Throughout their history, the Bills have unfortunately become known for their heartbreaking shortcomings. Wide right. Four straight Super Bowl losses. A 17-year playoff drought. Four postseason losses to Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs.

Outside of two AFL championships Buffalo won before the AFL-NFL merger, Buffalo has yet to claim the big one. Even when they've fielded teams with MVPs and incredible Hall of Fame players from Jim Kelly to Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas and Josh Allen, their devastating losses often overshadow their successes.

Not in the eyes of coach Sean McDermott though.

Last January, before the Bills defeated the Ravens in the divisional round, Baltimore radio personality Jerry Coleman told Ravens coach John Harbaugh that Bills fans didn't like that he called Buffalo a "city of losers" several years earlier.

McDermott was reminded of Coleman's line while speaking to WIVB4 before the 2025 season, and became frustrated again at the "losers" narrative that he feels falsely shrouds the city.

"Now you’re gonna get me going," McDermott said.

"It bothers me. It honestly pisses me off because people don’t know this town," McDermott said. "They don’t know how hard that is to get to four straight Super Bowls. It’ll never happen again. And that’s where, there’s other things that drive … Yeah, I’m not … we’re good."

Perhaps more than achieving the ultimate glory as a football coach, McDermott is motivated to win in large part so he can change the perception surrounding Buffalo, a city he truly feels a part of. He felt so flustered by these thoughts about Buffalo that he wouldn't even specifically name the quote he was referring to, as if to not give it any more fuel.

"Just overall, changing the narrative on Buffalo, that is honestly, probably the number one thing for me, because that [narrative] bothers me. Because that is not what I’ve experienced or my family has experienced. ... They don’t know this community. They don’t know us."

Despite outside narratives, Bills fans have often taken the high road to prove those perceptions wrong. When Coleman initially referred to Buffalo as a "city of losers" in 2020, Bills fans raised thousands of dollars for the Alzheimer's Association, in honor of Coleman's mother who ultimately died of the disease later that year. Coleman, who later clarified he was calling the city's sports teams, not the city itself, losers, expressed gratitude for their contributions.

While it might take a Super Bowl victory for the Bills to truly change this narrative across the nation, the people of the city of Buffalo know who they are both in and out of the stadium.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as 'It Honestly Pisses Me Off': Sean McDermott Rants on Anger Over Buffalo Perception.

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