Sean McDermott approval poll, 2022-23 edition

How are you feeling about McDermott heading into his seventh season with the team?

The Buffalo Bills have seen their 2022 season meet its end with a 27-10 home playoff loss to the Cincinnati Bengals in the AFC Divisional Round of the playoffs. With that, we transition to the offseason, starting with our annual approval polls for the Bills’ staff.

Let’s look first at Buffalo’s head coach, Sean McDermott, who just finished his sixth season with the team. Review the data below, then vote in our poll!

• Buffalo had a 13-3 regular-season record, winning the AFC East for the third consecutive year
• This was the first time the Bills clinched back-to-back-to-back division titles since they won four straight from 1988-91
• Buffalo’s regular-season record took a step forward from 2021, when they had an 11-6 win-loss record
• In the playoffs, the Bills fell in the AFC Divisional Round for a second straight year, after losing in the AFC Championship Game in 2020
• The Bills were 1-1 in the playoffs this year, beating the Miami Dolphins during Super Wild Card Weekend
• Buffalo led the AFC in point differential, with their +169 good for second in the league behind the San Francisco 49ers; this came a year after setting a franchise record with +194
• The Bills had the league’s sixth-ranked defense, rating second in points allowed per game, sixth in yards allowed per game, 15th in passing yards allowed per game, and fifth in rushing yards allowed per game
• The Bills were once again a top-five offense, ranking second in points scored per game and yards per game. They were seventh in passing yards per game and rushing yards per game
• Buffalo was 7-3 in one-score games, including their playoff win over Miami; this a year after going 0-6 in one-score games, including their playoff loss to Kansas City
• McDermott incorporates the work of a robust analytics department into his game-day decision-making, leading to overall decent marks, but with his conservative tendencies still occasionally shining through
• McDermott navigated the Bills through several unusually adverse situations, including, but not limited to, having a home game re-located to Detroit due to a winter storm, and having a game suspended and then declared a no contest after safety Damar Hamlin went into cardiac arrest
• On his coaching staff, McDermott promoted quarterbacks coach Ken Dorsey to offensive coordinator coordinator, promoted assistant special teams coach Matthew Smiley to special teams coordinator, and added seven new hires, including quarterbacks coach Joe Brady and offensive line coach Aaron Kromer
• Overall, McDermott’s six seasons as Bills head coach have yielded a 62-35 regular-season record (.639) and five playoff appearances, with a 4-5 playoff record (.444)
• For now, his career .639 regular-season winning percentage is the best in franchise history, after he passed Marv Levy’s career mark of .615 early in the 2022 season

Editor’s note: If you’d like to vote in the poll and you’re using a mobile device, you’ll need to click through to the site. Apple News and Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) strips the poll from the page.