The Bills fell to the Eagles 37-34 in an NFL week 12 overtime loss Sunday.
On a night overtaken by rain in Philadelphia, the Bills defense was overtaken on the final drive of the game, yet again giving an opponent the victory.
Head coach Sean McDermott, who’s taken on defensive playcalling duties following the offseason leave of assistant head coach and defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, has faced reasonable questioning about shouldering both roles.
After such an important game with playoff implications and a loss that puts the team at 6-6 on the year, he was asked whether the team’s defense let the offense down in those key spots late in the game.
“Well that’s that’s where I look first,” McDermott said to the press. “Where I look at myself first, I look at the defense right after that, and in the second half, we didn’t do enough to win the game so if you come out and you’re able to shut them down in the second half like we did in the first half then yeah. But, again, I think it’s a team game and so you have opportunities across the board offensively, defensively, and special teams, but that’s where I start with myself and the defense.”
Buffalo’s six losses this season haven’t been by more than six points, and in three of those six losses the Bills offense has scored to give them a lead with under two minutes left to play.
In four of those contests, however, their defense has given up points in the final two minutes allowing their opponents to either tie or win those games.
“Seems like this year every game comes down to the last two minutes, offense has the ball, we have the ball and these are the results,” S Micah Hyde said postgame.
“We could have nine, ten wins right now but that’s in fantasy land, and in real life we understand what our record is. You can’t doubt that, you can’t shy away from it. We definitely have a lot of upside. It’s crazy to say that, with our record being six and six, but the close games that we have that we’ve lost have been by a few points, so we got to, in those situational moments, find a way to get a takeaway or, if the offense has the ball, get a touchdown.”
It’s not been hard to notice the times that the Bills defense and special teams have not executed their phases of complimentary football in those losses.
And in some cases, coaching and coordinating decisions, such as on the Eagles winning drive.
Jordan Mailata said on the game winning touchdown that he couldn’t believe the Bills gave them that look. That play is a staple within their offense and when they saw the safety move they all knew Jalen would score.
— James Palmer (@JamesPalmerTV) November 27, 2023
Or on the Bills’ final offensive drives of regulation and in overtime, when they chose to kick field goals instead of going for a touchdown to win.
“If we had gotten to fourth and two, fourth and three, possibly. We had talked about that, going for it, going for the win, for sure,” McDermott added.
“Obviously, I mean hindsight’s always 20/20 you know so believe me it’s gone through my through my mind more than once, so when you get the result you got you’re always looking back and saying hey maybe kept one of those, so that’s the life we live.”
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