Widespread change to Buffalo’s roster was inevitable under new head coach Sean McDermott. But it wasn’t done to appease the man in charge. It was done with an eye toward achieving long-term sustained success for the team.
Buffalo Bills Insider Chris Brown provides the details. Here is his report:
It’s a phrase that dots the inner walls of the administration building at One Bills Drive. The words ‘Respect the Process’ are visible in a handful of hallways, the ones typically traveled by Buffalo’s players. It’s been a part of head coach Sean McDermott’s way of preparing his team for a good deal of what was seen as necessary and inevitable change. Much of that change has been realized in the last month and a half.
Just 22 players from last year’s roster are still on Buffalo’s roster heading into the 2017 campaign. And though every change has not been easy to make, endure or understand, McDermott and GM Brandon Beane do believe every single change made was necessary for the betterment of the team as a whole.
“I believe in the first year, when you look at it, you’re always looking to make sure that you get the right people on board, on the bus, and get the people that are already on board in the right seats,” said McDermott. “That’s a natural occurrence, if you will, [in] the first year at times. Some of those are tough, difficult decisions and unpopular in some ways. I recognize that. Brandon and I both recognize that, but it takes some of those decisions for us to get to where we’re trying to go.”
Where McDermott and Beane are trying to steer this organization is toward long-term, sustained success. To accomplish that a lot of hard choices in the short term often have to be made.
“It’s very easy, I think it happens quite a bit out there, when you come in and you say ‘Let’s err on the side of not rocking the boat,’” McDermott said. “Well, short-term gain sometimes doesn’t equal long-term success.”
The Bills have experienced that time and again during their 17-year playoff drought. From trading for Drew Bledsoe, to signing Terrell Owens to a one-year deal, to a host of scheme changes on both sides of the ball. Quick fixes haven’t fixed all that much for Buffalo.
“We want to make sure we’re doing both,” said McDermott of decisions that deliver short and long-term gains. “We always do that with the team-first mentality. That comes with the territory. Our teams, we’ve been there. You guys have seen what we’ve gone through in preseason and training camp and this team is ready to adapt. That’s an important characteristic of good football teams.”
Trading Ronald Darby and Sammy Watkins, the retirement of Anquan Boldin, the surprise cuts of some players seen as talented enough for the 53-man roster have all been done with the best interest of the team in mind, no matter how difficult it might be to comprehend now.
And McDermott wants it understood that it isn’t about moving out players that are tied to previous front office regimes.
“It’s not so much bringing in our own guys,” he said. “We’re not in that mode of thinking. It’s about the right guys. It’s about the right guys at the right time. That’s really what we’re interested in, is good people, good football players that are interested in the team-first mentality [and] that embrace what this city is all about.
“With regards to that, there’s good football players that were brought on by Doug [Whaley]. That’s what we’re interested in. Whether it was past regime [or] current regime, I’m not interested in that mode of thinking.”
What McDermott and Beane are interested in is putting together a team construct that leaves no one wondering how hard the man next to him is going to work during the practice week. There will be no doubt that each and every one of the 11 players on the field know their assignment on every single snap.
And that when the team is dealt a bad hand on or off the field, they won’t fold.
“Resilience is important. Resiliency, grit, being adaptable, and sometimes a setback is a setup for a comeback,” said McDermott. “That’s the name of the game in this business. We feel good that we’ll have clarity around the situation when we need it. This team’s ready. We’ve adjusted before, and I expect that we’ll adjust again.
“We’re looking for all of our players to continue to improve, all of our coaches, myself, that’s what we do. There [are] a lot of valuable lessons that we, as a football team, can learn from. That’s the process. You’re going to continue to grow and get better, and that’s our process as individuals and as a team.”