The NFL has never seen anything quite like this — at least not in the modern era. The last two MVPs, Lamar Jackson and now Josh Allen, both don't have a head coach as of this moment.

The Bills decided to part ways with head coach Sean McDermott after a 33-30 overtime loss to the Denver Broncos in the divisional round. Oddly enough, general manager Brandon Bean got a promotion in the process and will be leading the search for the next head coach.

Two days earlier, Buffalo was a controversial interception away from making the AFC Championship game — but instead, they got another season that ended with the Bills standing around with pure disbelief on all of their faces.

So Buffalo took a page out of the Ravens' playbook: they changed the voice at the top.

Now comes the hard part.

Because firing a coach is one thing. Finding the person who can raise your ceiling when you’re already living in the penthouse? That’s a totally different problem.

High Floor, Low Ceiling: The Theme of the Offseason

The Bills didn’t exactly sugarcoat the reason. Owner Terry Pegula’s statement thanked McDermott for what he built, but the key phrase was the one that stuck:

"I feel we are in need of a new structure within our leadership to give this organization the best opportunity to take our team to the next level. We owe that to our players and to Bills Mafia."

That’s corporate language, sure. Polished, careful, run through a few lawyers and a few PR people. But if you’ve watched this team for the last few years, the translation is pretty simple:

We’re tired of being great in October and tense in January.

Because that’s been the rhythm of this era. You trust the Bills all fall. You talk yourself into them all December. And then January shows up and everything feels just a little heavier than it should. Like everyone knows what’s at stake and can’t quite relax.

The other move that mattered almost as much as the firing was what happened next. Buffalo promoted general manager Brandon Beane to president of football operations and handed him the coaching search.

Which is interesting, because a lot of people around the league believe this roster may have actually overachieved the last couple of seasons — that McDermott squeezed every last drop out of it.

You can argue that point either way. But you can’t ignore where the road kept leading.

Because McDermott didn’t get fired for being bad.

He got fired because, in nine years with a superstar quarterback, he never won them the big one.

McDermott Changed the Perspective in Buffalo

It’s easy to forget, because the Bills have been a fixture in the playoff picture for so long now, but the franchise McDermott walked into in 2017 wasn’t this.

It was a team with loyal fans, cold weather, and a whole lot of scar tissue.

Buffalo hadn’t made the playoffs since 1999. That's an entire generation of Bills fans growing up and learning to treat December like a countdown to draft season.

So when McDermott showed up and went 9-7 in his first year, snapping the drought, it didn’t just feel like progress. It felt like permission. Permission to think bigger. Permission to expect more.

That season still felt a little fluky — like the football gods finally tossing Bills fans a bone — but it mattered because it reset the baseline. The franchise wasn’t allowed to think small anymore.

From there, the Bills became what every fan base claims they want but very few actually get: stable, consistent, always in the mix.

McDermott finishes with a 98-50 regular-season record and an 8-8 playoff record. No Super Bowl appearances. But a bunch of years where you woke up in September knowing Buffalo would be in the mix come January.

That stability isn’t nothing. In the NFL, it’s rare — and for a city that spent two decades wandering, it was everything.

Josh Allen: From “Project” to the League's Darling

Allen was drafted seventh overall in 2018, and no one needs a reminder that he didn’t walk into the league as a finished product. 

Early Allen was a roller coaster. The arm talent was ridiculous. The physicality was almost unfair. He looked like a tight end who accidentally became a quarterback and decided he wanted to truck linebackers for fun.

But the accuracy was shaky. The decision-making was adventurous. And every game had at least two throws where Bills fans collectively did the “oh no—oh YES—oh no again” routine, usually all within the same drive.

You could see the superstar in there. You just couldn’t always predict which version was showing up.

McDermott didn’t “fix” Allen in a quarterback-coach sense the way an offensive guru might. He wasn’t in there rebuilding mechanics or redesigning footwork. But he did something that’s almost as important: he gave Allen a stable place to grow up.

Allen was allowed to fail loudly, learn slowly, and figure it out in an environment that didn’t flinch every time he threw a ball into the fifth row.

He's spent his entire career in Buffalo under the same head coach — until today. That kind of continuity is rare for a young quarterback, and it’s hard to ignore how much it mattered.

The Leap Was Real, and It Changed Everything

Allen’s development wasn’t gradual. It wasn’t a smooth climb. It was a legit leap.

In 2019, he was 30th in yards, 32nd in completion percentage, 22nd in EPA/DB, and 24th in passer rating. Just one year later, he was sixth in yards, fourth in completion percentage, third in EPA/DB, fourth in passer rating, and eigth in MVP voting. 

Suddenly, the throws were on time, the reads were cleaner, and defenses had to respect the boring stuff as much as the chaos.

From that point on, Buffalo’s goals changed. This wasn’t a team hoping to steal a wild-card spot. This was a team expecting a Super Bowl.

