Sean McDermott sat in his office Nov. 27, a whipping flag visible through the window over his shoulder seemed to signify imminent winds of change.
The Buffalo Bills dropped to 6-6 less than 24 hours earlier, with McDermott taking the brunt of another late-game defensive collapse in a 37-34 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. It was the third such game in a seven-week span, with two other narrow escapes mixed in.
McDermott fired his offensive coordinator two weeks earlier, the day after a pass interference call on an all-out blitz set up a field goal attempt as time expired, only for the special teams to negate a missed field goal against the Denver Broncos. Everyone seemed to wonder whether McDermott had not just the right answers, but any of them.
A coach whose defining moment came in 13 seconds in Kansas City didn’t seem to know how to close out close games after moving to 29-28 in one-score games as a head coach. The Bills had less than 20% odds to make the playoffs Nov. 27 and McDermott vowed to get to the bottom of the late-game struggles.
And then, 13 days later, when Bills fans moaned too much time was left when Buffalo took a 20-17 lead on Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. There was assistance in an offsides call on Kansas City receiver Kadarius Toney, but the Bills finally got a stop and a win.
After that game, McDermott said he went through all of his 2-minute calls this season and throughout his eight years as a defensive coordinator with the Eagles and Panthers.
In their five-game winning streak, the Bills have preserved three leads in the final 2 minutes, punctuated by safety Taylor Rapp’s game-ending interception of Tua Tagovailoa in a 21-14 win over the Miami Dolphins.
“It’s never just one thing, but we were able to uncover some things,” McDermott said. “I think our players were able to build some awareness on what we could do better from an execution standpoint and then we’ve been able to work together on having a mindset when we take the field of confidence, but what needs to get done and how soon it needs to get done in order to give us the best chance to win.”
Part of Buffalo’s newfound success late in games has been McDermott finding middle ground between being overly aggressive and too soft in his calls. Between Week 6 and Week 12, the Bills had five games in which they needed to preserve a lead in the final 2 minutes or overtime and quarterbacks went 28 of 35 for 218 yards and two touchdowns — drawing three pass interference calls — while allowing 19 points.
Opposing quarterbacks were especially effective when Buffalo played zone defense, going 19 of 22 for 154 yards. Part of that was because the Bills either played too soft or dropped a defensive end in coverage when blitzing a linebacker or safety, a strategy quarterbacks picked apart by going 7 of 8 for 52 yards.
The Bills were scorched when they decided to blitz overall in those situations, allowing 58 yards on 8 of 10 completions. But McDermott has altered his strategy, blitzing just twice on 13 — none featuring defensive linemen — plays in three end-of-game scenarios over the last five games.
One of Buffalo’s defensive traits under McDermott has been an unwillingness to alter their defensive philosophy, but not so much recently. The Bills blitzed 44 times in the previous four games, but against the Dolphins, who faced the fewest blitzes in the NFL this season because of Tagovailoa’s quick release, McDermott sent one blitz all game and it forced an incompletion.
After netting one sack in the previous five situations, the Bills have a sack, two more quarterback hits and one pass interference call in the last three tries. Meanwhile, quarterbacks are just 4 of 11 for 39 yards and an interception.
McDermott has also done a much better job mixing up coverages after running predominantly zone earlier in the season. Since Week 14, the Bills have run man-to-man coverage eight times in the last 2 minutes and man-to-man five times.
Against the Dolphins, the Bills played a two-high zone and Rapp nearly jumped a pass floated by Tagovailoa deep down the right sideline. On the ensuing play, the Bills played man-to-man underneath with two safeties over the top and Rapp was able undercut another floater down the left sideline.
“That’s a tough balance because you don’t want to take too much risk, but you also don’t want to not be aggressive enough,” McDermott said. “If we knew what play they were going to run, I’d tell you how aggressive we should be, but unfortunately they don’t tell us that. But I’ve been extremely proud of how these guys have finished games.”
Momentum doesn’t mean much
After winning the AFC East for the fourth consecutive season, the Bills enter the playoffs with at least a four-game winning streak for the fourth year in a row. Not only are the Bills the only NFL team to accomplish that over the last 20 seasons, but their five straight wins are the most in the league right now.
It also doesn’t mean a whole lot historically, because the Bills have gotten past the divisional round once. It’s also not just the Bills, because 32 teams have entered the playoffs with at least five consecutive wins and six have gotten to the Super Bowl, with only three winning it.
Even teams with at least 10 consecutive wins face no guarantees, as those teams have gone 5-8 in the playoffs over the last 20 seasons, with only the 2007 Patriots reaching the Super Bowl.
What does favor the Bills is that teams ending the regular season with five consecutive wins have made the conference championship game on 16 of 32 occasions. And the Bills have the best record against playoff teams this season at 5-1 after going 8-7 the previous three seasons.
“We’re going to have a good football team coming here who is very resilient, very well-coached, they have a talented roster and this is going to be a good football game,” McDermott said. “… (Pittsburgh) handled us pretty easily in the preseason, to be honest with you. We’ve got some work to do here.”
The Bills begin the wild-card week with the third-best odds to win the Super Bowl, according to FanDuel. Buffalo has +650 odds, behind San Francisco (+220) and Baltimore (+320). Dallas is fourth (+750) and Kansas City is fifth (+1,000).
At this point, the Bills are 10-point favorites to beat the Steelers Sunday, with an over/under of 35 ½.
For the record book
Quarterback Josh Allen finished with 44 total touchdowns (29 passing, 15 rushing), the second-best mark in franchise history behind his own mark of 46 in 2020. Allen’s 15 rushing touchdowns also ties Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts’ mark this season as the most by a quarterback in NFL history, surpassing Cam Newton’s 14.
With his seven receptions against the Dolphins, Stefon Diggs finished the regular season with 107, the third-most in franchise history. Diggs now owns the four best marks for Bills receptions in a season and joined Las Vegas’ Davante Adams as the only NFL players with at least 100 catches over the last four years.
Rookie Dalton Kincaid made seven catches against the Dolphins to finish with 73 for the season, passing Pete Metzelaars’ record (68) for a Bills tight end in a season. He also set the record for most by a rookie in franchise history.
NOTES: McDermott did not provide any injury updates during his Monday press conference.