Tom Brady criticizes Sean McDermott for the Bills' QB sneak call against the Rams

The Buffalo Bills were trailing the Los Angeles Rams 44-35 with just over a minute left when Bills coach Sean McDermott fielded a quarterback sneak from Josh Allen from the 1-yard line.

The Rams stuffed Allen and forced the Bills to call their first timeout of the half. Fox announcer Tom Brady criticized Buffalo’s play-calling and handling of the goal-to-go situation.

“I didn’t like that at all,” Brady said. “That could have cost them the game right there.”

Brady explained that by burning a timeout, the Bills effectively guaranteed that they would have to attempt a low-percentage onside kick to win the game. That wouldn’t have happened if the Bills had called all three timeouts like they did before the ill-fated quarterback sneak.

“We have a 3 percent chance of an onside kick,” Brady explained on the Fox broadcast. “For me, when I throw, it means making three throws, not taking a timeout and then kicking deep, taking advantage of the three timeouts and still getting the ball with good time.”

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Buffalo’s approach allowed the team to score a touchdown on a second sneak after the timeout, but forced them to attempt an onside kick. It failed and the Bills never got the ball back, even after forcing a Rams three-and-out.

Los Angeles managed to run the clock down to seven seconds left before punching deep into Buffalo End zone. According to ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, there were only nine biAll players on the field at the time of the last snap.

So Brady’s words about the Bills’ sneak call proved prophetic.

“That changes the entire complexity of the last minute and two seconds of the game,” Brady said.

Sean McDermott calls timeout after QB sneak against Rams

McDermott was asked about the quarterback sneak and subsequent timeout during his postgame press conference. He called the 1-yard sneak Buffalo’s “best play all year” and was therefore confident in executing it.

Therefore, McDermott admitted that calling the timeout after the sneak failed “felt like the best course of action” given how little time already remained in the game.

“You have two options and neither one is great,” McDermott said of calling timeout after the sneak or trying to save all three timeouts. “So when you’re in that situation and you have three timeouts with the ball, it feels like overall we were below the time we felt like we could win the ball back and have a real chance to win the game without winning timeouts.”

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McDermott also explained that it would have been difficult to save the timeout after the quarterback sneak was stopped.

“They’re in a pile, number one. (Allen is) on the stack. To unload the stack you have to go back on the line, that takes some time,” McDermott told reporters. “Whether you get to that point, just to get up from the pile and do all that, it takes longer than you would like in that situation.”

McDermott said he and his staff would review the sequence, but he had an important realization after the game.

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Tom Brady criticizes Sean McDermott for the Bills’ QB sneak call against the Rams

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