Bills coach Sean McDermott’s crucial goal-line decision was right call in playoff win (Commentary)

Jacksonville, Fla. — The Buffalo Bills and coach Sean McDermott are no strangers to excruciating late-game decisions in close playoff games.

The Bills are battle-tested in that department, navigating several late-game, game-defining situations against the Kansas City Chiefs over the past five seasons.

Buffalo faced another one of those situations on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars. The Bills were down by four points with 1:05 to play. The Jaguars had no timeouts, and the Bills had the ball 1st-and-goal from the Jacksonville 1-yard line.

The choice facing McDermott was whether to try to run a quarterback kneel. That would take some time off the clock and limit the Jaguars’ options with no timeouts and well under a minute to play. Or, he could be aggressive and try to score, and then trust your defense to make a stop.

Bills quarterback Josh Allen was asked about the sequence after the game, and he didn’t hesitate to call McDermott’s decision the right one.

“Standing right here right now, we did the right thing,” Allen said. “Hindsight is 20/20, but at the end of the day, we got it done, and that’s all that matters.”

Even with hindsight providing a more nuanced look at the situation, McDermott still made the right call.

A kneel down costs at least a yard and turns a 1-yard score into a 2-yard score. The Bills have options near the goal line with Allen at quarterback, but McDermott can’t fall back on a field goal if the next play fails. The only score that allows the Bills a chance to win is a touchdown.

“I really honestly wanted to try to bleed the clock down if we could,” McDermott said.

Allen orchestrated a masterful drive to set up the game-winning score. He got the ball back with 3:58 to play and moved the ball methodically down the field. The most impressive came on a 1st-and-10 from Buffalo’s own 44-yard line. The Jaguars called a linebacker blitz, and it looked like Devin Lloyd was going to sack Allen. But he got off an improbable throw to Brandin Cooks right before contact, hung in and took the hit, and gave the Bills even more life down at the Jaguars’ 20-yard line as the two-minute warning hit.

Allen then completed three straight short passes for 9 yards to set up a 4th-and-1 from Jacksonville’s 11-yard line. On the next play, Allen put his head down and right guard O’Cyrus Torrence lifted him off the ground, pushing him through defenders all the way down to the goal line.

Once the Bills landed on the door step of a touchdown, McDermott and his staff began planning.

“You want to take a knee (but) you take a knee, the ball is inside the 1,” he said. “By the time we take the snap and even just knee it, then you’re like, okay, run the clock down to, what, 30 seconds, 28, whatever. So we’re talking about these things, and I’m going, man, I know who they have on that side of the ball at a minimum, starting with the placekicker. So, we’re like, all right, let’s not get cute. Let’s go win this thing, put our defense out there, and they did.”

On Trevor Lawrence’s first pass of the ensuing drive, he tried testing Bills cornerback Tre’Davious White on a short slant throw to Jakobi Meyers. White stayed on the receiver in coverage, tipped the pass into the air, and Buffalo safety Cole Bishop intercepted the pass to punch the Bills’ ticket to the divisional round at Denver next weekend.

McDermott’s sense of the game situation was on point in the final moments of his first road playoff win as a head coach. When you have an opportunity to score on the road in the playoffs, you have to take it. Lawrence made several critical mistakes throughout the game and finished with a pair of interceptions. The Bills probably could have had one or two more, too.

The Bills’ defense did give up touchdowns on the previous two possessions, but each drive lasted more than four minutes. Lawrence, an untested playoff performer, was getting the ball with no timeouts. Jaguars coach Liam Coen explained that Jacksonville’s passing offense struggled, especially in the first half, because of how Buffalo’s defense played.

“Obviously it’s a pretty solid pass defense,” Coen said. “They were doing some stuff pre-snap, post-snap, changing the picture a little bit, and just didn’t really get going.”

The final factor that McDermott had to consider was Jaguars kicker Cam Little, who’s been one of the NFL’s best this season. He has a huge leg and could probably tie the game from 70 yards if the Jaguars could get him in range.

“We know from a game management standpoint that they have a phenomenal field goal kicker,” McDermott said. “We practice those situations, though, when you only can really give up X amount of yards, and if he uncorks a 70-yard field goal, that really only left us a few yards right there. (Defensive Coordinator Bobby Babich) knew it, did a great job. The players executed.”

Little did miss a kick earlier in the game. But McDermott knew it would take perfect execution from the Jaguars passing game to give the kicker a shot. He managed the game the way it required in the moment. He’s been heavily criticized for game management over the course of his career, but he deserves credit when he gets it right. If the Bills did get cute and kneeled it, and then didn’t score a touchdown, their season might be over.

Next up is another road test against the AFC’s No. 1-seeded Denver Broncos. McDermott will need another big performance if the Bills want to advance to another AFC title game.

He proved on Sunday against the Jaguars that he’s more than capable.