The Buffalo Bills have not made a Super Bowl appearance during the Josh Allen/Sean McDermott era, and that won’t change this year. Tyler Bass’ game-tying 44-yard field goal improbably went wide right with 1:47 remaining in Buffalo’s Divisional Round matchup against the Kansas City Chiefs, ending the club’s 2023-24 title hopes and stirring up unthinkable levels of trauma for Bills fans everywhere.
Buffalo has lost in the Divisional Round in three consecutive years. They’ve been eliminated by Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs in two of the last four playoffs. The Bills can’t get over the hump — and that could mean changes are coming this offseason.
Buffalo Bills Have Decisions To Make After Divisional Round Exit
It wasn’t as if the 2023 campaign didn’t already include plenty of drama for the Bills organization. McDermott fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey after Week 10, promoting quarterbacks coach Joe Brady to take his place, then had to weather the storm after a December article called his leadership into question.
But Buffalo’s ownership group, led by Terry and Kim Pegula, will have even more questions for McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane following another early postseason exit. Let’s try to get ahead of some of those questions, starting with the Bills’ head coach status.
Is Sean McDermott on the Hot Seat?
The general sense, at least during the regular season, is that the Bills were not interested in firing McDermott, who signed an extension with Buffalo through the 2027 campaign last summer.
In November, a source told The Athletic’s Tim Graham that there was a “zero” percent chance the Bills would give McDermott his walking papers. ESPN’s Dan Graziano suggested a few weeks later that, while McDermott “wasn’t out of the woods,” Buffalo’s HC could secure his job with a solid conclusion to the regular season.
The regular season wasn’t a problem for the Bills, who won five straight to close the year and reclaim the AFC East title. Winning games from September through December has never been an issue for McDermott, who’s gone 73-41 over seven seasons in Buffalo.
But how much does postseason success matter? How will the Bills’ ownership group weigh McDermott’s lack of playoff wins against his dominance during the regular season?
The Pegulas are now facing a similar decision that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones just endured following his club’s Wild Card Round loss to the Green Bay Packers. Jones chose to retain HC Mike McCarthy, who’s guided Dallas to three consecutive 12-win finishes but hasn’t advanced past Round 2.
The Bills instantly become the No. 1 head coaching vacancy on the market if the Pegulas decide to part ways with McDermott. The opportunity to work with Allen would lure any coach Buffalo wanted to hire. Detroit Lions OC Ben Johnson might have fun designing schemes for Allen, but could you imagine Bill Belichick as the Bills’ head coach?
MORE: Did the Bills Just Squander Their Best Chance at a Super Bowl?
If McDermott stays, he may have to make adjustments to his staff. Brady has done more than enough to earn the full-time offensive play-caller role, but there’s an outside chance he could land the Atlanta Falcons’ head coaching position, which he interviewed for on Saturday.
McDermott might also consider hiring a defensive coordinator. He called Buffalo’s defensive plays in 2023 after ousting ex-DC Leslie Frazier. The Bills’ defensive production suffered, although injuries may have impacted the club’s output than McDermott’s scheming. Still, he may want to devote his entire focus to big-picture coaching if his job is on the line in 2024.
Has Stefon Diggs Played His Last Game as a Bill?
June was a strange time for the Bills and All-Pro wideout Stefon Diggs. Sean McDermott initially said he was “very concerned” by Diggs’ absence from the first day of Buffalo’s mandatory minicamp, but any drama was theoretically defused when Diggs showed up for Day 2.
Diggs later insisted his relationship with the Bills was in a good place, denied he wanted input in the club’s offensive play-calling, and said he planned to finish his career in Buffalo.
But Diggs struggled to get involved in the Bills’ offense down the stretch. After receiving double-digit targets in eight of Buffalo’s first 13 games, Diggs averaged just 7.5 targets per game over the club’s final six (including its two playoff contests). He earned eight targets on Sunday night but turned them into only three catches for 21 scoreless yards.
Perhaps the Bills and Diggs truly have worked out their issues. But if not, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if Diggs expresses displeasure with his lack of a role in the team’s pass-catching plans.
Still, Buffalo will have trouble getting out of Diggs’ contract. A trade would place over $31 million in dead money on the Bills’ books, resulting in a net salary cap loss of $3.2 million. Beane and the rest of the club’s front office will be staring at those same figures if they use a straight release on Diggs.
A post-June 1 release — which would allow Buffalo to spread Diggs’ dead money over two seasons — won’t work, either. He would have to be on the Bills’ roster when the new NFL league year begins on March 13 for the club to execute a post-June 1 cut.
But Diggs’ 2024 base salary of $18.5 million, already guaranteed for injury, will become fully guaranteed on the first day of the new league year. Buffalo could technically still June-1 him, but it wouldn’t help its cap.
I suggested last summer that the Bills could have employed a strategy used by the Philadlephia Eagles with Alshon Jeffery in 2021. Buffalo would have had to approach Diggs during the regular season and convince him to reduce his 2024 base salary to the league minimum, hoping to play on his eagerness to leave Buffalo. At that point, a post-June 1 cut would have made sense.
But the Bills didn’t do that, and players whose contracts are restructured after the end of the regular season cannot be released with a post-June 1 designation. Unless Buffalo is willing to bite the bullet, take on $31+ million in dead money, and lose cap space to trade or release Diggs, he might have to return next year.
Will Von Miller Be Cut This Offseason?
While a post-June 1 release probably won’t be on the table, the Bills can probably use the salary cap maneuver on veteran pass rusher Von Miller.
The 34-year-old didn’t make his season debut until Week 5 and never played more than 50% of Buffalo’s defensive snaps upon his return. Miller finished the year with just three quarterback hits and no sacks and ranked dead last in pass-rush win rate among qualified edge defenders, per PFF.
He’s scheduled to count for nearly $24 million on the Bills’ 2024 salary cap, which the club cannot stomach paying, given Miller’s limited production. A $6.435 million portion of his $17+ million base salary will become guaranteed on March 18, but Miller should be off Buffalo’s roster by then.
A post-June 1 cut will leave the Bills with $17+ million in dead money in 2024 and $15.4 million in 2025 and put Miller’s six-year, $120 million free agent contract atop McDermott and Beane’s list of self-inflicted errors.
Want to predict the results of the 2023 NFL postseason with our FREE NFL Playoff Predictor? How about looking into in-depth breakdowns of team depth charts or the NFL playoff schedule? Pro Football Network has you covered with all that and more!
