What Bills HC Sean McDermott said about egregious trick play attempt in Week 4 loss

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott spoke about his team's failed trick play in their ugly Week 4 loss to the Baltimore Ravens.

Kyle Silagyi | Sep 30, 2024

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One could realistically argue that the Buffalo Bills were never truly competitive in their Week 4 contest with the Baltimore Ravens, as the team was outplayed on both sides of the ball throughout the vast majority of the primetime bout; if one, however, wanted to point to a specific moment that served as the Bills' death knell, it would likely be their failed trick play early in the third quarter.

Buffalo was showing general signs of life after an underwhelming first half in which it allowed the score to balloon to 21-3. The defense forced a three-and-out to start the third quarter before Josh Allen led a momentum-shifting touchdown drive, finding Khalil Shakir for an unbelievable 52-yard completion before Ty Johnson reached paydirt to cut the lead to 11. The Bills’ defense stood tall yet again on the next series and forced another Baltimore punt, giving a momentum-fueled Buffalo an auspicious opportunity to drive down the field and bring the game within a touchdown.

And then disaster struck.

Offensive coordinator Joe Brady dialed up an… interesting trick play shortly after Allen found Keon Coleman for a 24-yard pickup, lining the quarterback up outside and Curtis Samuel in his place behind center on a 2nd-and-7. Samuel took the shotgun snap and ran to his left, pitching the ball to Allen, who then ran back to his left and attempted to uncork the ball deep downfield to a double-covered Mack Hollins. Kyle Van Noy stripped the ball as Allen was going through his motion; Kyle Hamilton recovered the ball as Allen took a heavy shot, with Baltimore promptly scoring a touchdown to put the cherry on top of what was a catastrophic play.

The moment took the wind out of Buffalo’s sails, ripping any momentum it had constructed and gifting it back to the Ravens as they increased their lead to 18. The Bills’ offense had found a rhythm and looked set to make a game out of what initially appeared to be a blowout, but Brady’s egregious play call—his first truly terrible call of the campaign—assured this didn’t happen.

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Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott spoke about the failed trick play following the 35-10 loss, stating that the team will overcome the misuse.

“That’s something Joe [Brady] and I will talk about,” McDermott said. “Something we’ll learn from there, and we’ll move forward off of it. Certainly a momentum change right there.”

Despite the unequivocally poor play call and generally underwhelming offensive play in Baltimore, there are still reasons for optimism regarding the Bills’ offense. The team was averaging a league-high 37.3 points per game entering Week 4, with their ugly loss against the Ravens looking more like a game in which everything went wrong as opposed to the beginning of the end. Upcoming games may prove this notion incorrect, but when the offense was producing at an elite pace through three games, it seems unwise to place inflated stock in one ugly performance.

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