The Buffalo Bills began their week with a significant trade for Tennessee Titans safety Amani Hooker, which caught the attention of former head coach Sean McDermott.
McDermott appeared on ESPN’s “The Rich Eisen Show” and had some reaction to the Hooker trade.
“I’m all for it; I’ve been all for it,” McDermott said on Friday. “When your goal is for a team to win a Super Bowl, ours was last year; certainly, the Bills are this year. Any team that feels like they have a legitimate shot at winning a Super Bowl is tasked with identifying what could get in the way of winning that Super Bowl, and then going out to find those pieces. So you saw Buffalo do that rather quickly at the start of this offseason: they went to get wide receiver DJ Moore, then did it again with some defensive pieces, and now going to get Hooker was a good move.”
What Could “I’ve Been All For It” Mean
The phrase “I’ve been all for” stands out because it makes it sound like McDermott is expressing frustration that he wanted to acquire players like Hooker when he was the Bills’ head coach. This is all an assumption, but he may not have thought Brandon Beane was making the necessary moves to bring in pieces for success. But in the first year with McDermott gone, Beane goes out and trades two second-round picks, one for Moore at the start of the offseason and now one for Hooker.
The Bills fired McDermott after losing to the Denver Broncos in the AFC Divisional Round last season. When the Bills made that move, they also promoted Beane from general manager to president of football operations.
McDermott couldn’t lead the Bills to the Super Bowl, but Beane needed to give McDermott a better roster and enough talent to help Buffalo reach the Promised Land.
There is an argument to be made that the Bills should have parted ways with both McDermott and Beane after last season, since both played a big role in keeping Buffalo out of the Super Bowl over the last five seasons.
Bills Needed the Addition of Hooker
Buffalo needed to add a defensive back, and bringing in Hooker was one of the best decisions the Bills could have made. The Bills traded away a 2027 second-round pick for a 2027 fifth-round pick and the safety.
The Bills are allowing 23.4 points per game, which is in the middle of the pack. However, that statistic includes Buffalo playing against two backup quarterbacks over the last few weeks: Baltimore Ravens‘ third-string Joe Fagnano and Minnesota Vikings’ quarterback Carson Wentz.
Buffalo will face Geno Smith and likely Kyle McCord in the next two games, then face the Kansas City Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes on Thanksgiving night. The game vs. the Chiefs will be a critical test to see how much this defense has improved over the past month.
Ex-Bills’ Sean McDermott Turns Heads With Buffalo Trade Reaction