Shutdown Corner is previewing all 32 teams as we get ready for the NFL season, counting down the teams one per weekday in reverse order of our initial 2017 power rankings. No. 1 will be revealed on Aug. 2, the day before the Hall of Fame Game kicks off the preseason.

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Nobody should have to state out loud why it’s risky to give Sean McDermott so much power over the Buffalo Bills.

McDermott, hired from the Carolina Panthers to replace Rex Ryan, has never been a head coach before. That’s a big enough job. He has never run a front office either, but once general manager Doug Whaley was fired right after the draft, it was clear he had a major say in the personnel side too.

Brandon Beane was hired from the Panthers to be the official GM, and it’s hard to believe McDermott had nothing to do with hiring his old pal from Carolina. There’s some ambiguity on exactly how much power McDermott wields. A quote from owner Terry Pegula about how Beane is “gonna have the 53” could be seen as Beane having final say. Beane talked in generalities about every decision being a collaboration, but the Buffalo News reported the Bills’ setup will be similar to the Kansas City Chiefs’ structure the past few years. In Kansas City, recently fired GM John Dorsey did most of the personnel work but coach Andy Reid had the final say. It would make sense for McDermott to have similar power, considering how the Bills put McDermott front and center all offseason in a conspicuous “one voice” approach as the face of the franchise.

Maybe McDermott will be a great hire, and can handle all that has been given to him before his coaching debut. We shouldn’t base that on the hype from the first few months. How many head coaching hires aren’t lauded right away? The McDermott hire followed the same playbook. He’s a 180 from the boisterous Ryan, so that signals change. There has been the voluminous and predictable talk about changing the culture (always, changing the culture … seriously, if you haven’t heard, they want to change the culture there). When McDermott took out the pool table and video games from the Bills’ locker room, it was another sign of Improved Player Accountability (and, of culture change, obviously). There was the “earn the right to win” sticky catchphrase too. Change a detail here or there, but we’ve all seen this play out dozens of times with new NFL coaches. Heck, it was pretty much the same with Ryan two years ago.

The difference in this story might be how quickly Pegula fell head over heels for his new coach.

“I feel like Pegula would have hired McDermott to coach the Sabres too if he wanted the job,” Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News wrote. “It’s very clear the Bills’ new head coach has won over ownership.”

If you want to be optimistic, you figure that Pegula got around McDermott, recognized his brilliance and it’s clear to him McDermott is the man to lift the franchise to new heights. So he turned over the team to his new coach. And Pegula might be right. McDermott is well respected. And after an NFL-worst 17 straight years without a playoff berth, doing something different isn’t a bad thing.

The wagon is clearly hitched to McDermott, and if we’re all being honest, we have no idea if he can do the job(s) given to him. Buffalo can only hope.

McDermott takes over a team that was OK under Ryan, but never good enough. The problem is, the Bills probably need to fully rebuild, but it’s tough to go full New York Jets because the fan base is desperate to get back to the playoffs. So McDermott made some changes to be competitive this season and some that indicate there’s an eye on the future (and whatever the power structure really is now, it’s clear McDermott controlled this offseason before Whaley was fired).

The Bills are still a run-based team in a pass-first league. It’s a defense that underperformed under Ryan, who has always led good defenses, and lost its top cornerback Stephon Gilmore to the New England Patriots. The Bills have a shoddy set of pass catchers and a quarterback in Tyrod Taylor who they seem oddly cool about after bringing him back on a restructured contract. The Bills are seemingly always up against the salary cap too (a reason they’ve lost restricted free agents Chris Hogan and Mike Gillislee to the New England Patriots in consecutive years), which is embarrassing for a team with no playoff appearances since 1999 and a quarterback who is good but not a superstar. The constant cap problem is another mess that will need to be cleaned up.

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