“That’s on me. I gotta do a better job in that situation,” says Sean McDermott.
Yes, he does.
The situation is playing for overtime. The game is tied 20-20. The Bills have the ball at their own 3-yard line with 32 seconds left. Why not take your chances in overtime after fighting back from a 17-point third quarter deficit?
Instead, the Bills throw three incompletions and punt the ball to Houston with 7 seconds left. Two plays later, Ka’imi Fairbairn drills his second 50-plus-yard field goal of the game. There’s no need for overtime — the Texans beat the Bills 23-20.
“The end of the game situation on offense — the Texans still had three timeouts and they’ve got a good field goal kicker,” McDermott said. “We needed to run the ball and move the chains and that’s my fault.“
Josh Allen was philosophical about the end of the game. “Hindsight is 20-20,” he said. “We can go back and run it three times; who knows what the result will be.”
He’s right. We’ll never know. But after fighting back and digging out of a hole it would have been nice to find out. Especially with Allen missing his favorite target and struggling throughout the game.
Allen completed just nine of his 30 passes, only four to wide receivers. With Khalil Shakir out, he targeted the other wideouts 18 times with little success. One was a 49-yard sideline catch that rookie Keon Coleman ran in for a touchdown during Buffalo’s third-quarter comeback.
“We were off slightly tonight,” Allen admitted after the game, “That’s something that I gotta clean up.”
While they’re at it, here are some more messes to “clean up”:
- The Bills were only 3/14 on third down conversions following last week’s 3/13. That’s just a 22% success rate in their two losses.
- The Bills gave up 331 passing yards with Cam Lewis, Cole Bishop, and Jamarcus Ingram regular victims.
- Buffalo had just one sack on 38 C.J. Stroud passing attempts.
- The Bills vaunted tight end attack caught just two passes, both by Dalton Kincaid. Veteran Dawson Knox was not even targeted.
- Josh Allen had to run for his life because of shoddy protection, especially in the early going. He completed only one of his first nine passing attempts.
On and on.
McDermott is correct about doing a better job but maybe not where he thinks. He’s got to honestly and critically evaluate his team moving forward. He’s got to play conservative at times; maybe play for overtime, when his injury riddled roster can’t handle the risks.
He should start next weekend against a 2-3 Jets team desperate for a win.
John Murphy, the longtime Voice of the Bills, is writing columns for WIVB.com this season. Find more of his work here.