Bills' McDermott takes blame for late-game clock management in loss

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott took the blame for the team's final offensive drive, which led to a game-winning field goal for the Houston Texans.

"That's on me, the end-of-game situation on offense," McDermott said after the contest, according to Alaina Getzenberg of ESPN.

"We're in a tough situation ... 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."

Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud was called for intentional grounding on third and nine at the Bills' 39-yard line with 44 seconds remaining. The penalty pushed Houston back 10 yards, forcing the team to punt after moving out of field-goal range. However, McDermott declined to enforce a 10-second runoff that could have come with the infraction.

The Bills had the ball with 32 seconds left at their three-yard line in a tied 20-20 game. Josh Allen threw three consecutive incompletions, and Buffalo was forced to punt the ball back to Houston. Stroud completed a five-yard pass with seven seconds remaining, setting up a 59-yard game-winning field goal for kicker Ka'imi Fairbairn.

"I love Josh with the ball in his hands, you know I do," McDermott added. "And again, efficient offense was the right approach there, and ... I didn't have us do that. And so again, we learned from that. Tough situation."

Allen connected on only nine of his 30 pass attempts in the contest for 131 yards with one touchdown. His 30% completion percentage is the lowest for any quarterback with at least 30 pass attempts in a single game over the last 30 seasons, per Getzenberg.

Buffalo was outgained 425-276 in the contest and has only totaled 30 points combined over its last two games. The Bills will face off against the New York Jets on Monday Night Football in Week 6.