Buffalo Bills fans began worrying their repeated nightmare would happen once again when Josh Allen left the EverBank Stadium field with a lead, Trevor Lawrence waiting on the opposing sideline to wipe it away with 1:04 left on the game clock.
Many fans watching the final moments of the game unfold questioned head coach Sean McDermott’s decision to score on first down after the Jaguars were forced into using their final timeout. The Bills’ offense had 70 seconds left on the clock and four downs to score. Surely, the Bills could spend first down on 40 seconds of clock, stop it at a comfortable time to have three plays left to score with two timeouts in the back pocket.
McDermott took the sure thing. While the Jags didn’t try to stop the Bills from scoring on the goalline, Reggie Gilliam pushed Josh Allen into the endzone on the Bills’ fourth tush-push attempt of the game. Eventually, McDermott’s decision didn’t matter. On the Jaguars’ first play after the go-ahead score, Lawrence was picked off by Cole Bishop.
On Monday, McDermott explained his decision to take the points, thereby giving the Jaguars one last chance to drive the field.
Sean McDermott breaks down late scoring decision that tested Bills Mafia's nerves
“C’mon, who would not want to bleed time off that clock? It is a slippery slope, though at the same time.,” McDermott said. “If you try to get too cute, then get, all of a sudden, take yourself out of quarterback sneak position, now you’re running different plays. And now the chance for a negative play to come into play becomes more and more real.”
“There’s a downside to that. Listen, I was raising my hand, let’s take time off the clock. I’ll just say that,” McDermott said. “So, it’s how do you want to do that?”
The coach then motioned a few ways Allen could have fallen to mitigate lost yardage, while emphasizing that there’s no sure thing that things don’t go incredibly wrong.
“I wanted to make sure we didn’t get too cute. When it’s a little grey, say, ‘hey, let’s trust our defense,’ and they did a phenomenal job,” he said.
Afterwards, McDermott clarified that he decided against his initial thought to bleed the clock.
“I thought better of myself,” McDermott said with a laugh.
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As McDermott noted at the top of his response, he and the game management staff will review the situation in more detail to make sure of what exactly they want to do in a similar situation in the future. Clearly, McDermott sees both sides of the equation, but being a defensive-minded coach, it’s not too surprising that he chose to trust his defense.
Of course, Bills fans have seen his trust in his defense be misplaced in the past, particularly in the postseason. Hopefully, if McDermott’s defense is put to the test with the game on the line again this postseason, they can come through just like they did in Jacksonville.
At the same time, there’s something to be said about trusting Josh Allen to make a safe play on that first down and bleed those 40 seconds away. After all, he’s the best player in the NFL, and if Buffalo can’t score from one-yard out on three plays with him in that spot, it wasn’t meant to be anyway. Maybe the next time McDermott has this decision to make, he can put that same kind of trust in Allen to seal the game and save Bills Mafia some grief.