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Should Bills Coach Sean McDermott Back off or go Harder on Team in Practice?

As the clock keeps running faster on this talented group's season, he's keeping his options open.

This is the time of the season when NFL coaches typically prefer to start replacing some of the physical reps for their players with mental ones. The thinking is that less practice time often means more when it comes to keeping bodies refreshed for the stretch run.

But in the case of the enigmatic Buffalo Bills, frustrated coach Sean McDermott is at least considering going the other direction following a 14-10 loss to the New England Patriots on Monday night that officially placed their season on the brink.

Even on a short week while preparing for a road trip to face the defending Super Bowl champs.

McDermott admitted on Tuesday, that he's keeping all options open after a performance he felt wasn't physical enough to overcome the Patriots, who have taken control of the 2021 AFC East race away from the Bills possibly for good.

Even after seeing offensive tackle Spencer Brown and defensive tackle Star Lotulelei return from the Reserve/COVID-19 list, the Bills didn't play well on the line of scrimmage, leading to an especially poor showing for quarterback Josh Allen and the offense.

So we asked McDermott if he paid attention to what his former William & Mary teammate, Mike Tomlin, did by putting his Pittsburgh Steelers back in full pads to prepare for a must-win division game against the Baltimore Ravens last Sunday — and whether he would consider doing the same thing.

"We look at everything, consider everything," McDermott said Tuesday. "We have a certain practice routine, but don't just execute that just based on because it's what we've always done. So [I] always want to try and meet the team where the team's needs are, so we'll try to do that again this week."

What exactly that means for this week is something McDermott declined to announce.

"I'd just rather not get into it, to answer your question," he said. "I'd just rather go through that with the team first and they hear that from me first in terms of what we want to do."

Tomlin's approach worked as the Steelers were able to match the hard-hitting Ravens' physicality and halt a three-game winless streak that had dropped them to 5-5-1.

"More than anything, it’s about the messaging," Tomlin said of his thinking before the game. "Not good enough. And it’s as simple as that. Forget if there’s any production out of the act of doing it, but there’s a message to be sent there. Our physicality, the physical component, the shedding of blocks, the making of tackles, the sustaining of blocks, the finishing of blocks weren’t up to the standards of our expectations. And so we put pads on, and we got a good day’s work in. Now whether or not that was productive is based on the result of our performance today.”

Tomlin has been the Steelers coach since 2007 and has never had a losing season.

He admitted the decision could be interpreted as punishment following a lackluster effort against the Cincinnati Bengals the week before, though he wouldn't use that term.

“You know, it just depends on your perceptions of punishment,” Tomlin said. “Punishments are for building. It’s for growth. And so, if you want to look at it in those terms, certainly, but I tend to look at it as an opportunity for growth, as a point of emphasis, as a statement, as a setting of our mentality for the things that we need to do this week in that regard."

The Bills are undeniably in what amounts to an identical situation to the one the Steelers were in before facing the Ravens.

So even with less time to recover and a three-hour flight looming before facing the Tampa Bay Bucs on Sunday, McDermott is considering sending the same message to a team he clearly has not been satisfied with more often than not over the last two months.

He requires his team to play a certain way to be able to win games in bad weather in December and beyond. His team has not shown this season that it can do that.

"You've got to be a physical team," McDermott said. "Whether you throw it or run it, there's a physical part of the game that has to be there."

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. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.