McD strategy blunders

[NoSaint]

32 minutes ago, Mikie2times said:

Not at all. The right move was to punt. That said, I'm not giving him a hard time. He did an excellent job Sunday. 

I suspect if mathing the math - it’s probably a punt there 

 

but will say this was a perfect pko play. Josh on the pass-kick-option!

[Rock'em Sock'em]

I like the decision to kick.  It gives you two chances to win, including a high percentage play right then.  Analytics would likely agree.  We missed the kick, but it worked out anyway because we had a second way to win.  However, I did not love the timeout on 3rd down.  I thought it would have been better to call the timeout before the kick so that the they wouldn't need to time the snap of the ball with the play clock.  That may have contributed to the doink.

[Gregg]

2 minutes ago, BuffaloBillsGospel2014 said:

 

I never once said they played bad but I still don't understand how a 4th and 17 happens unless it's a PI call.

 

I agree with you. The 4th and 17 should never happen. Give credit to Mahomes and their offense for making that play. But the Bills should have stopped them there. You can't give up a 4th and 17 completion. But overall, it was still good day for the Bills defense

[DrDawkinstein]

3 minutes ago, GunnerBill said:

 

I've seen different numbers on twitter. Will try and dig out. 

 

I can imagine different sources may see it differently, but I'm going off what was discussed extensively on WGR yesterday, and those guys are at least usually pretty well sources/cited.

[WIDE LEFT]

On 10/8/2025 at 11:54 AM, billsfan89 said:

This seems like a reach to me. The Bills defense did force a longer field goal and the Bills defense shouldn't have been in that situation had the offense not turned the ball over 3 times. 

 

On 10/8/2025 at 1:59 PM, Captain Hindsight said:

Right? If they sack Drake Maye on the first play of the drive, the game might be going into overtime or the Bills get the win. Sometimes the other team makes a great play.

 

Maye and Diggs were awesome Sunday and the Bills played terrible and it was a 3 point game.

 

45 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

If Prater makes the kick, no one is complaining. If McDermott punts there he's "spineless, gutless and clueless. Needs to trust his kicker to win and not play not to lose."

If an NFL coach bases his decisions on fan reactions, he should not be coaching an NFL team

[oldmanfan]

One gets the distinct impression that those who criticize the FG decision would be posting today criticizing a decision to punt if that had been made.

[BuffaloBillyG]

1 minute ago, WIDE LEFT said:

 

 

If an NFL coach bases his decisions on fan reactions, he should not be coaching an NFL team

That's the point. He doesn't. So the negative Nancy style fan will continue to second guess him for not winning in the manner that they would have wanted to see. Which is what your whole argument boils down to.

[Bray Wyatt]

I liked the FG call, when you have a chance to kill the chiefs, you do it.

 

I would rather back our guys playing for a win there. I feel like the fg was more likely than converting it.

[JP51]

34 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

He is in fact 75% over his career from 50-59, meaning he’s got a significantly better chance of making that kick than not.  You also discount the fact that the defense was in on Mahomes all night.  Do McD and Babich get credit for that, especially rushing 5 the last play so he couldn’t throw to the end zone?

I did like the rush 5 for sure...  but what would be 20 seconds with no time outs.... i would have prefered to punt it oob inside the 20...  although someone suggested a direct snap to our fastest guy and have them run 60 yards to our own endzone for a safety burning 10 seconds off the clock and then free kicking the ball with 13 seconds left... just to cause a freak out.... LOL 

Edited 8 hours ago by JP51

[Mat68]

11 minutes ago, BuffaloBillyG said:

Yup. And at that point with the odds so high of a win in any event, you risk that .6 to seal the game IMO. 

So it’s a go situation vs kick.  I think I would give Prater a little better odds of making it vs the offense converting.  Mcdermott is almost always on the analytic side of these choices.  This was the proper decision imo.  With about equal odds the punt is the only play that doesn't win it.   

[Gregg]

5 minutes ago, oldmanfan said:

One gets the distinct impression that those who criticize the FG decision would be posting today criticizing a decision to punt if that had been made.

