Buffalo Bills Head Coach Reportedly Told His Team to Come Together Like the 9/11 Terrorists
Perry Knotts/AP
Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott once referenced the hijackers of the Sept. 11 attacks as an example of how his team can come together to achieve a common goal.
According to a three-part series titled “The McDermott Problem” by writer Tyler Dunne, the coach made the inappropriate comparison during a team meeting in 2021. Players and coaches who were there at the time refer to it as the “9/11 speech.”
“At St. John Fisher College in Pittsford, N.Y., McDermott’s morning address began innocently enough,” Dunne said. “He told the entire team they needed to come together. But then, sources on-hand say, he used a strange model: the terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001. He cited the hijackers as a group of people who were all able to get on the same page to orchestrate attacks to perfection.”
As if McDermott couldn’t make his players even more uncomfortable, he then began calling on them to theorize why the attackers were so effective.
“One by one, McDermott started asking specific players in the room questions,” Dunne continued. “‘What tactics do you think they used to come together?’ A young player tried to methodically answer. ‘What do you think their biggest obstacle was?’ A veteran answered, ‘TSA,’ which mercifully lightened the mood.”
As one might expect, the speech left the team stunned. One veteran player described it as a “horrible, horrible reference” and that the coach “missed the mark.”
An unnamed coach said McDermott was “just so clueless that he couldn’t believe that it was a big deal when the players were losing their minds.”
Since the publication of the story, McDermott confirmed the speech happened and he “immediately” apologized to the team for it.
“My intent in the meeting that day was to discuss the importance of communication,” he told the media Thursday. “I regretted mentioning 9/11 in my message that day and I immediately apologized to the team. Not only was 9/11 a horrific event in our country’s history, but a day that I lost a good family friend.”
“I regretted mentioning 9/11 in my message that day and I immediately apologized to the team. Not only was 9/11 a horrific event in our country’s history, but a day that I lost a good family friend,” Sean McDermott said.
— katherine fitzgerald (@kfitz134) December 7, 2023
