Culture Club: How the Buffalo Bills have been able to keep the band together

Their players expect to win and know they can after coming so close to the Super Bowl in 2020 season.

NFL players can't be fooled. They know when they're part of something special and when they're not.

That's why linebacker Matt Milano and right tackle Daryl Williams re-signed with the Buffalo Bills last week at below-market prices.

That's why center Mitch Morse and defensive tackle Vernon Butler agreed to pay cuts rather than almost certainly getting more had they not accepted the offers and found themselves released to free agency.

That's why safety Jordan Poyer stopped drinking, knowing he needed to be sober to fully experience the high of what lay ahead.

The players know how close they are to winning the Super Bowl, and they're willing to sacrifice almost anything following a 13-3 season and a trip to the AFC Championship Game to make it happen.

Yet they also know they're just as close to taking a step back because they're being led by a man who's been there before.

Coach Sean McDermott already has been a part of two Super Bowl teams, having learned from Andy Reid and Ron Rivera before striking out on his own.

So they understood completely when McDermott told everyone after their season ended just what was needed to reach the next level.

"Here's what I know from experience," he said, "if you sit here and say `all we need to do is this much more (while holding his thumb and index finger an inch apart) to make it to the Super Bowl, you're wrong.' You've got to start over.

"Yes, you can carry things forward, but every year you've got to start over, you've got to rebuild the football team, you've got to grow as an individual. I mean, you've got to take it upon yourself, just because we've had success, to ask yourself the hard question ... you have to take that growth mindset approach."

It's a mindset that starts with expecting to win every week but not carrying inevitable setbacks forward. It includes accountability and the players accepting their roles without complaint.

This describes the Bills heading into 2021, the Philadelphia Eagles heading into 2004 and the Carolina Panthers heading into 2015.

McDermott was a part of those Eagles and Panthers teams that would fall in the Super Bowl.

He also was there for the losing seasons that immediately followed, perhaps because those teams had fallen into the faulty mindset he described.

The Bills haven't reached the top. And even if they win the next Super Bowl, they've got to continue to climb.

Listen to Milano. He'd rather grow with less money in his bank account than venture into the unknown with a little more.

"From the beginning, the Pegulas [owners Kim and Terry], McDermott, [general manager Brandon] Beane, they all believed in me ... and giving me that opportunity from the jump meant a lot to me," he said. "I just couldn't pass that over. I've built great relationships with everybody in Buffalo. I just want to continue to do that. We're on a winning team, the trajectory is going up. It's all positive things there, I'm just happy to be a part of it.

"Obviously just being anywhere for four years, you're going to grow dramatically, I think just overall as a football player, understanding the game more, the ins and outs of the defense, kind of now shifting my mindset over to how we're being attacked and that kind of thing. Once you have the defense down, you can think about other things, and that's how you kind of move to that next level."

Listen to Williams:

"The organization is amazing," he said. "I told my agent we definitely want to make this our No. 1 spot before we even hit free agency. So if it can happen, let's make it happen, and it did."

The players know, which is why they're not leaving.

They know the Bills now have some flexibility to add perhaps the final pieces to the puzzle by the end of free agency and the NFL Draft.

Regardless of whether it happens this year, they believe it will happen eventually.

In a sense, they're paying their way to be there when it happens.

That's what a winning culture does. That's what's going on with the Bills now.

That's why this is such a compelling team.  

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.