Sean McDermott is locked in as part of the Buffalo Bills future.
The team signed the soon-to-be fourth-year head coach to a multi-year extension on Wednesday. According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, it’s a six-year deal that will keep him at One Bills Drive until the 2025 season.
Update: Bills gave HC Sean McDermott a six-year contract extension, tying him to Buffalo through the 2025 season, per sources.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) August 12, 2020
Buffalo Bills Sign Head Coach Sean McDermott to Multi-Year Extension
“Sean’s leadership on and off the field has been nothing but genuine and transparent, qualities we appreciate as owners,” Terry and Kim Pegula said in a team statement. “He is the same great person to us, the players, and everyone across all our organizations.”
To date, McDermott’s tenure as Bills head coach has lasted three seasons. In two of those have Buffalo made the playoffs. It included a 9-7 campaign in his first year at the helm that saw the team end a postseason drought that began after the 1999 regular season.
In 2019, the Bills took it a step further by finishing the regular season with a 10-6 record, finishing second in the AFC East, and garnering the five-seed in the playoffs. They did so with a formidable defense that allowed just 16.2 points per game, the second-lowest total in the league behind the New England Patriots. It was a testament to McDermott’s quality as a coach given his experience as defensive coordinator of the Carolina Panthers prior to his arrival in Western New York.
The team also got improved play from Josh Allen, a promising development for a franchise that’s lacked a true franchise quarterback since Jim Kelly. He doubled his touchdown pass output from 10 to 20 while also reducing his interception count from 12 to nine. And he continued to impress on the ground as he registered nine rushing touchdowns which not only led all quarterbacks but were eighth-best overall in the NFL.
Allen is getting a dynamic receiving weapon in Stefon Diggs who Buffalo acquired via trade with the Minnesota Vikings in the off-season. Combined with the notion that the defense should remain one of the league’s best units, it appears that this is a franchise on the rise in the AFC. And locking up McDermott gives the team some coaching stability they’ve really not enjoyed since the Marv Levy era.
