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The next two months were going to tell us a lot about this version of the Bills.
This aging roster has Von Miller, who is 34; Micah Hyde and Jordan Poyer are 33; Mitch Morse is 31, Stefon Diggs is 30; Dion Dawkins and Matt Milano are 29; and Tre’Davious White will be 29 on Jan. 16. Buffalo’s core—of this group, all but Miller have been around since 2019—will be broken up at some point, which could be soon.
And whether this Bills team makes the playoffs and advances if it gets there, for sure, will help to chart how GM Brandon Beane will build the roster for 2024 and beyond.
Will the events of the past week affect all of that? Yes, they will. What happened Thursday and Friday in Orchard Park will only further clarify where the players stand in their careers, with one another and, yes, with their coach.
So far, so good for Sean McDermott’s crew.
Three days after Tyler Dunne’s extensive, three-part report on the McDermott era at , which included an anecdote about a 2019 training camp meeting during which the coach discussed “the importance of communication and being on the same page with the team,” in reference to the 9/11 terrorists, the Bills had their coach, and one another’s backs in a big way—and on national television for everyone to see.
Sunday’s 20–17 win tested the Bills in a lot of ways, football-wise. Buffalo blew leads of 14–0 and 17–7, had to survive what looked like a fourth-quarter meltdown, had to reset after a wild play seemed to put the Chiefs up in the final two minutes, and repeatedly had to stop Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. They did all that at Arrowhead with even more than just their season on the line—and they did it with the intention of sending a message, too.
“We know who coach McDermott is,” second-year middle linebacker Terrel Bernard told me from the winning locker room. “There were no issues. No story. Nothing that got into the locker room that anybody wasn’t already aware of. We really came together this week. Coach McDermott addressed the issue. Like I said, everybody in the building knows who he is as a man, as a coach, as the leader of the team. We didn’t flinch.
“It was good to come out here and get this win.”
It was, more or less, necessary, given where the Bills are in a lot of different ways.
