Bills Coach Sean McDermott Talks Evolution at NFL Meetings

He addressed the issue of so many great quarterbacks flocking to the AFC with an interesting response.

Bills coach Sean McDermott talked shortly after his arrival Sunday in Palm Beach, Fla. for the NFL Meetings about the importance of evolving on and off the field.

He expanded on that in an extended meeting with reporters Monday morning, after moving the press conference outside of the noisy coaches breakfast inside The Breakers resort, where so many other conferences were going on at the same time, side-by-side.

His reaction to the AFC suddenly being flooded with great quarterbacks was especially noteworthy.

"It's like, `hey, what's the next step? ... Where's the next competitive advantage?' " McDermott said. "And that's what you're racking your brain over, saying, `hey, is it personnel, is it strategic is it schematics? What is it?' And I think that's ... kind of the fun part, the challenging part of the chess match."

A day earlier, in a conversation with NFL Network's Judy Battista, he hinted that probably will involve the Bills' franchise quarterback, Josh Allen, running less (but hopefully enjoying it more).

"Yeah, we want to evolve," McDermott said. "We're always trying to evolve — on the field, off the field, schematically — and in this case with Josh's running or the amount of times that we run him, we have to continue to evolve that way and making sure we're doing right by him by doing right by our team. So we are going to keep a close eye on that.

"But the one thing we will never take from Josh is his competitive nature and spirit. So, he's going to do it when he's going to do it."

Allen in just four seasons has risen to 23rd on the NFL's all-time list of rushing leaders at his position. That puts him on pace to surpass Michael Vick as the No. 1 rusher of all time in less than three seasons.

(Of couse Baltimore's Lamar Jackson, who entered the league the same year Allen did, is on pace for even more.)

Point is, after coming off career highs in attempts (122) and yards (763), Allen's best chance for long-term success may be to dial down those numbers, even though he finished with a league-best 6.3 yards per attempt last season.

To that end, the Bills believe they've upgraded their offensive line by adding guard Rodger Saffold, even though it came at the expense of dumping experienced and versatile linemen like Daryl Williams and Jon Feliciano and allowing Ike Boettger to hit free agency.

They also stand to lose guard Ryan Bates, a restricted free agent who has signed an offer sheet with the Chicago Bears. The Bills have until Tuesday to match the offer or will lose him with no compensation after offering him the lowest contract tender ($2.43 million) allowed by league rules.

"Ryan's a really good player and he's a really good person," McDermott said. "You know, he's meant a lot to our football team. So whether he was in a backup role or in a starting role, he's been a valuable piece of our team and why we've had the results that we have, so we'll just kind of see where things go."

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Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.