Sean McDermott definitely does not want to hear that he got beaten by Bill Belichick, even if that is exactly what happened on Monday night.
Belichick’s New England Patriots put on a situational football clinic against McDermott’s Buffalo Bills, using throwback schemes to grind out a 14-10 victory in very poor weather conditions at Highmark Stadium.
After the game, a reporter asked McDermott about the psychological impact of having Belichick on the other sideline. McDermott did not appreciate the question or the suggestion that Belichick did anything special to beat them.
“Let’s not give more credit than we need to give credit to Bill Belichick in this one,” replied McDermott, per Zack Cox of NESN. “Whether it was Bill or anyone else, they beat us right? But you sit here and you tell me when we start with an average starting field position of the 40-yard line and he starts with the 23-yard line — I’m rounding up in both cases — and we were 1-for-4 in the red zone and they were 0-for-1 in the red zone? You give me that ahead of time, I’d say I like my chances.
“I don’t think, with all due respect, it’s not a Bill Belichick-type thing,” added McDermott. “It’s what are you doing with the opportunities you got? What ae you doing with the opportunities you got? We turned the ball over on the plus-30-something yard line. Sloppy football. Sloppy football. I’m very comfortable in that situation.”
McDermott also made a big stink about a mistake that Belichick made in the first quarter with receiver N’Keal Harry, who was back to return a punt but misplayed it and gave the Bills great field position. McDermott emphasized that he was not going to let the Bills make a mistake like that.
When Sean McDermott was describing why he made his top two returners inactive, he pointed to Bill Belichick putting N'Keal Harry back in the return game and said he wasn't going to let a mistake like that happen to his team.
— Matthew Fairburn (@MatthewFairburn) December 7, 2021
While McDermott obviously believes that the Bills beat themselves more than Belichick and the Patriots beat them, you can’t deny that Belichick did a much better job of adapting to the weather. New England’s run-everything strategy was an ugly one. But it bled the clock, moved the ball, and kept the Bills offense off the field. Meanwhile, McDermott had Josh Allen throw 30 times (he completed 15 of them) in a situation where the aerial conditions could not really be trusted.
It is fair for McDermott to take exception to the reporter’s suggestion that Belichick had a psychological impact on him. But with salty quotes like these (on top of McDermott’s apparent dislike of the Patriots already), McDermott makes it seem like that is exactly what Belichick is doing — living in his head rent-free.
Photo: Jan 4, 2020; Houston, Texas, USA; Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott before the AFC Wild Card NFL Playoff game against the Houston Texans at NRG Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
