Prior to facing the Los Angeles Chargers, Buffalo Bills safety Jordan Poyer said he was moving on from the ending of his team’s loss to the Arizona Cardinals. That, of course, was highlighted by a Hail Mary pass from Kyler Murray to DeAndre Hopkins to end the game in a Cards win.
“I’ve played this game long enough to understand that you’re going to be on the bad end of some plays,” Poyer said.
While the Bills (8-3) did top the Chargers, 27-17, in Week 12, Poyer and his teammates got a friendly reminder of something from two weeks earlier, before Buffalo went on their bye week.
The ills beat Los Angeles, but what did quarterback Justin Herbert do?
Completed another Hail Mary pass against the Bills in the dying seconds.
The play left Buffalo defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, quite literally, was scratching his head during his weekly video conference on Monday.
“Believe me, I wish I knew,” Frazier said. “It’s a head-scratcher. The one yesterday, I just shake my head. We have a bunch of guys around the ball.”
While games rarely come down to such a play, Frazier said the team does practice such plays each and every week. One question some wonder is should the Bills put better personnel out there on the field in such circumstances? Such as players from offense?
Frazier didn’t say no.
“Could be, could be,” Frazier said when asked about the possibility. “Those are things we’re thinking about. But I think we’re capable of knocking that ball down. We haven’t done it yet, but I think we’re capable of doing it. We have some pretty good athletes back there.”
The Bills secondary has been a strength of the team for multiple seasons since Sean McDermott took over as head coach in 2017. As of now, there’s little reason to overreact to such plays occurring, as the likelihood of completing the Hail Mary is low. In fact, Murray’s Hail Mary completion to Hopkins had about a one-in-six chance of being caught. Hopkins, for his part, made the play of the season.
After the Cards loss, it was kind of an eye roll situation. Now? Well, things like that just don’t happen twice for no reason. Hopefully we actually don’t find out the answer to this question, but could Tyron Johnson catching Herbert’s late catch change the way Buffalo’s defense attacks such scenarios? Guys like Stefon Diggs or Dawson Knox could be options.
In any event, these head-scratching needs to be replaced by precise execution moving forward.
A Herbert Hail Mary. #BoltUp pic.twitter.com/vgUtNkxfC4
— NFL (@NFL) November 29, 2020
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