Bills’ Sean McDermott takes responsibility for Texans loss: ‘That’s on me’
The Buffalo Bills lost to the Houston Texans 23-20 during their NFL Week 5 road game on Sunday.
It was the Bills’ second loss of the season, coming in back-to-back weeks against AFC playoff contenders.
And like the week prior, coaching decisions once more came under question following the matchup.
The Bills came back from being down 20-3 and scored 17 straight points to tie the game with under four minutes to play.
Houston QB C.J. Stroud was flagged for intentional grounding making it fourth-and-15 to take the Texans out of field-goal range with under a minute left in the game. They punted, placing the Bills at their own three-yard line.
Three straight incomplete passes later, and the Bills had neither converted a first down nor run off the game clock, instead punting to give Houston the ball back with a chance to win.
One Houston made good on.
Buffalo could have run the clock down to have a chance to keep the game tied and go to overtime, a missed opportunity that proved costly.
“That’s on me, the end-of-game situation on offense,” head coach Sean McDermott said after the game “We’re in a tough situation … they were holding three timeouts, they got a good field goal kicker. We needed to run the clock and move the chains, and that’s on me. We didn’t do that there, and that’s my fault.”
Buffalo had a chance to keep a drive alive and potentially take a lead when they started a drive on their own three-yard line with under a minute left on the game clock.
But failed to do so.
“Coach is gonna trust us to go out there and do that,” Allen said. “Obviously would love to convert there and hindsight’s 20-20, but yeah.”
Allen threw three straight incomplete passes and the offense wasn’t able to get a first down or run out the clock.
“I love Josh with the ball in his hands — you know I do,” head coach Sean McDermott said postgame. “And again, efficient offense was the right approach there, and … I didn’t have us do that. And so again, we learned from that. Tough situation.”
McDermott and his staff have notably been scrutinized after their game and clock management near the end of the contest.
“… You go back and forth, and, hey, I probably should have run it on the first play and just said, ‘Hey, where are we now?'” He added. “Either way, we’re probably gonna have to move the chains one time, right? To not give them a chance. But again, those are situations and that’s on me.”
“It sucks to lose any game, but especially when you come back all the way through, felt like we had good momentum going into the second half, into the fourth quarter there, but it’s the NFL. It’s a tough League,” LB Terrel Bernard said.
After Houston returned Buffalo’s punt 13 yards to their own 41-yard line, they gained 5 yards on the next play, which set up a 59-yard game-winning field goal.
On that last play before the kick, Bills linebacker Dorian Williams was late to get on the field before the snap, and corner Rasul Douglas noted postgame Williams may not have known the play call.
“We were trying to go nickel defense, and Dorian was on the side,” McDermott explained. “We didn’t have the communication we needed right there, and so because of that, he was late onto the field and getting the call in that situation.”
It was the latest instance of some drop-off in play by the Bills players.
“Overall we’ve been a little bit off our game from what we executed in the first three games,” McDermott added.
Defensive end A.J. Epenesa shared it was important that the team not “ride the roller coaster” of emotions following the two losses.
“Right now, we’re at a low,” he said. “We’ve lost two games, but we’ve got to try to stay as consistent as possible. We’ve had a lot of success on this team. We do a lot of great things. It’s just us shooting ourselves in the foot. It’s us making mistakes, which is allowing these teams to beat us. We’ve got to clean those things up.”
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