Sean McDermott Lost the Eagles Game For the Bills With Two Awful Decisions

Head coaches around the NFL are all the same in that they will take responsibility for everything bad that happened to their team during any given game when speaking to the press. Most of the time it is not true, of course. Coaches can prepare as hard as they'd like but it's the players who play the game and it is their decisions that will determine the outcome more often than not.

Of course, every now and again a head coach will be faced with a decision (or decisions) that swing their team's fortunes. Such was the case last night with Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott in the midst of a fierce, rainy battle with the Philadelphia Eagles. And boy, did he blow it! To the degree that it's one of the rare situations where it's fair to say that he and he alone is responsible for his team's loss.

The first bad call by McDermott came at the very end of regulation. The Eagles had just scored with 20 seconds seconds left to tie up the ballgame and overtime seemed imminent. The Bills, however, had a timeout left and happen to employ a human rocket ship at quarterback. That's not a lot of time but Buffalo should know better than anybody how easy it can be to get into field goal range with a superstar quarterback and wide receiver after the Kansas City Chiefs famously did so in 13 seconds during the 2021 AFC Championship Game.

Apparently the lesson McDermott took from that was "don't even try" because they chose to kneel it out. With Josh Allen as their quarterback! Now, obviously Allen has a turnover issue and threw a pick in the fourth quarter to let Philly back into the game. But playing not to lose is a surefire way to, in fact, lose. This is a tale as old as time in football. McDermott didn't play to win and thus wasted his team's best chance to steal a win at the Linc.

Then McDermott sealed his fate in overtime. After the Bills narrowly missed on a game-winning touchdown the Eagles marched down the field quickly. Jalen Hurts ended up scoring his fifth touchdown of the day on a designed QB run to walk it off. At that stage in that sort of game you'd normally just tip your cap to the offense and move on, but it wasn't so simple. Eagles players revealed after the game that the Bills called a defensive play that fit so perfectly into Philly's plan for a designed QB run that they almost couldn't believe what they were seeing. And it had been a key part of the playbook for several years so it's not like it was a surprise.

And you know who calls the defensive plays in Buffalo? One Sean McDermott.

In summary, McDermott played it safe at the end of regulation and cost his team a chance at a game-winning field goal, a scenario easily envisioned given how far Allen can throw the ball. Then with the game on the line he called the exact play the Eagles were looking for in order to gift them the win.

It's the story of the 2023 Buffalo Bills. Stretches of excellence followed by spates of absolute cowardice and/or stupidity that cost them the game. It's why their record is at .500 despite outscoring their opponents by 101 points over the course of the year.

Coaching matters, folks.