The calendar officially flips to 2021 for the NFL next week.
The league’s new year begins at 4 p.m. Wednesday, which brings with it the start of free agency. Before officially turning the page, however, the Buffalo Bills’ in-house production team is taking one final look at the memorable 2020 season.
“Growth Mindset” is a 30-minute digital documentary that will air at 7 p.m. Thursday on the team’s YouTube channel and then again at 6:30 p.m. Saturday on WIVB-TV Ch. 4. The show chronicles the Bills’ first four years under head coach Sean McDermott and General Manager Brandon Beane, building up to an appearance in January’s AFC championship game against the Kansas City Chiefs.
“We got to the end of the season and we lose in the AFC championship game, which is a bummer. We're thinking, everyone is ready to move on to next season. That's how that machine usually works,” said Michelle Girardi Zumwalt, supervising producer for Pegula Sports and Entertainment. “You say goodbye to one season and on to the next. We really wanted to take a pause and think back on all the team has accomplished this last year. ... We had already done a couple shows about this season in particular. … We were thinking, ‘what could be an angle that we could take if we wanted to do one more show about this season?’ What jumped out at us was McDermott saying it's been four years in the making when we won the AFC East. That's what he said to the team in the locker room.”
People are also reading…
The episode includes footage from McDermott’s first training camp at St. John Fisher College, cornerback Tre’Davious White’s arrival in Buffalo after being selected in the first round of the 2017 draft and quarterback Josh Allen speaking with his parents after his first career win in 2018.
“It's exactly how you expect him to be in that moment,” Girardi Zumwalt said. “He's just always looking for a way to better himself.”
The name of the program comes from an oft-used McDermott phrase.
“It's just a good opportunity to look back and see the consistency of his message,” Girardi Zumwalt said. “You can take a look back at his opening press conference from when he first got here. His first mic'ed up with the team during training camp. All of the locker room speeches that he's given and really see how his message has been the same. The things that he was saying to the team in meetings three, four years ago are being carried through and executed on today. I think that's really cool.”
Even for in-house media, collecting material proved to be a challenge for the Bills’ production team. Covid-19 protocols greatly reduced access for all media, limiting interviews to Zoom calls. That meant moments that usually would have been captured were lost.
To improvise, Girardi Zumwalt’s team went back and reviewed archival footage of the past four seasons.
“We wanted to build a story of, ‘hey, let's take a breath and look back at all we've accomplished in the last four years, then also talk about all the good things that are to come and that we're ready to take that next step next year,” she said.
