New Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott brought three former Panthers players with him to Buffalo, creating a Carolina-Great Lakes campus in his first head-coaching stint.
But the one guy McDermott couldn’t take to Buffalo was his MMA sparring partner who would go at it with McDermott in the Panthers’ weight room in the pre-dawn workouts last season in Charlotte.
Looking for a workout that wouldn’t wear out his knees, McDermott – a champion high school wrestler growing up in Philadelphia – turned to mixed martial arts.
The sparring sessions often ended in blood, sweat and .