 

IMHO going for the FG was the right call. They are up 7 and the Chiefs had no timeouts. If he makes it, then it's game over. If he misses which he did then it's still hard for KC to drive that far down the field with no timeouts and get a TD. Thankfully they failed. If the Bills were only up by 3 instead of 7 then I might have punted as a 53-yard FG is no sure thing. 

Edited 8 hours ago by Gregg

[RkFast]

I stopped reading when you blamed McD for the three passes. Sean McDermott does not run the offense play by play and if you dont know that by now I dont know what to tell you.

 

As far as the FG goes, there was no real "wrong" call there but also none without risk and as we see here, none that would not have had the anti-McD people up in arms if it failed.

Edited 8 hours ago by RkFast

[BattlinBill]

How many different McDermott posts do we need? I get the team is 0-8 currently but dang....

[SoTier]

43 minutes ago, BuffaloBillsGospel2014 said:

Andy Reid has no fear of Sean McDermott at all, he went for it on a 4th and 17 and made the first down, how does that even happen? We've been stuffed on 4 and 2/ 4th and 3 and they made a 4th and 17. As poor as Mahomes played this game due to the pressure they were only a TD away from tying it up at the end. How many on here thought once Prater missed that FG, "oh no 22 seconds" ? I sure as heck did and there's a reason for that. For me though this game really didn't mean much, none of these regular season games do, seeding in the playoffs doesn't mean much either imo, we've lost at home and on the road in the playoffs so just get me to the playoffs and hopefully McDermott doesn't hold us back again this season that's all you can ask for.

 

Mahomes played poorly because of the Bills defense harassing him relentlessly all game.   McDermott decided to try to win the game outright because he was confident in that defense ... and unlike in the playoff games against KC in the past, the defense came through with flying colors.   On the final play, the Bills defenders chased Mahomes out of the pocket and forced him yards back from the LOS to the point that when Mahomes finally got the pass off, it didn't make the end zone.  The Bills DBs broke up the play, but even if it had been completed, it wouldn't have mattered since time had expired.

Edited 8 hours ago by SoTier

[BuffaloBillsGospel2014]

8 minutes ago, Gregg said:

 

I agree with you. The 4th and 17 should never happen. Give credit to Mahomes and their offense for making that play. But the Bills should have stopped them there. You can't give up a 4th and 17 completion. But overall, it was still good day for the Bills defense

 

That play lead to the TD only putting them behind by 7 after they made the 2 point conversion to Kelce if I'm not mistaken also. Could have been a disaster but we came out on top.

[Chandler#81]

On a side note, I don’t want that skitzo Bass back. But that’s just me.

 

This thread needs to die

[thenorthremembers]

10 minutes ago, RyanC883 said:

I think the real issue is having JA and not making, yet alone winning a SB. 

 

Josh Allen had the ball with over 3 minutes left to tie or win the AFC Championship game last year.    In 2023 they lost on a missed field goal.    Its not all McDermott.    

[BuffaloBillsGospel2014]

1 minute ago, SoTier said:

 

Mahomes played poorly because of the Bills defense harassing him relentlessly all game.   McDermott decided to try to win the game outright because he was confident in that defense ... and unlike in the playoff games against KC in the past, the defense came through with flying colors.   On the final play, the Bills defenders chased Mahomes out of the pocket and forced him yards back from the LOS to the point that when Mahomes finally got the pass off, it didn't make the end zone.  The Bills DBs broke up the play, but even if it had been completed, it wouldn't have mattered since it wasn't close to the EZ.

 

Thanks for the recap?

[GunnerBill]

10 minutes ago, DrDawkinstein said:

 

I can imagine different sources may see it differently, but I'm going off what was discussed extensively on WGR yesterday, and those guys are at least usually pretty well sources/cited.

 

Yea. And it is admittedly very minor differences. Basically whatever the Bills did they were very strong favourites to win.

[Bookie Man]

I've actually thought a lot over this. Cases can be made for all 3 decisions. My initial reaction was to punt. I think that would have produced the lowest % scenario for KC to score a TD. Probably less than a 2% chance. I would guess that either going for it or FG attempt was slightly riskier, maybe about 4% chance of TD scenario. 

I wish I was better at analytics lol.