In the days following Sean McDermott’s firing, attention inside and outside the Buffalo Bills organization has turned toward how much influence Josh Allen may have in shaping the Bills’ next coaching hire. Now, it appears that a coach who describes himself as a “great friend” of Allen’s appears to be at or near the top of the list to get McDermott’s job.
Even the team’s owner, who will make the final decision on a new Bills coach, said this week that Allen will be involved in making the selection.
According to NFL insider Ian Rapoport of NFL.com, Allen has been participating in the team’s head coach candidate interviews — including an interview Friday of eight-time Pro Bowl quarterback Philip Rivers, who this season came out of a four-year retirement to start three games for the Indianapolis Colts.
Another season for the Bills ended in frustration on Saturday when the Denver Broncos got an overtime field goal to win their Divisional Round game, advance to the AFC Championship, and leave future Hall of Fame quarterback Allen without a Super Bowl appearance in his eight-year career — despite seven straight trips to the playoffs.
The head coach throughout the Bills’ current run was Sean McDermott. But McDermott will never lead the Bills to the Super Bowl, because on Tuesday, Bills owner Terry Pegula fired him.
The loss to Denver made the Bills the first team in the NFL’s 60-year Super Bowl era to win at least one playoff game for six straight seasons without winning a single Super Bowl. In the Bills’ case, they never even got there — and have not since the 1993 season.
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The repeated disappointments have clearly taken their toll on the 29-year-old Allen, who openly wept during his postgame press conference and was described by Pegula as “listless” in the Bills locker room following the defeat.
Now, according to one Bills correspondent, Pegula is predicted to hire a coach whom Allen has described as someone who has “meant so much to me in my football career and my life” to be McDermott’s replacement.
Though Allen has not spoken publicly on McDermott’s firing, he reportedly will hold a press conference of his own once a new coach in in place.
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McDermott was hired after two years as defensive coordinator for the Philadelphia Eagles followed by six in the same role for the Carolina Panthers. In the 2015 campaign, the Panthers reached the Super Bowl and under McDermott had the league’s sixth-stingiest defense in terms of points allowed.
In nine years at the Bills’ helm, the team experienced only one losing season under McDermott, Allen’s rookie year of 2018. The now 51-year-old coach then led the Bills to seven straight seasons of at least 10 wins, only the sixth team in the Super Bowl era to put together such a streak.
But in the end, with Allen now turning 30, Pegula said that the inability to get to the NFL’s championship game was what prompted him to move on from McDermott.
“It was one year after another. I just couldn’t see us doing that with Sean,” Pegula said at a press conference Wednesday, as quoted by the Post-Journal newspaper. “It’s not an easy decision, trust me, with that success. But what is success? Is it being in the playoffs seven years in a row with no Super Bowl.”
The job of getting the Bills there, according to a prediction by Brandon Ray of the BuffaLowDown Bills news site, will fall to McDermott’s own former offensive coordinator — who was himself fired this season as New York Giants head coach — Brian Daboll.
Daboll and Allen Have Close Relationship
Pegula said at his press conference that Allen — though he had no role, according to the owner, in McDermott’s firing — would play an active part in selecting the Bills’ new head coach. If that proves true, Daboll would certainly place high on Allen’s list.
“In terms of my path of my career and getting better, he was probably the most influential one,” Allen has said of Daboll, as quoted by Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN.com. “He’s a guy that I [would] talk to each and every day.”
Daboll in turn told Getzenberg that Allen was his “great friend.”
“While (general manager Brandon) Beane has said that this search is a “100 percent open search,” wrote Ray, “it would not be surprising at all if Daboll is named as McDermott’s replacement as head coach in Buffalo.”
The Bills held a job interview for the coaching position with Daboll on Thursday.
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