Josh Allen stood there with his bobble hat on his head and couldn’t hold back the tears. With his voice cracking and his eyes fixed on the floor, he spoke: “I feel like I let my teammates down tonight.” It all seemed almost as grotesque as the game that the Buffalo Bills quarterback and his team had recently lost 30:33 after overtime at the Denver Broncos.
Once again, the Bills had celebrated the art of losing, as has been the case so often in the history of the franchise in the National Football League (NFL). Shortly before the end, they were up 27:23 in this Divisional Round game in the NFL playoffs, then defender Tre’Davious White was injured and the Broncos capitalized on it with a touchdown pass to Marvin Mims Jr., who could not be defended by Buffalo’s backup cornerback Dane Jackson.
Allen led his team to a field goal in the last minute of the game and thus into overtime, but during the drive he threw over his tight end Dawson Knox, who would have been free to score a touchdown.
In overtime, Buffalo’s defense gave their quarterback a golden opportunity to win, but when Allen then threw a pass to Brandin Cooks on his own right to attack, the ball was ripped out of his hands by Broncos defender Ja’Quan McMillian and the whole thing was counted as an interception. The Bills would have been within reach of a field goal, but instead Denver managed the winning drive.
If you shoot yourself in the foot like that, you don’t deserve to win football games.
Josh Allen
“It’s hard for me to understand why it was decided the way it was decided. In my mind it was a catch by Cooks,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott said after the game. In his eyes, there were probably no fouls from Denver’s defense for pass interference in Denver’s offense, which were crucial for the short field goal that won the Broncos.
In the end, it wasn’t the referees who were to blame for Buffalo’s elimination, but the Bills themselves. They gave the ball to the opposing defense five times in their own attack. The fact that they could have still won the game was astonishing enough. Still, of course, Josh Allen was right when he said, “If you shoot yourself in the foot like that, you don’t deserve to win football games.”
© Imago/Icon Sportswire
The MVP of last NFL season not only threw two interceptions, he also fumbled the ball to the opponent twice. The scene just before halftime was particularly confusing, when he should have taken a knee, but instead ran into two defenders with his arm outstretched, literally inviting the Broncos to knock the football out of his hand. The resulting three points were ultimately decisive.
Buffalo suffered another bitter defeat in the play-offs and missed a huge opportunity to finally crown the Josh Allen era by reaching the Super Bowl. But as in the regular season, light and shadow changed too often, because the game plan was actually good for the Bills this year.
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Ball losses The Bills offense allowed itself, resulting in 16 points for Denver, which only committed one turnover
Nevertheless, it was not enough to win the division in the AFC East. Neither Patrick Mahomes with the Kansas City Chiefs, Lamar Jackson with the Baltimore Ravens nor Joe Burrow from the Cincinnati Bengals stood in the way of this in the playoffs.
“It’s been a long season. I hate how it ended and that will stay with me for a long time,” Allen said sadly. It is quite possible that he will have a new head coach on the sidelines next late summer.
In any case, Sean McDermott didn’t manage to make a team with championship caliber champions this year either. A fresh approach with fresh personnel, especially at the receiver position and in the running defense, could do wonders. And superstar Josh Allen can take the burden of having to carry the entire team on his shoulders alone.
