Preview: Buffalo Brotherhood
W&M alumni are making their mark with NFL’s Buffalo Bills
September 12, 2024
By
Nathan Warters
The following is a preview of the fall 2024 W&M Alumni Magazine feature “Buffalo Brotherhood.”
Sean McDermott ’98 settles into a leather chair emblazoned with the Buffalo Bills logo and engages a group of guests with a presidential charm not uncommon for a William & Mary alumnus. Personable and engaging, his appeal as a leader is clear. The Bills head coach gives off football CEO vibes more than hardened gridiron taskmaster, but anyone who knows him will attest he has few rivals in the toughness department.
Offseason workouts have begun in Bills minicamp, the unofficial kickoff to the 2024 season. McDermott appears relaxed and ready for the challenge that lies ahead. The stress of leading an NFL organization hasn’t shown yet. His years as a William & Mary undergrad, all-conference football player and later graduate assistant coach helped him develop the skills necessary for navigating the pressure cooker of NFL coaching, he says. It’s a role he relishes, especially as it relates to the impact it has on his alma mater.
“It means everything,” McDermott says of representing W&M in the NFL. “First and foremost, it’s a responsibility, and then secondly, it’s a platform to show other prospective students out there or other alums what you can accomplish if you work hard, that you can take what you learn at William & Mary and use it in whatever profession you decide to go into, and it can lead to great things.
McDermott credits William & Mary for sharpening traits critical to his success in coaching, such as professionalism, resiliency, a strong work ethic and a collaborative spirit. He also sees these traits in Joe Brady ’13, DJ Mangas ’12 and Christian Taylor ’07, all former W&M players and coaches he hired to join his staff in recent years.
When McDermott searched for the right candidates, “I thought what better place to look than William & Mary? Because you're talking about people who have been challenged,” he says. “They know the academic rigors, the challenge of being a student-athlete on campus at William & Mary. If you just boil it down to good people who are smart and know the value of a hard day's work, of work ethic, I think those are the traits that I was looking for.”
Read more in the fall edition of the W&M Alumni Magazine, available online on Oct. 14 and in print.