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Bills’ Sean McDermott roasted for ‘insane management’: ‘There may not be a dumber’ decision

Posted on October 7, 2024 - 1:42 am by

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott handed the Houston Texans their fourth win of the season on Sunday.

After seeing his team work their way out of a 17-point deficit, Houston received the ball with a chance to win late in the fourth quarter. After the two-minute warning, McDermott burned his second and third timeouts ahead of Houston’s third-down play. McDermott was clearly hoping for a third-down stop and to have enough time to win the game, but Houston converted on third down to keep their drive alive. It seemed like Houston would be able to take the clock all the way down to the end and attempt a game-winning field goal, but their drive stalled out thanks to an intentional grounding penalty on C.J. Stroud.



Houston would punt the ball to Buffalo and down it at the three yard line with 32 seconds remaining. Houston had all three timeouts remaining, but running the ball three straight times would have at least forced the Texans to burn all of their timeouts before receiving the ball back. Instead of following that strategy, McDermott allowed offensive coordinator Joe Brady and quarterback Josh Allen to get aggressive.

Keep in mind, heading into the drive Buffalo’s pass-catchers had little to no success for the most part. No receiver or tight end had more than two catches and separation was hard to come by. So three straight passes went exactly like you would think: Incomplete, incomplete and incomplete.

Not only did the Bills not force the Texans to call a timeout, the team hardly took any time off the clock. One punt later, the Texans were close to field goal range and had the entire field to work with since they had all three timeouts. Stroud was able to find his back across the middle of the field for a five-yard gain to set up a 59-yard game-winning Ka’imi Fairbairn field goal as time expired. Houston would win 23-20 as Fairbairn was carried off by his teammates.

Following the loss, media members were baffled with McDermott’s decision making and spoke about it on social media.

McDermott would take blame for the loss postgame, but that is too little, too late. Buffalo has now dropped two straight games, both to teams that they will likely be battling with for seeding in the AFC Playoffs.