Have you ever watched C-SPAN? Sometimes you’ll catch a congressional hearing where the person being interviewed is completely out of their depth. The interviewee jumbles their statements, or else blusters; abandons lines of critical reason and reverts to defensiveness; utters sentences you can’t believe they would have the gall, or lack of awareness, to say out loud. They altogether make the situation worse for themselves than it was before they brought their lips to a microphone.
On another note, on Wednesday morning, Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pegula and the newly appointed president of football operations, Brandon Beane, held their first press conference since firing head coach Sean McDermott.
The 48 hours between the initial announcement of McDermott’s release and the press conference were a public relations disaster class for the Bills, a series of decisions that practically lit on fire the fan base’s faith and goodwill, which had been built up over nine years. After McDermott’s hiring in January 2017—and Beane’s hiring as general manager four months later—the Buffalo Bills had evolved from an NFL laughingstock into one of the league’s most aspirational operations. After ending a 17-year playoff drought in their first year, the tandem of McDermott and Beane drafted an MVP quarterback in Josh Allen in 2018 and turned the Bills into a perennial contender, winning more regular-season games since 2020 than any other team in the league.
Simultaneously, the team evinced a picture of organizational stability and character. Leaks out of One Bills Drive were rare; every player seemed to fit the city’s underdog, hardworking, blue-collar identity. The team’s relationship to the Buffalo community grew stronger, especially in times of turmoil, from the aftermath of a mass shooting in 2022 to Damar Hamlin’s cardiac arrest on the field the same season. The Bills won a lot of games, but now, in retrospect, it seems equally important that the Bills won a lot of games in a way that fans could be proud of. Even as each season ended in disappointment—most of the time in unparalleled, how-did-this-even-happen disappointment—fans seemed to (mostly) take faith in the feeling that the foundation was solid. That there was a plan. “Trust the Process” was a motto coined early on by McDermott and Beane, emblazoned on the walls of the Bills locker room. But fans are all out of trust these days.
How does this happen? Let us count the ways. The inciting incident, of course, was McDermott’s firing after a season in which his seat seemed relatively colder than in past seasons, and after a game in which the Bills lost to the 1-seeded Denver Broncos in overtime for reasons that included McDermott but were not limited to him. But the Bills did not tank their relationship with the fan base by letting go of a coach who never managed a Super Bowl appearance with a team that, by nearly every metric, should have made a Super Bowl. Most coaches get far fewer opportunities than McDermott was afforded. Many fans had even called for McDermott’s head before.
What threw everything into question was not only the choice to retain Beane but the decision to promote him. Beane and McDermott came to Buffalo as a package deal, and personnel issues seemed to be just as responsible for the Bills’ failures as coaching was—especially in 2025, a season in which the Bills constructed one of the league’s worst receiving cores, spent their first five draft picks on the defensive side but did not improve defensively, handed out healthy contracts to a host of veteran players who subsequently underperformed, and were forced to rely on over-the-hill standbys like Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer, and Shaq Thompson. Beane’s relationship with Buffalo media had already begun to fray—his freak-out over criticisms of the team’s wideouts during a call with local radio station WGR550 lives in infamy, a PR misstep that now unfortunately seems more like a harbinger than an aberration—and Pegula’s decision to fire McDermott and promote Beane hinted at organizational dysfunction, seeding an idea that Beane is the Littlefinger of Orchard Park. Speaking of dysfunction: The Bills’ statement announcing McDermott’s firing had a typo in the first sentence. (Aye aye, admiral.) It then took 30 hours for the team’s social media channels to post any sort of genuine send-off for McDermott, who is inarguably the second-most important coach in franchise history.
Maybe McDermott deserved to get fired, but he didn’t deserve this. The carelessness with which the organization dispatched a man who brought legitimacy to the Bills—who loved Buffalo fans when no one else would, who made snow angels with Allen and declared, “I’m standing up for Buffalo” after the Broncos game, his last press conference ever as Bills head coach—betrayed a complete lack of comprehension of fans’ feelings, and a level of unthinking leadership that hadn’t been seen in Orchard Park since the days of Rex Ryan.
Anyone hoping that Wednesday morning’s press conference would assuage their fears was sorely disappointed. Pegula, in a polo-slash-windbreaker that could never inspire confidence, first testified that the decision to fire McDermott was solely based on the results of the Broncos game. “I wanna take you in the locker room after that game,” Pegula said. “I looked around, first thing I noticed was our quarterback with his head down, crying. I looked at all the other players. I looked at their faces—and our coaches. I walked over to Josh—he didn’t even acknowledge I was there. First thing I said to him, I said, ‘That was a catch.’ We all know what I’m talking about. He didn’t acknowledge me. He just sat there sobbing. … I felt his pain. I know we can do better, and I know we will do better.”
Even if you ignore the bad-faith reading of this quote—that the owner of a football team fired his head coach because the quarterback wouldn’t talk to him—as well as the fact that Allen probably won’t be too happy that his owner went and told the whole world about just how much he was crying, the underlying point is that Pegula admitted he made the decision to fire McDermott on a whim and without thought about what would have to happen next. He made the biggest decision of his tenure as the owner of a football team because of the result of one game—a game that he himself believes was decided by a referee error. He also seemed to have, somehow, arrived at an evaluation that the game was not lost because of any roster deficiencies.
The press conference got worse, and much messier.
As questions from the press zeroed in on the crux of the matter—how McDermott could be held responsible while Beane shirked accountability to the point of a promotion—both Pegula and Beane grew defensive. When disappointing wide receiver Keon Coleman, a second-round pick in 2024, came up, Pegula interrupted to declare, “The coaching staff pushed to draft Keon” and assert that Beane was being a “team player” by making that pick. (Coleman, it should be noted, is still very much on the roster.) Pegula admitted that he did not tell Allen—let alone any player—about his decision to fire McDermott until after it had happened. (“That conversation will remain private.”) Both he and Beane intimated that they do not have a set vision for the next head coach and will be conducting a “wide-open” search. Pegula, at one point, felt compelled to tell everyone that his daughter Jessica was once the third-ranked tennis player in the world. And addressing speculation about a power struggle within the organization, Pegula proclaimed, “I don’t like power play people,” while Beane, in an outfit that suggested he had a tee time at Seminole later that afternoon, got emotional: “I’ve done nothing but have everyone’s back. For someone to question my character, my integrity—that’s where I draw the line.”
Bills fans may have hoped that this press conference would quell their fears about the future of the franchise, but it only intensified them. The hastiness of this massive decision with massive consequences wasn't debunked—it was confirmed. The sense that Beane might be too emotional for his position was reinforced. And the semblance of the Buffalo Bills as an upstanding organization full of sensible, disciplined people was set ablaze by the stray shots at Coleman and the totally uncharacteristic—for an NFL franchise, at least—and petty airings of which draft picks Beane is responsible for.
Firing Sean McDermott was never the problem. He had one of the best players of his generation at the most important position in the game; he had a host of opportunities; he oversaw defenses that gave up an average of 33.2 points in the past six playoff losses. The problem is how they fired Sean McDermott—and everything that’s come after. Holding a press conference that essentially boils down to “Just trust us, bro” does not make us trust you, bro—not after 48 hours of pure dysfunction and thoughtlessness. Not after outlining a decision-making process that feels equal parts haywire and unjustifiable.
Now the Buffalo Bills dive headfirst into the hunt for Allen’s second head coach, a task they reportedly hadn’t considered undertaking until two days ago. It might all end up fine. It might even end up better. But Pegula, Beane, and the organization no longer have the benefit of the doubt. The expectations are high. The readiness to pounce on any single misstep is higher.
