The Bills faced a number of decisions after they forced a third-down incompletion with 41 seconds left in a 20-20 game against the Texans.
Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud was penalized for intentional grounding on the play, but the Bills declined to take a 10-second runoff before the Texans, who had all three timeouts, punted. The punt was downed at the 3-yard-line and the Bills threw three straight incompletions before punting the ball back to Houston with 16 seconds left on the clock. The Texans got the ball in Buffalo territory and Ka’imi Fairbairn won the game with a 59-yard field goal after a five-yard gain.
After the game, Bills head coach Sean McDermott said at his press conference the Bills considered taking the runoff but declined because of the chance that the punt would have gone into the end zone. McDermott said he loves having the ball in quarterback Josh Allen’s hands, but added that “I probably should have run it on the first play” and said it was on his shoulders when asked if he was onboard with the play calls.
“That’s on me, the end-of-game situation on offense,” McDermott said. “We’re in a tough situation, three timeouts, 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.”
The Bills have now lost two straight after a 3-0 start to the season and they’ll try to end their losing streak against the Jets next Monday night.