The Buffalo Bills’ decision to fire their head coach, Sean McDermott, is already opening the floodgates. After the Bills announced McDermott’s dismissal on January 19 to end his nine-season stint in Buffalo, plenty of opinions on McDermott were circulating online. But recently, a startling story from Bills’ reporter Alex Brasky shed some light on how the coach ran the building in Buffalo. 

“Bills used to allow media to travel through their facility from the media room to the fieldhouse,” Alex Brasky wrote via an X post on January 19. “But on one occasion, a reporter saw information posted within the facility and captured it, then shared it. McDermott was NOT happy. Confronted the reporter angrily.”

“Ever since, Bills media was forced to walk outside from media room to fieldhouse,” Brasky added. “As years went on under McDermott, covering the Bills on the beat was similar to covering the Kremlin. Once, I took a photo of the team’s “ping pong leaderboard”… I was later asked to take the photo down. Outrageous paranoia.”

Alex Brasky revealed that things changed in the Bills’ facility after one incident with a reporter. From that point on, McDermott clamped down and started running the place in a locked-down state like the Kremlin. Media’s access kept shrinking and rules kept piling up, but maybe McDermott truly believed he was protecting his players and his team. 

But for decades, the relationship between NFL athletes and reporters has worked the same way. NFL players open up their workplace, including locker rooms, and reporters serve as the bridge between the team and the fans. That openness helps drive attention, interest, and ultimately revenue. However, the landscape also started to shift during the 2024 season when the NFL Players Association pushed back on locker room access. 

In a statement released in October 2024, the NFLPA labelled the media policy as “outdated” and noted that NFL players would start asking for interviews to happen elsewhere.

Even with that context, Brasky’s story stands out as he suggested that Sean McDermott made sure staff kept a close watch on what reporters did and said in the Bills’ facility. Even something as harmless as a photo of a ping-pong leaderboard that Brasky took triggered a takedown request. That’s not exactly normal for a football facility, is it?

But Sean McDermott didn’t just tighten a few rules – he created what Brasky described as an “outrageous” culture of suspicion. 

The former Bills’ HC confronted reporters and treated everyday information like classified material. In practice, he ran the Bills’ facility more like a high-security government complex than an NFL team headquarters. So what was it really about – control or fear? Either way, it raises uncomfortable questions about how things truly worked in Buffalo with McDermott at the helm.

Why did the Bills fire Sean McDermott?

Under Sean McDermott, the Bills posted a 98-50 overall record in nine seasons. The Bills also reached the playoffs eight times in nine years and made the AFC Championship Game twice with McDermott. So, McDermott’s firing seemed to be less about what he did and more about what he didn’t do in Buffalo. He never got Buffalo to a Super Bowl, and perhaps more importantly, he no longer fit the organization’s long-term vision.

“Sean helped change the mindset of this organization and was instrumental in the Bills becoming a perennial playoff team,” Bills’ owner Terry Pegula said in a statement after firing McDermott. “But 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.”

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Despite Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s rise into one of the NFL’s elite players, the Bills kept falling short with Sean McDermott at the helm. The Bills lost twice to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game and suffered another painful exit this past season after going 12-5 and losing their grip on the AFC East title.

Buffalo’s latest playoff heartbreak came in a 33-30 Divisional Round loss to the Denver Broncos. The game ended in overtime and featured controversial calls, but it also included five turnovers from the Bills that were hard to ignore. In a strange and frustrating bit of history, the Bills also became the first NFL team to win a playoff game in six straight seasons without ever reaching the Super Bowl.

Now, the pressure to make it to the Super Bowl is only getting heavier for the Bills as Josh Allen turns 30 this year. The Bills are also moving into a new $2.1 billion stadium next, so everything points to a fresh start. As such, two days after the latest playoff exit, Sean McDermott’s tenure ended in Buffalo, where he helped transform a team into a consistent winner. But McDermott also leaves behind serious questions about whether his approach ultimately held the Bills back when it mattered most.