01/20/2026
Dear Coach Sean McDermott — and Mr. Terry Pegula,
I didn’t plan to write publicly.
Two nights ago, after the game, I wrote a blog for myself — the kind of writing we sometimes do when something doesn’t settle in the body. Yes, the Bills’ season ended in playoff overtime, one play away from a game-winning field goal, in a way that felt unfinished. I found myself writing about appearances versus integrity, about arbitrariness, and about how high-stakes systems — especially in sports — often assert finality without fully resolving doubt.
That writing wasn’t really about football. It was about how authority-driven systems can declare outcomes “decided” even when clarity is missing (the way officiating and “rules” can end a game while still leaving reasonable doubt). About how being told to “move on” doesn’t work when closure never arrives. I didn’t intend to post it. It was therapeutic for me as a heartbroken Bills fan.
Then I woke up to today’s news, realizing the organization I had been writing about in theory had just replicated that same process in practice.
Coach McDermott, what stayed with me most from two nights ago wasn’t the call itself. It was the people.
Watching Josh Allen openly sob at the podium — not deflecting, not performing — and seeing multiple players breaking down in the locker room told me everything I needed to know. Teams don’t grieve like that unless they feel safe enough to be human. They don’t invest like that unless accountability, connection, and care have been modeled consistently from the top.
That culture does not happen by accident. You took a franchise that had recently lived in chaos and gave it stability, identity, and dignity. Over nine seasons, you led Buffalo to the playoffs in all but one year and became the second-winningest coach in Bills history, behind only the legend that is Marv Levy — a reminder that sustained leadership has never been measured here by a single unmet outcome.
What you built here mattered.
It mattered to the players.
It mattered to the fans.
It mattered to the city.
Which is why today’s decision feels so disorienting.
Mr. Pegula, Buffalo has seen this pattern before: we are watching its reversal in real time.
Lindy Ruff did not choose to leave the Sabres. He was fired in 2013 despite being the winningest coach in franchise history, his long-term impact discounted in favor of a short-term response to pressure. Years later, you brought him back — and since his return, the Sabres are showing renewed cohesion, direction, and competitiveness, precisely the qualities that were lost when continuity was broken the first time.
That timing matters. It underscores what Buffalo is actively relearning on the hockey side: culture, institutional memory, and leadership continuity are not sentimental luxuries; they are performance assets.
And yet today, on the football side, the Bills chose to remove the most visible leader — the coach who carried the emotional weight, the public accountability, and the culture of this team — while keeping the front-office structure beneath him intact.
Keeping Brandon Beane while dismissing the head coach sends a confusing message about where responsibility actually lives. Roster construction, draft decisions, and financial strategy shape outcomes just as surely as coaching does — yet those deeper structures remain untouched.
From a systems perspective, this is a familiar move. When pressure mounts, organizations often seek relief by acting decisively at the surface. It looks bold. It feels immediate. But it frequently displaces responsibility rather than clarifying it — much like an officiating system that ends a game while leaving everyone unsettled.
This decision also landed amid a broader wave of coaching firings across the league, amplifying the sense that speed and optics were prioritized over reflection and coherence.
What troubles me most — and what I was already writing about the night before — is how often appearance is mistaken for accountability. How decisive gestures are confused with meaningful change. How leaders who allow humanity to be visible are treated as expendable when outcomes disappoint.
And yet, the tears we saw two nights ago — from Josh Allen, from players in the locker room — were not weakness. They were evidence. Of trust. Of connection. Of leadership that made it safe to care fully.
One Buffalo is not a slogan. It is a bond — a psychological contract between leadership, players, and community. Under Coach McDermott, that bond was lived, not marketed.
Coach McDermott, what you built here was real, and it will endure — regardless of how abruptly it was set aside. I am truly sorry this is happening to you today. It feels neither fair nor right — much like the outcome of our game. I think many of us believed we had learned better by now.
Mr. Pegula, this city has learned before that when organizations mistake optics for wisdom, they eventually pay the price in trust, cohesion, and time. My hope is that this moment is met not with defensiveness, but with the courage to examine whether the right lessons are truly being applied across all of Buffalo’s teams.
With respect, concern, and enduring loyalty to this community,
Laura Anderson
Dr. Laura 716
Bills Mafia, always
https://www.vagaro.com/lauraandersonphdlicensedpsychologist
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/laura-m-anderson-williamsville-ny/800284
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❤️💙❤️💙 I didn’t plan to post this. I wrote to regulate the other night. Then, today, I woke up to this news This is about leadership, accountability, and what One Buffalo is supposed to mean.
I’m sharing this as reflection, not debate.
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