Bills did not lose to Texans due to clock management mistakes.

My Ranger buddy-best Man wants to know if today’ Bills-Texans game was a clock management screw-up.

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Tie game with :32 left. Bills three incompletions in a row—which stops the clock after each. They then punted out of their own end zone. Texans then took over with :07 left and kicked the game-winning field goal.

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First I look to the first quarter to see if the Texas scored late in the second quarter against a leading Bills team.

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No, The Bills only led at 6:27 left in the first quarter. They should not have have managed the clock then. Furthermore, the Texans took the lead at 2:55 in the first quarter and kept the lead the rest of the half so they should have been in a slowdown at that time.

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The Texans then led until 3:18 in the 4th quarter at which time the Bills tied it. The Texans should have been in a slowdown when they led; the Bills in a hurry-up.

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Starting at 3:18, it became a pace graph situation. That means to drive down the field to score but you try not to score too fast so that your opponent will not have a lot of time to come back and score themselves.

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When the Bills received a punt at :32 at their own 3, they had two choices: try to get within field goal range and kick the game winner or just try to run out the clock and thereby get to OT.

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Neither team used a timeout during that final Bills possession. The Texans still had all three timeouts. So the Bills could not have killed more than about six seconds. After each take a knee, the Texans would have called timeout. The officials would have called an official timeout for change of possession after the Bills punt.

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The Texans received the punt at the Bills’ 46 yard line. They then got 5 yards closer with a pass and called timeout at the 41. Then they kicked a 59-yard FG to win.

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Essentially, the die was cast when the Texans’s punt pinned the Bills to their own 3. The only way the Bills could have prevent the Texan win in regulation was to move the ball out of Texans’ FG range. Only about 15 yards would have accomplished. They the Texans FG would have been from 69 yards. The longest NFL FG in history is 66 yards.

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The Bills passed incomplete three times, each time stopping the clock. If they had run and stayed inbounds, the would have burned more like 6 or 7 seconds on each play and forced the Texans to burn all their timeouts during the Bills’ possession. Had they gained any yards but less than a first down, there would have been only about :10 left and the Texans would have been farther back by the amount the Bills gained before punting. The Texans could only run one play and it had to be incomplete or the receiver get out of bounds to have time for the FG attempt. If the Bills had gained five to 8 yards on that final possession, the Texans would likely been out of field goal range and may not have been able to stop the clock for the FG attempt.

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If the Bills had gotten a first down, they would have taken a knee ending regulation and gone to OT.

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Basically, the Bills on their final possession, had to move the ball out enough to make their punt, if well covered, put the Texans out of FG range or get a first down which would have force the game into OT. If the Bills had run three times, they may not have pushed the Texans back out of FG range, but they would have left them with no timeouts when they got the ball back.

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So you can question the Bills’ play choices in their last possession. But my clock rule say to run the plays most likely to get you a first down in that situation. The Bills coaches implicitly complied with my rule and I would have to defer to them regarding whether it might have been worse with three running plays.

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