Following reports that he had given his players a speech in which he cited the terrorist atrocities of September 11, 2001, as an example of exemplary teamwork, Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott was forced to back down on Thursday.
He brought up the 9/11 hijackers, who killed almost 3,000 people in the bloodiest terrorist attack on American soil, to highlight the value of unity. At that time, he claimed, everyone was “on the same page.”
The comments were made four years ago during a team meeting, but they weren’t made public until Thursday. They were treated to an unexpected news conference by a solemn McDermott.
“I wanted to talk about how important it is for the team to communicate and be on the same page that day at the meeting. “I was sorry to the team right away for bringing up 9/11 in my message that day,” McDermott told reporters.
“Not only was 9/11 a horrific event in our country’s history, but a day that I lost a good family friend,” he said.
Journalist Tyler Dunne of Go Long, an online paid football newspaper, made the remarks in a series of longform pieces about the Bills. Dunne reported speaking with 25 unidentified franchise insiders who had direct knowledge of the speeches. NBC News is unable to confirm the precise words McDermott used.
According to Dunne, McDermott is renowned for his protracted and frequently unconventional team meetings. At Pittsford, New York’s St. John Fisher College, McDermott started addressing the team one morning about the value of unity.
“But then, according to insiders, he employed an odd model: the terrorists of September 11, 2001. He mentioned the hijackers as an example of a group of individuals who were able to coordinate well enough to plan assaults with precision. McDermott began questioning each individual player in the room one by one, according to Dunne.
He claimed to have learned about the allegation from the team’s vice president of communications, Derek Boyko, and felt compelled to bring it up straight away. “I told Derek to stop right there because this is important to me,” McDermott recalled saying when he presented this specific piece.
The coach responded to inquiries from the media during the press conference by saying he was trying to emphasize “the importance of communication, and being on the same page as a team.”
An hour later, McDermott addressed the players once more after a player at the 2019 meeting complained that his point had not been delivered properly enough.
“I gathered everyone and said, ‘This was the aim, this was the goal, and I apologize if anyone felt any kind of way after that meeting,'” McDermott recalled.
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