That’s the dangerous part of finding a real franchise quarterback. The entire conversation shifts. Ten wins stops feeling impressive. Division titles stop feeling like the prize. Everything becomes about January.

Allen winning AP NFL MVP last season just put an official stamp on what everyone already knew. At this point, he isn’t a “franchise quarterback.” He’s the type of quarterback who has the talent to be the centerpiece of a dynasty.

And here’s the thing about having that guy:

Eventually, the organization stops judging itself by “how good are we?” and starts judging itself by “why aren’t we champions yet?”

And once that question enters the building, it never really goes away.

Too Much On His Shoulders

This past regular season, Allen finished with 3,668 passing yards, 25 passing touchdowns, and 10 interceptions. On paper, that’s still a strong season.

But anyone watching week-to-week could see the truth: there were stretches where Buffalo’s offense still leaned on Allen to be Superman.

It’s an unfair burden. And it’s also become the Bills’ identity, whether they admit it or not.

When your quarterback can extend plays, shrug off pressure, and turn third-and-12 into a backbreaking scramble, you start building a team that quietly expects him to solve everything. Bad protection? Josh will fix it. Missed read? Josh will make something happen anyway.

That can win you 12 games.

It can also get you bounced in January when the other team is disciplined enough to control his chaos.

The Ceiling Conversation

Buffalo’s last three playoff losses have all been decided by three points.

That’s what makes this so maddening. It’s not like the Bills were getting pushed around. They were right there every time. One stop away. One throw away. One decision away.

And none of it matters, Buffalo looks defeated as they walk off the field each time.

The “13 seconds” game against Kansas City will always be the symbol of this era. Not because it’s the only heartbreak, but because it perfectly captured the feeling: Buffalo finally got the big moment… and then watched it slip away in a way that didn’t seem possible.

That game has been dissected a thousand times. It doesn’t need another replay.

What matters is what it represented.

When you’re a defensive head coach, you don’t get to shrug off the moments where the defense can’t close. That’s your brand. That’s the part of the job you own more than anyone else.

Overtime Has Been a Problem, Too

McDermott went 0-3 in postseason overtime games in Buffalo. It’s not the kind of stat you want attached to you; not because it proves you’re a bad coach, but because it quietly hangs there and asks uncomfortable questions.

Overtime is a coin flip. One blown coverage, one missed tackle, one tipped ball can end a season in 30 seconds.

But the consequences of losing are just as real.

Because patterns matter in this sport. And when the same type of ending shows up enough times, people stop calling it bad luck and start calling it a trait.

This Year Was Supposed to Be Different

Part of why Buffalo finally pulled the trigger is that this postseason felt like a cleaner runway than most.

The AFC didn’t have the usual full lineup of elite quarterbacks waiting at every corner. It wasn’t that the path was easy — nothing in January ever is — but the door felt a little more open than normal.

This felt like one of those years where, if you were ever going to break through, this should be the one.

Buffalo handled Jacksonville in the wild-card round. Then came Denver.

And instead of taking advantage, the Bills played their sloppiest game at the worst possible time.

That’s how you get fired after winning 98 games.

The Risk Buffalo Is Taking

Here’s the part fans don’t want to hear, but have to accept:

This could absolutely get worse.

Not in a dramatic, everything-falls-apart way. Just in the quiet, familiar NFL way where you trade something solid for something uncertain and spend the next two years trying to get back to where you already were.

The league is full of teams that fired a “pretty good” coach chasing greatness and ended up chasing stability again two seasons later.

Buffalo is betting that it won’t be them. But the risk is real, especially in this coaching cycle.

There have been a ton of changes across the league already, and when there are this many openings at once, the market gets strange fast. Good candidates get overhyped. Questionable fits get talked into sounding brilliant. And urgency starts doing some of the decision-making for you.

Buffalo doesn’t have the luxury of a guy learning on the job here.

Not with Josh Allen. Not with a new stadium opening in 2026. Not with a fan base that has poured a decade of belief into this core.

This isn’t a rebuild hire. This is a legacy hire. And those are the ones that either change a franchise… or haunt it.

The “Offensive Coach” Idea Makes Sense

If you’re Buffalo, there’s a pretty obvious logic to targeting an offensive-minded head coach.

Josh Allen is the franchise. Everything should orbit him.

When you have a quarterback this talented, the job of the head coach is to make his life easier more often than harder.

The ideal scenario is a coach who:

• Builds an offense that doesn’t require Allen to play hero every week

• Gives Buffalo a clear, repeatable identity on that side of the ball

• Creates answers for January football, when defenses tighten up and every yard is a fistfight

That doesn’t mean you need a play-caller who’s trying to be the smartest person in the room. It means you need someone who can make the “easy” version of this offense show up more often.

Because the biggest issue in Buffalo isn’t talent, it’s the burden they put on their quarterback.

All stats courtesy of NFL Pro.