If there is a common thread through Sean McDermott’s NFL coaching career, it’s been his ability to raise the level of performance of his players.
Buffalo Bills Insider Chris Brown provides the details. Here is his report:
Everyone has read the descriptions of Bills head coach Sean McDermott from those who know him best. Detail-oriented, demanding, honest, prepared. Perhaps the most important component of McDermott’s coaching acumen however, is his ability to raise a player’s level of performance.
One could argue that very quality is what has been missing in Bills coaches of the past during the team’s long absence from postseason play. Former McDermott mentor, Kansas City head coach, Andy Reid, believes his former pupil has that ability in spades.
“He’s going to be demanding and most of all, he’s going to make everybody at every position better than what they are,” Reid told Buffalobills.com. “That is a special gift.”
Confirming that ability is a safety who has played under McDermott in both Philadelphia and Carolina. Kurt Coleman was a seventh-round pick of the Eagles and began his NFL career just as McDermott was inheriting the controls of the Eagles defense from Jim Johnson, who was in failing health.
Coleman had a lot to learn, but credits McDermott with making him a better player.
“Sean really has taken my game to the next level,” Coleman told the Toronto Sun. “Not just in helping me see the game from a different perspective, but also understanding the game a lot more.”
Brian Dawkins was another Eagles safety, who had McDermott as his position coach in Philadelphia. McDermott was actually younger than Dawkins at the time, but it did not faze him at all. He felt his job was to make Dawkins, a Pro Bowl caliber player, an even better performer.
“The thing about Sean is that he helped me because he was willing to coach me,” Dawkins told WIVB-TV. “Me being older than him at the time, that’s not something that a lot of coaches feel comfortable doing so he basically got on me about things – and I needed it.”
McDermott’s former players also outlined how Buffalo’s new head coach was open to taking input from the leaders of his defensive unit.
“When I think about a Luke Kuechly, or Thomas Davis or myself — some of those top leaders, anybody that understands this game that you could call upon to help lead your team — he’ll say, ‘Is there something we need or don’t need in this game plan, something we need to change or modify,’” Coleman told the Sun. “He’s really receptive to changing things, so we can play better, play faster and be more efficient.”
And efficiency is the primary focus of his defensive schemes. McDermott will choose fast, confident, consistent play over complexity every single time.
“It’s not an overly complicated system. I think that’s the great thing. It’s not going to be a 50-play call sheet,” Coleman said. “He’s going to simplify it and narrow it down to a menu where you know your guys are going to execute at a high level. It’s evolved that way with him.”
And with the talent that Carolina Pro Bowl LB Thomas Davis sees on Buffalo’s defense he believes success for McDermott will come early.
“I expect (the Bills defense) to be phenomenal,” Davis said. “His coaching style, his aggressiveness. When you look at the caliber of athlete they have on that defense, they are going to be really good.”