Sean McDermott knows how his comments about Bill Belichick back on Dec. 6 came off. And as he and I talked after the Bills-Patriots return match on Sunday, with Buffalo’s coach making his way to the busses, he wanted to make sure he was crystal clear in getting his point across this time—after things spiraled a little the last time, with his assertion that New England’s Week 13 win wasn’t about the Patriots’ icon.
He insisted he was never trying to take anything away from Belichick. In fact, it wasn’t hard to tell that these wins over New England mean more to McDermott it’s Belichick.
“I’ll talk about that quote, first of all,” he explained. “I know what I meant to say, and I have the utmost respect for Bill. And it was more about what I and our team didn’t do. And things sometimes take on a life of their own, I guess. But look, Bill Belichick makes me a better coach. He’s standard. And so he just … he challenges even the opposite coach to continue to grow. It’s so hard to beat his team.
“And at the end of the day, I’m just very thankful for the opportunity to bring our team here, and I thought our guys played really hard today.”
Bottom line: McDermott knows full well who Belichick is. But all along, he just wanted his Bills to show exactly who they are. And on Sunday, they did that, emphatically.
So who are they? If they keep this up, they’ll be kings of the AFC East. Again.
That’s the upshot of the Bills’ resounding 33–21 win at Gillette Stadium, because if they can be themselves twice more, they’ll beat the Falcons and Jets, and repeat as division champs in the two years right after Tom Brady’s departure from New England. (Brady won the East 17 times in 19 years, for those who don’t know.) And they’ll be making it happen in the weeks following that soul-crushing Monday night loss to these same Patriots.
Which is where this one really did feel significant. For the last half decade, since McDermott and GM Brandon Beane got to Buffalo, they’ve been chasing the Patriots. After sweeping New England last year, this year, for the first time, they were no longer the hunter—and that made the challenge on that Monday, and especially this Sunday, different.
But as the Bills saw it, there was a whole new opportunity there, too.
“There’s a learning piece that goes with that also, for our young football team and our young leadership group,” McDermott continued. “It’s that we just gotta stay humble, and continue to be who we are and put the work in to earn the right to win.”
Roughly translated, McDermott was saying there was plenty for the Bills to take from that Week 13 loss. And that Week 16 showed they got plenty out of it.
