Update: Sean McDermott apologized to his players for his 9/11 analogy, according to ESPN. However, the World Wide Leader said the Buffalo Bills head coach “regretted mentioning 9/11 in my post.” Go long reported citing the hijackers as “a group of people who are able to all be on the same wavelength to orchestrate attacks to perfection.”
Alaina Getzenberg said “several players” on the team at the time confirmed it, while others “don’t remember.”
“It was about 9/11 in the context of the team meeting,” McDermott said.
“The focus of the team meeting was the importance of communication and being on the same page as a team.”
Within a week full of bad analogiesBuffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott took the crown and ran with it.
Independent journalist Tyler Dunne released a three-part investigative article on his Go Long newsletter titled “The McDermott Problem,” detailing the cultural issues that exist within the Bills organization. The work, based on 25 conversations Dunne had with unnamed players and staff, covers McDermott’s entire tenure.
One of the anecdotes shared publicly online took place during the 2019 Bills training camp. To create an analogy to teamwork and solidarity, McDermott cited the terrorists who orchestrated the 9/11 attacks as “a group of people who can all be on the same page,” in Dunne’s words.
McDermott asked each player specific questions about the orchestrators of the terrorist attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
“What tactics do you think they used to set themselves up? »
“What do you think was their biggest obstacle?
Players who spoke anonymously to Dunne were surprised by the “horrible, horrible reference”. A coach added that McDermott “has no bad intentions. He is so distraught that he couldn’t believe it was serious as the players were losing their minds.
Other actors tried to rationalize it from McDermott’s point of view. “In his brain it was, ‘If evil can accomplish this, then imagine what we can accomplish’ by doing things the right way. The message was simply fucked up.
You can read the pieces I, IIAnd III at Dunne’s Substack, Go Long.
