Sean McDermott still believes, despite the Bills’ crushing playoff losses.
This season, the Buffalo Bills exited the postseason in a manner that is both novel and all too common. Now Bill Mafia can add Wide Right II to the original Wide Right, the 13-Seconds Game, and all the other painful postseason losses. Even so, Bills head coach Sean McDermott is hopeful that Western New York will host a Super Bowl championship come the 2024 offseason.
The now-retired Buffalo head coach went on, “At this point, the only thing left to do for us is win an AFC championship and win a Super Bowl, which is pretty darn good.” “Over the past seven years, not many organizations have been able to make that claim. That is what motivates us to get out of bed in the morning after we have exhausted all other options.
In six of McDermott’s seven seasons as head coach, the Bills have advanced to the postseason and won five of those games. Buffalo has been one of the most successful NFL teams over the last seven and a half years, and the defensive-minded coach is correct about that, but it’s also about how Buffalo has exited the playoffs.
In the AFC Championship Game at the end of the 2020 season, Buffalo gave away an early 9-0 lead to the Kansas City Chiefs and was outscored 38-15 in the latter three quarters. The following season was even worse, as the club fell in overtime to the Chiefs in the Divisional Round after blowing a three-point lead with just 13 seconds remaining in the game.
The Bengals defeated the Bills 27-10 at home in the 2022 playoffs, providing a welcome (?) change of pace. But the Bills visited the Chiefs again following the 2023 season, and this time they lost leads of 10-3, 17-13, and 24-20 before missing the game-winning field goal (wide right) with 1:47 remaining.
Naturally, this is on top of the infamous four straight Super Bowl defeats for the Bills between 1990 and 1994.
