Sean McDermott’s emotional postgame message might be just what the Bills needed after their crushing loss to Patriots
Sean McDermott was fired up after the game, and rightfully so.
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott was frustrated, and rightfully so, after the team’s Week 5 loss to the New England Patriots.
McDermott has long expressed playing good, sound, fundamental football. More specifically, complementary football, which was something the team didn’t do in the loss. The team was plagued with penalties and costly turnovers, ultimately swinging the game to the Patriots.
Immediately after the game, McDermott made his feelings known about the performance, and it’s something that will resonate in the hearts and minds of the Bills Mafia. McDermott was asked about where they can correct things and how they can use the loss to fuel them moving forward.
“This is the NFL; it’s hard every week. I told the team, I said usually we do what they did,” McDermott said. “In doing so, we didn’t play our game tonight, and that’s frustrating. It’s a pivotal learning opportunity for us right here. There were some other moments where I just felt like maybe we were too cute at times.
“Overall, we got to look at some things and be honest with ourselves and learn from it holistically,” McDermott added. “Offense, defense, and special teams, it’s never one player, it’s never one side of the ball. I thought the special teams covered their explosive return game rather well, so that was a plus. Again, just an overall more complimentary approach.”
Self-inflicted wounds hurt the Buffalo Bills
Having 11 penalties for over 90 yards and three turnovers isn’t conducive to a winning formula, and McDermott knows that. The head coach began his press conference without even needing a question to be asked; he knew where the reporters would go with their line of questioning.
“Obviously not the performance we were looking for, thought we beat ourselves turning the ball over three times,” McDermott said. “They get 10 points, we get one takeaway, and don’t get any points off of it. Just not enough complementary football. Didn’t seem like we were into a rhythm offensively enough, and when we did, we had penalties, self-inflicted wounds. Early on in the game and then in the second half, I didn’t think the pass defense was good enough; we gave up some chunks there, which hurt us. Just not enough overall, and we gotta learn from this and move on.”
Outside of the turnovers, Buffalo just couldn’t bring down quarterback Drake Maye or stop the connection between Maye and receiver Stefon Diggs for the contest. The Patriots’ signal-caller ended the day going 22-for-30 with 273 yards.
More times than the Bills Mafia had hoped for, the Bills’ front four generated pressure, but Maye was able to leak out of it, more often than not finding Diggs open down the field.
Diggs, in his return to Buffalo, finished leading his team with 10 receptions for 146 yards. McDermott was asked what was happening with Diggs. If it was a scheme problem that allowed him to break free for a big game, or if it was just Maye connecting on some impressive broken plays.
“Little bit of both,” McDermott said. “The quarterback got out of the pocket and extended some plays a little bit on some of those as well. It wasn’t just one thing; we had pressure on one side, and we didn’t set the edge with the contain player, and that was the one down our sideline there [ . . . ] it was a combination of things, and overall we gotta do better.”
Adding insult to injury, no pun intended, McDermott was asked about linebacker Matt Milano, who was questionable to return to the contest while dealing with a pectoral injury. For McDermott, there wasn’t much good news to share after the matchup.
“Yeah, that’s what I heard, it was his pec at halftime,” McDermott said. “I don’t have any more details right now, but I’ll probably have something for you in the next day or two.”
McDermott’s frustration was obvious, but so was his belief that this team can right the ship. The Bills have too much talent to be undone by their own mistakes, and Week 6 will showcase whether they’ve learned from them.
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