there may be the tantalizing prospect of finally getting one over Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in an elimination game.
But what if Sean McDermott’s defense comes up short again in the postseason?
As McDermott pursues that elusive first Super Bowl, the sacrificial lambs are stacking up.
Special teams coordinator Heath Farwell carried the can for defeat by the Chiefs in the divisional round two years ago; defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier was allowed to walk after his contract expired in the offseason; and in November offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey was given the boot in order to spark a misfiring offense into life.
Firing coordinators in midseason falls into the high-risk, high-reward bracket.
In 2012, the Baltimore Ravens dismissed offensive coordinator Cam Cameron with three regular season games remaining.
Quarterbacks coach Jim Caldwell replaced him and the Ravens beat the Colts and Andrew Luck in Baltimore in the wild card, before going on the road to knock out Payton Manning’s Broncos and then Tom Brady and the Patriots.
An inspired Joe Flacco and the Ravens then defied a 34-minute blackout in the Superdome and a comeback from Colin Kaepernick’s 49ers to win a second Super Bowl in franchise history.
But one only need look to Philadelphia – who appointed the never popular Matt Patricia as defensive coordinator while predecessor Sean Desai peculiarly moved upstairs – to see the perils involved with such a move.
And if you’ve fired everyone, who’s next?
Hired in 2017, in his first season as a head coach McDermott ended Buffalo’s 17-year playoff drought.
Under McDermott, Buffalo are 72-41 in the regular season – his .637 winning percentage is the highest for a Bills coach, surpassing even Marv Levy’s .615.
He has taken the Bills to the playoffs five times. That should become six tomorrow. After all, they trounced Miami 48-20 in Week 4.
But with Buffalo there’s always: “What if…”
This is a cursed team of Wide Right and the Music City Miracle. Of reaching four consecutive Super Bowls, the first team to do so. And losing them all. Not playing in January between 2000 and 2017. Of OJ Simpson. And the Staley Swindle of 1921, which might have started it all.
Then there’s 13 seconds.
