Don’t ask me why, not all the way over here in Indiana, but the Buffalo Bills’ decision to fire Sean McDermott doesn’t just bother me, doesn’t just offend me. It makes me angry.
McDermott has a career record of 98-50, third-best among active NFL coaches – wait until I tell you where he ranks all-time – and Bills owner Terry Pegula thinks he can improve on that? This was Pegula’s move, too. Wasn’t the fan base, which knows better. Wasn’t the general manager, whoever he is, that poor cuckolded sonofagun. It was Pegula, whose explanation for the move will follow him forever, as embarrassing things tend to do.
This was absurd, and furthermore—
Well, like I said. It bothers me. Offends me. Makes me angry, way over here in Indiana, and for the life of me I couldn’t explain why.
Hang on. Yes I can.
Because it reminds me of what didn’t happen in 2023 at Purdue – and then what happened next at Purdue.
News: Terry Pegula explains decision to fire Bills HC Sean McDermott
Poll: Should Purdue Fire Matt Painter?
Remember when the country was telling Purdue to fire basketball coach Matt Painter?
Sure you do. It was less than three years ago.
Remember North Texas? Remember St. Peter’s?
Remember FDU?
Sure you do.
Doyel in 2023: Why does this keep happening to Matt Painter, Purdue?
It’s easy, now, to forget what happened next, when cretins all over America were calling for Painter’s job. Notice I didn’t say “Purdue fans,” though a handful were calling for his job, sure. Even the healthiest bag of trail mix has a few nuts, and yes – as one enormous fan website devoted to Purdue sports noted – some nutty fans wanted Purdue athletic director Mike Bobinski to fire Painter.
Mostly, though, it was Twitter idiots with no skin in the game – was that redundant? – wanting Purdue to fire Painter. One blogger even directed people to Bobinski’s Twitter page to tell him themselves. That blogger started his post like so:
I’m not going to waste a lot of time on this. The long and short of it: I’m done with this gel-haired clown…and Purdue fans should be as well.
Painter doesn’t use hair gel, but never mind that. That blog included a poll, giving readers a yes-or-no question – Should Purdue Fire Matt Painter? – and the (unscientific) results would’ve warmed Terry Pegula’s cold little heart:
Roughly 93% of the 126 pollsters agreed, yes, Painter uses hair gel I mean Painter should be fired.
This was social media at its worst, which means groupthink at its finest: People being told how to think, and by golly meeting the challenge like champs.
Luckily for Painter, for Purdue, for my blood pressure, Mike Bobinski didn’t fire Matt Painter in 2023.
You know what happened next. Purdue reached the 2024 Final Four, the 2025 Sweet 16 and the No. 1 ranking in all three seasons – including this one. Painter was building to this moment, and while those early-round NCAA Tournament exits weren’t part of the blueprint, moving on from Painter would’ve reduced that foundation to rubble.
Doyel in 2024: Tears flow as Purdue, Painter, Edey reach first Final Four since 1980
Doyel in 2025: Braden Smith gives Houston problems in Sweet 16, and Cougars honor him
In the eight seasons culminating in 2023, Purdue had averaged 25 wins a year, reached every NCAA Tournament and been a top-five seed in each of the last five. You don’t move on from that coach. You hope he doesn’t move on from you.
Because this story is painful – Buffalo fired Sean McDermott? What? – you need to come with me to my dentist. This was the summer of 2023, and one of the staffers there, a Purdue alum, was telling me that she couldn’t root for Purdue anymore. Not until Purdue fired Matt Painter.
I remember telling her something like this:
Matt Painter wins more than 95% of the coaches out there, and you want to replace him? If my math is correct, there’s a 5% chance of getting someone better – and a 95% chance of getting someone worse. You like those odds?
Bless her, bless her, bless her – she said she hadn’t thought about it like that, and changed her mind on the spot: Purdue should keep Matt Painter.
I should’ve visited Terry Pegula – no way he’s smart enough to get through dental school – before his disastrous news conference Wednesday announcing the firing of Sean McDermott.
Why did Terry Pegula fire Sean McDermott??
Sean McDermott in 2025 was Matt Painter in 2023, presiding over one of the most consistent programs in his sport. The Bills have reached the last seven NFL postseasons after winning 10, 13, 11, 13, 11, 13 and 12 games.
McDermott led the Bills to the NFL playoffs in eight of his nine seasons. That’s an 88.9% postseason rate, the highest in NFL history for coaches with at least six years of experience (Philadelphia Eagles coach Nick Sirianni is 5-for-5. Where did he come from, anyway? Never mind.)
Doyel in 2018: New Colts offensive coordinator Nick Sirianni is different
What Pegula did was without sense, if not precedent. Each of the two previous NFL coaching cycles had also seen a coach get fired with a winning record and at least one playoff victory: Tennessee’s Mike Vrabel (54-45) in 2023, and Dallas’ Mike McCarthy (49-35) in 2024.
The Cowboys went 7-9-1 this past season. The Titans, post-Vrabel, have gone 6-28 and fired two coaches – while Vrabel just led New England to an NFL-best 14-3 mark and spot in the AFC title game.
At 98-50, McDermott’s .662 winning percentage is 15th in NFL history. Among those just ahead of him: George Halas (ninth), Jim Harbaugh (10th), Don Shula (11th), Paul Brown (12th), Tony Dungy (13th).
Halas, Harbaugh, Shula, Brown, Dungy, McDermott. He’s just 51, just led the Bills to a 12-5 record in the 2025 NFL season … and was just fired?
Gets worse.
According to Pro-Football-Reference.com, 537 people have served as an NFL head coach. McDermott’s winning percentage, remember, is 15th all-time. Here’s that math:
McDermott won more often than 97.2% of every NFL coach who ever lived, but his boss saw that glass as 2.8% full.
“I know we can do better,” said Terry Pegula, who did not take Statistics 101.
Nor did he take Public Speaking 101, or whatever class IU football star Fernando Mendoza nailed to produce the most effective, most viral postgame interviews of the 2025 college football season. In addition to explaining the team’s deficiencies at wideout by throwing rookie receiver Keon Coleman under the bus in the same sentence that he cuckolded GM Brandon Beane – “(McDermott) pushed to draft Keon; I’m not saying Brandon wouldn’t have drafted him, but (Coleman) wasn’t his next choice – Pegula gave the following rationale for firing McDermott:
“I want to take you in the locker room after that game,” Pegula told reporters in Buffalo. “I looked around. The first thing I noticed was our quarterback with his head down, crying (and) I walked over to Josh. He didn’t even acknowledge I was there. … He just sat there sobbing. He was listless (and) I felt his pain. I know we can do better, and I know we will get better.”
Pegula kept going.
“I felt we hit the proverbial playoff wall,” he said, then mentioned previous playoff losses under McDermott (playoff record: 8-8). “How do we overcome this? I just couldn’t see us doing that with Sean.”
In the Purdue locker room after the FDU loss, players were crying. Sobbing, even. Listless. After three consecutive first-round exits, had Purdue hit the proverbial NCAA Tournament wall? People around the country thought so.
Not Bobinski. He knew what he had, and the rest is history.
Buffalo’s run atop the AFC? That’s probably history, too.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Doyel: Bills fired Sean McDermott? They didn’t learn from Purdue and Matt Painter
Reporting by Gregg Doyel, Indianapolis Star / Indianapolis Star
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