Sean McDermott's Motivational Tactics Sound Wild
By Kyle Koster
The Buffalo Bills are a supremely talented team yet may find themselves on their couches when the playoffs roll around. So it's the perfect time for Sean McDermott content. Like, a lot of Sean McDermott content. Over at GoLongTD.com, Tyler Dunne has a three-part series on the many weird things that have transpired during the coach's tenure. And we would highly recommend ponying up to read the whole thing even though we're going to share some of the most amazing anecdotes below because they make this guy seem like a boss straight out of a sitcom.
Dunne writes about a mind-blowing bit of motivation McDermott tried to impart during the team's training camp in 2021. Brace yourselves.
“At St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, N.Y., McDermott’s morning address began innocently enough,” Dunne writes. “He told the entire team they needed to come together. But then, sources on-hand say, he used a strange model: the terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. He cited the hijackers as a group of people who were all able to get on the same page to orchestrate attacks to perfection. One by one, McDermott started asking specific players in the room questions. ‘What tactics do you think they used to come together?’ A young player tried to methodically answer. ‘What do you think their biggest obstacle was?’ A veteran answered, ‘TSA,’ which mercifully lightened the mood.”
You could put the most sardonic comedy writers in the world in a room for a long weekend and even they would not come up with such a ridiculous football guy misstep. I mean, points for creativity and tying in somewhat recent remarks but come on, man. Of all the examples of banding together as a group to overcome an obstacle, how in a million years would a person land on imagining 9/11 from the terrorists' perspectives?
There's another example, also built around tragedy, dubbed the Niagara Falls speech, that came later on that season.
“In December 2021, locals will recall the news of a woman deliberately driving into the waterway that spills into the falls,” Dunne writes. “She drifted down the Niagara River before her vehicle was lodged against a rock about 50 yards from the brink. McDermott studied up and pieced together a speech. The coach explained how members from the Coast Guard did everything they could to save the woman. He built up the drama. Players held on tight for an inspiring apex, and . . . nothing. He said the woman died. End of story. The complete absence of a point had some players biting their tongues, trying their hardest not to laugh.”
Does it make us bad people that we desperately want to see footage of these incidents? We have all this video of mentalists entertaining football players and rookies being forced to sign and coaches announcing snack time and yet none of what sound like the most accidentally compelling and affecting speeches in the history of football.
The Bills may need to win out and desperate times call for desperate measures so there's no telling what the players could be hearing the rest of the season. Although we hope one day someone does tell.