McDermott had cited the hijackers while stressing the importance of communication. Upon realising how his message was being interpreted, McDermott said he called a second team meeting an hour later to apologise to his players.
He planned to do so again with his current team on Thursday, after an article posted on the Substack page of NFL writer Tyler Dunne, citing numerous unnamed sources, revealed what McDermott had said at the meeting during training camp in 2019.
“Not only was 9/11 a horrific event in our country’s history, but a day that I lost a good family friend,” McDermott said during an unplanned appearance in the Bills’ media room.
“As I mentioned to the team then that I regretted and apologised for me not going a good enough job of communicating my point, I’m going to do the same with the team today,” he added. “So if there’s anyone new, they understand how important that is to me and my family because it’s an important event, a horrific event in our history
