INDIANAPOLIS – If there really is a rift between Sean McDermott and Brian Daboll, the two men are doing a good job of keeping it private.
The Buffalo Bills’ head coach and his former offensive coordinator both largely downplayed any significant differences during their respective news conferences Tuesday at the NFL scouting combine.
Shortly after Daboll was named the New York Giants’ head coach in January, an interesting subplot emerged when former Dolphins head coach Brian Flores sued the NFL and three of its teams for an alleged pattern of racist hiring practices around the league and racial discrimination by the Dolphins, Giants and Broncos.
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As part of his lawsuit, Flores alleges the Giants conducted a sham interview with him to become their new head coach simply to fulfill requirements of the NFL’s Rooney Rule, which requires teams to interview at least two external minority candidates for head-coaching vacancies. Flores’ belief that the interview was a sham stems at least in part from a text message he received from New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick, congratulating him on getting the Giants’ job. That text, which came days before Flores actually interviewed, was mistakenly sent to Flores, but was meant for Daboll.
Flores was fired by the Dolphins on Jan. 10. On Jan. 11, he was contacted by the Giants, who had just fired Joe Judge as their head coach, about interviewing for their opening. Giants Director of Player Personnel Tim McDonnell brought up the possibility of Flores hiring Daboll as his offensive coordinator.
Here is the exact excerpt from the lawsuit: “Ironically, during their January 11, 2022 text exchange, Mr. McDonnell also suggested that if Mr. Flores were hired as the Giants Head Coach, Brian Daboll might be interested in leaving Buffalo to serve as his Offensive Coordinator. (“Heard Daboll isn’t happy with Sean [McDermott] in Buffalo … might be able to get out if he doesn’t get a head job … thoughts?”)
On Tuesday, both McDermott and Daboll addressed the situation publicly for the first time.
“Look, when you go through a season, there's 17 games plus preseason. We've won a lot of games, and through that, there's conversations that take place that they get hard, right? Not every conversation on good teams and thriving teams, like we’ve been, are going to be easy,” McDermott said. “But, no, I had no issue with Brian and I’m super happy for him and his family and the opportunity that they have in front of them.”
Daboll also threw cold water on the idea of any major falling out.
“Great four years at Buffalo with Sean, Brandon (Beane) and the support staff,” he said. “A very special place to me. Obviously, I grew up there and I’m very grateful for the opportunity that those guys gave me. I loved my time in Buffalo and appreciated Brandon and being around all those people and, obviously, this was a head coaching opportunity, so it was something I’ve strived for for the past 25 years.”
Here are four more takeaways from the first day of the combine, which also included a news conference with Beane, the Bills' general manager:
1. No adjustments to Beane’s staff will be made until after the draft. The Bills will go through free agency and the draft without an official replacement for former assistant general manager Joe Schoen, who left to become the Giants’ general manager.
“The first thing was get our coaching staff settled with the changes there, Ken Dorsey and Joe Brady and all those guys,” Beane said. “But we're just going to ride out our staff until the draft, and then once that's over, that's kind of the end of the personnel season anyway. At that point, I'll have a clearer picture. What I want to do, and I'm looking in various ways, but we'll adjust it at that point. But right now ... everybody's kind of pitched in to take over the various roles that Joe did for us. We'll just ride that out until early May.”
2. Veteran defensive ends Mario Addison and Jerry Hughes have indicated they intend to keep playing. Whether they’ll do so in Buffalo, however, remains to be seen.
“We would definitely be open to bringing either one or both of those guys back,” Beane said. “They both can play. I think some guys will want to see where their value is. It's got to be a fit, whether it's Jerry or Mario or any of the other guys, it's got to be a fit for them and a fit for us for how we see their value and what the market says about their value.”
3. Emmanuel Sanders hasn’t decided if he’s going to keep playing. Beane said he has yet to hear from the veteran receiver about his intentions for the 2022 season.
“It felt like maybe he was leaning towards hanging it up more than not, but have not had a definitive answer from him,” the GM said.
Sanders had 42 catches for 626 yards and four touchdowns in the regular season during his first year in Buffalo.
4. A league source told The Buffalo News the team will not use the franchise or transition tag this year. The deadline to do so is Tuesday. The last time the Bills used either one of the tags was when they franchised left tackle Cordy Glenn in 2016.
