Bills head coach Sean McDermott has publicly apologized after it was revealed that he had invoked 9/11 during a locker room speech in 2019. He said he "regretted mentioning 9/11 in my message that day and I immediately apologized to the team. Not only was 9/11 a horrific event in our country's history, but a day that I lost a good family friend." McDermott's comments were first reported by Go Long and invoked the 2001 terror attack in a truly bizarre way. McDermott reportedly cited the hijackers as a good example of teamwork and communication.
Furthermore, McDermott claimed that he was called out by players at the time and immediately recontextualized his comments to them. "I brought everybody together and said this was the goal, this was the intent, and I apologize if anyone whatsoever felt a certain type of way coming out of that meeting. If anyone misinterpreted or didn't understand my message, I apologize. I didn't do a good enough job of communicating clearly the intent of my message. That was about the importance of communication and that everyone needs to be on the same page, ironically enough. So that was important to me then and still is now," McDermott stated.
Bills Expect No Immediate Punishment For Von Miller
Meanwhile, the Bills are facing a contemporary locker room crisis in the form of Von Miller. Miller was arrested last week on charges relating to the alleged assault of his pregnant partner. However, he is currently practicing with the team and is expected to play against Kansas City this weekend. "We weren't there. We're not the investigators. We don't, obviously, you know, we had our conversations with Von and understood what he believes happened. And so, from that standpoint we can't get into it. It's an open investigation, and so we'll just, we'll let the legal process play out, and he'll participate like normal in practice," GM Brandon Beane told reporters.
"Anytime it's an ongoing investigation, if something was uncovered that the commissioner does have that, at any point, if he feels there was something that, hey, this is, this doesn't look good or something like that, if at any point that, they could. But with our knowledge of what we have today, we don't expect that," Beane added in regard to the possibility of Miller being added to the Commissioner's Exempt List.
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