For Bills coach Sean McDermott, football and life are all about family
When Sean McDermott claimed after accepting the the Buffalo Bills head-coaching job in 2017 that it was the best one available of the six openings that year, maybe not everyone believed him.
But his parents, Rich and Avis, didn't care. All they knew was that the other openings were with the Los Angeles Chargers, Los Angeles Rams, San Francisco 49ers, Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos.
All those locations were too far from their Lansdale, Pa. home for comfort. They didn't want their son and their daughter-in-law and their grandchildren in a different time zone or in an area of the country that would take more than a day to reach by car.
"As a father and as a grandparent, I was just hoping the [Buffalo job] would come to fruition," Rich confessed Thursday. "The other two teams he interviewed with were the 49ers and the Chargers."
California? No way. That's not good for a family as tight as the McDermotts. It would have been too far away to maintain the mututal grip on each other's hearts, a grip that allows them to tug whenever necessary, which in their case is often and could never be any other way.
Sean tugs with thrice weekly phone calls during the season -- every Thursday evening as he drives home from work and twice on every game day, before and after the game.
Sean won't even talk to the media after a game until he talks to his parents first.
What kind of NFL coach does this?
The kind that always knew Buffalo and the special relationship the Bills have with their fans would be a better deal than Los Angeles or San Francisco.
In fact, Sean McDermott almost always turns out to be right when it may look to so many others initially that he's wrong.
He was right in 1993 after graduating from La Salle High School outside Philadelphia to walk on and try proving himself as a player at William & Mary instead of taking the sure thing as a nationally ranked scholarship wrestler at any number of Division I powers. Just as he was right after graduating five years later to put a lucrative job offer in finance on hold to become a graduate assistant coach at his alma mater before taking an entry level job with the Philadelphia Eagles.
How could he not?
After all, he watched Rich do it all his life, first as an assistant high school coach in Nebraska and later as an assistant at West Chester University and Ursinus College. Sean listened and learned.
Until it was his time to teach.
"I think teachers make great coaches," Rich said, "because it's about teaching, explaining, showing, demonstrating to people. And I think he's a fantastic teacher. I was always fiery, and I know he's fiery too sometimes. So there's some similarity. But I think he's definitely a people person."
What Rich and Avis most ingrained in their son was respect for everyone.
"That's just our philosphy on life," Rich said. ""He has his own demeanor, but he knows the game is bigger than him."
This is why his players respect him and why he has such a connection with the fans.
Now McDermott's Bills are the only team among those six with 2017 openings still alive in this postseason as they prepare to face the Kansas City Chiefs for the AFC championship Sunday night. Only one of those other teams, the Rams, even made the playoffs this year. And three of the head coaches already have been fired.
Fired so soon?
Tell McDermott about it. He's been there, done that.
After just two seasons (2009 and 2010) as Eagles defensive coordinator, he was let go by head coach Andy Reid following a 21-16 playoff loss to eventual Super Bowl champion Green Bay in a game marred by two missed field goals by David Akers, who also was let go during the radical offseason that followed.
Yet McDermott was never bitter. And today he is more thankful than ever for the boost his career needed with that painful but absolutely necessary backward step that landed him in Charlotte as the Carolina Panthers' defensive coordinator for the next six seasons.
"Those are moments that you go through in life that you say, `You know what? I came out better because of it.’ And Andy knew that," McDermott said before his Bills played the Chiefs, now coached by Reid, in a regular-season game last October. "We kind of jab about it here and there. But we can do that because he knew. He told me then, `This is the best thing for you.' And he was right."
McDermott was not a head coach for long before finding himself in the same excruciating position as Reid. But he had to trust his instincts and his eyes. He fired offensive coordinator Rick Dennison after just one season and offensive line coach Juan Castillo, widely regarded for more than a decade as one of the finest in the league, after two seasons, replacing them with Brian Daboll and Bobby Johnson, respectively.
Once again painful, once again absolutely necessary.
Once again right.
What was not so painful but also obviously right was hearing what Reid said about him this week: That he deserved to be the NFL Coach of the Year.
The Bills are 15-3 counting their two playoff wins. They're two more wins away from somewhere they've never been.
The closest they came was Wide Right nearly 29 years ago to this day, an image every bit as vivid and painful as Bill Buckner's misplay in the 1986 World Series and Steve Bartman's interference of Moises Alou in the 2003 NLCS. The only difference is that the Red Sox were able to erase the Buckner video from the memory banks less than 20 years later. The Cubs needed only 13 more years to do the same with Bartman.
The Bills?
Well, here they are again, with their best chance in a quarter century to reverse the curse.
Their roster is loaded with young stars like Josh Allen, Stefon Diggs, Cole Beasley, Tre'Davious White, Tremaine Edmunds and Matt Milano. They are the hottest team in the NFL.
Whether it turns out to be their time won't stop the tugs coming from Lansdale and the Bills Mafia throughout Western New York.
Rich and Avis already have wept tears of joy with their son on the other end of those post-game phone calls.
"I'll be honest with you," Rich said, "we cried like two 70-plus-year-old babies after each [playoff] win."
The joy was mixed with sadness, however. If not for the coronavirus pandemic, all the McDermotts, including Sean's older brother Tim, the Philadelphia Union president, likely would have been able to celebrate together at Bills Stadium when the Bills eliminated the Baltimore Ravens last Saturday night.
"It was hard not to be there, not to share," Avis said. "I mean, they're having so much fun up there, it's unbelievable. They were having a blast."
The McDermotts will once again sit in front of their TV and next to their phone for Sunday night's game in Kansas City.
Win or lose, the tugs and the tears are guaranteed.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro.
