By Nick Wojton / Billswire.usatoday.com
In an attempt to breakaway from your regularly over-scheduled NFL draft talk at this time of the year, an NFL coach power rankings was released earlier this week.
Rotoworld constructed the list this time around and Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott didn’t do too bad, all things considered.
McDermott jumped from No. 21 to No. 16 in their list.
Here’s the explanation:
16. Sean McDermott
Career Record: 15-17 (.469)
With The Bills Since: 2017
Last Year’s Ranking: 21
Sean McDermott has quickly established himself as one of the game’s most promising defensive minds. Taking care of his own side of the ball is an invaluable first step toward building an annually competitive football team. Now McDermott needs to improve everywhere else. Gifted unusually expansive personnel power for a first-time head coach, McDermott and handpicked GM Brandon Beane had a disastrous first year shaping the Bills’ roster. Things were slightly better in 2018, though McDermott’s fate is now hitched to Josh Allen’s decidedly unsteady wagon. McDermott seems ready for any and all scheming challenges on defense, but it won’t amount to much unless Allen dramatically improves. Allen, in turn, won’t get better without an enhanced supporting cast. He was given embarrassingly little to work with as a rookie. McDermott and Beane must have more to offer on offense. McDermott’s strength is strong enough that he should be given time to sort out his weaknesses. The trick will be being up to the challenge.
The major key in rating McDermott is really things that don’t have much to do with him at all. While 15-17 overall, McDermott has worked with below average talent to get himself to that mark. Not only on offense, but on defense, too. In 2017, McDermott pieced together one of the NFL’s best secondaries in one offseason and then the following year began fortifying the front-seven.
Now the trick is seeing if Beane and McDermott can pump some life into the offense, which would surely boost him further up such polls.
In regard to the rest of the poll, in no surprise, New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick is in the top slot. McDermott’s placement is second in terms of the AFC East, as both the New York Jets and Miami Dolphins coaches, Adam Gase and Brian Flores, slotted into the “unranked” territory since they’re new hires.
Also under the for what it’s worth category, coaches with former ties to Buffalo came in above and below McDermott. Los Angeles Chargers’ Anthony Lynn was No. 11 while Jacksonville Jaguars’ Doug Marrone was No. 21.