The Buffalo Bills’ chances were snuffed on a punt they neither tried to block nor return.
That’s not why they lost, but the senseless whimper sure was symbolic.
A sequence of gaffes led to the Bills’ meek demise. Their defense didn’t show up against an opponent with a reputation for short-circuiting all season, and late coaching decisions ripped open some of the Sean McDermott scar tissue from previous blunders that killed past Super Bowl hopes.
Josh Allen accomplished a feat unseen in the NFL for 70 years and propelled Buffalo’s offense to the type of efficiency that produced a 1.000 win percentage for over a century. Now, one team somehow has lost despite scoring at least six touchdowns and committing zero turnovers.
A week after becoming betting favorites to reach the Super Bowl, the Bills reintroduced that trademark Buffalo sports agita Sunday with a queasy 44-42 defeat by the Los Angeles Rams in SoFi Stadium.
How?!
📺: @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/3bmamSjk1M
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) December 8, 2024
The Rams entered Sunday ranked 30th in third-down conversions but were borderline flawless thanks to Puka Nacua and Cooper Kupp making a preposterous number of spectacular catches. The Rams also blocked a Sam Martin punt that was returned for a touchdown.
But what will stick with Bills fans until next Sunday’s blockbuster matchup with the Detroit Lions is how McDermott and his staff squandered Allen’s historic performance with a screwy timeout and an inexcusable lack of awareness on that final punt.
“We’ve got to get off the field and get the ball back to Josh,” McDermott said. “You saw what he can do, so we’ve got to do a better job.
“I thought we lost two of the three phases today.”
The biggest questions about Buffalo’s making a deep postseason run have focused on its run defense and what might happen against menaces such as Derrick Henry, Joe Mixon or — football gods willing — Saquon Barkley. Los Angeles features fourth-leading rusher Kyren Williams, but new fears arose with Buffalo’s inability to stop Nacua or Kupp. Coverage was tight, but they kept snatching Matthew Stafford’s passes. Nacua caught all but two of his 14 targets for 162 yards and a touchdown, and Kupp had five receptions for 92 yards and a TD.
It was galling to think the Rams managed to convert only 32.6 percent of their third downs before Sunday because they made it look so easy against the Bills.
When the Rams took a 17-point lead at the end of the third quarter, they’d converted 10 of their 11 third downs.
Allen rallied Buffalo hard. After a slow start, he put together a second half most quarterbacks fantasize about, throwing for two touchdowns and rushing for two more.
The Bills cut the deficit to 3 points with 8:49 left in the fourth quarter. The Rams answered with an 11-play drive that included a fourth-and-5 conversion from the Bills’ 35-yard line. Rams coach Sean McVay didn’t want to kick the field goal because Allen was sizzling. When Stafford connected with Nacua for the touchdown with 1:54 to go, Allen still seemed like he could will the Bills to victory. They still had all three timeouts and Allen’s hot hand.
A pair of defensive pass interference penalties made the comeback palpable. There was a 34-yard flag on a fourth-and-15 incompletion to Khalil Shakir and another on Amari Cooper in the end zone to put the ball at the 1-yard line with the clock stopped at 1:06.
McDermott has made significant strides to bury past game-management demons, but what transpired next justifiably provided more material for his critics.
Offensive coordinator Joe Brady called for the quarterback sneak, but Allen got stuffed.
Rather than claw back into formation for another play or spike the ball to stop the clock, the Bills burned their first timeout.
“You’re in a pile,” McDermott said. “To unload the pile, get back to the line, that takes some time. Whether you’re going to clock it at that point, just to get up off the pile, to do that takes longer than you’d like in that situation.”
With only two timeouts left, they no longer could hope to call one after the Rams’ next three downs before a punt. The Bills would require the low-percentage onside kickoff recovery. On the Fox Sports broadcast, analyst Tom Brady bemoaned the decision and explained the Bills had just done themselves in.
Did the Bills have a second play already called in case they needed to hurry?
“I honestly don’t know,” right tackle Spencer Brown said. “I just f—ing do what I’m told to do, and we didn’t really talk about what was going to happen. We didn’t call for the scenario of, ‘OK, we’re getting stopped at the 1-yard line.’ We were all just listening to Josh and we’re going ‘Attack! Attack!’
“I don’t know if the personnel was wrong or what it was. But that’s how it unfolded.”
Bills left guard David Edwards agreed with the decision to pause the game because of how long it can take to undo an end-zone pile, especially when defenders can artfully slow down the process by sandbagging it.
“I thought the timeout was beneficial for us,” Edwards said, “because it gave us more time within the parameters of the (situation).”
Asked whether spiking the ball and preserving all three timeouts would have been preferable, Allen replied, “I couldn’t tell you. In theory, probably, but it’s in the heat of the battle, and I’ve got to find a way to get into the end zone.”
Allen succeeded on the next play, scoring his third 1-yard rushing touchdown with only 60 seconds to spare. He also threw for three touchdowns, becoming the first since Cleveland Browns legend Otto Graham in the 1954 NFL Championship Game to pass for at least three TDs and rush for at least three more.
Los Angeles easily recovered the onside kick at Buffalo’s 45-yard line and handed off to Williams three straight plays to drain the clock.
Rams punter Ethan Evans soaked the final six seconds without worry.
So why didn’t Buffalo return the punt or try to block it? The clock struck 0:00 almost exactly when the ball dropped on the 1-yard line, but rookie Brandon Codrington didn’t even bother to field it. He threw a half-hearted block at gunner Xavier Smith and watched the ball dribble out of the end zone.
Everybody just strolled off the field. Only nine of them were Bills, though, because they didn’t have enough men on the field for the final play. The Rams even let the play clock expire for delay of game and then called a timeout beforehand. Matthew Smiley had an abundance of time to get his unit prepared.
“We should have been in (punt block),” McDermott said. “Honestly, we didn’t have enough guys on the field to do that. That’s something we’ve got to figure out.”
Odds are, Codrington doesn’t return the punt 99 yards for a touchdown with only eight other teammates.
Odds are, even with a healthy return and the possibility of a Rams penalty and an untimed Bills down, Allen doesn’t uncork a TD heave or trigger a multilateral miracle.
Odds also are, however, a team wins when scoring six touchdowns and committing zero turnovers. Before Sunday, it occurred 317 times in NFL history, counting postseason games. Teams are now 318-1.
No wonder McVay laughed maniacally as time expired in SoFi Stadium. Miracles do happen.
The Bills have six days to figure out what went wrong. The comprehensively impressive Lions await for a possible Super Bowl preview.
“Sometimes,” McDermott said, “if you look at it the right way and you’re able to make the adjustments you have to make, this can be, as hard as it is, a good reminder of what you need to do every week in this league and how we have to adjust as a football team.”
(Top photo: Harry How / Getty Images)
