God Just Hates the Buffalo Bills

The Buffalo Bills had the look.

Call a play in an NFL game, and that’s the best thing a team can have. It was fourth down with 5 yards to go, and the Bills trailed the Kansas City Chiefs by a field goal in the fourth quarter of the teams’ third playoff meeting in four years. The Bills were in formation to punt the ball away, but they had a numbers advantage at the line of scrimmage. The long snapper fired the ball not to punter Sam Martin but instead to blocker Damar Hamlin. The NFL’s most famous reserve safety had seven blockers around him, and the Chiefs only had six defenders in the area. If everyone blocked well, Hamlin was going to run the ball a long way, well past the 5 yards he needed to extend the drive. It was a good plan, a blocker for every defender, and it became an even better plan when the Chiefs inexplicably sent just 10 men onto the field. Snapper Reid Ferguson said the fake was the original call. The lack of an 11^th man was a lucky bonus, but even with another man on the field, the Bills were poised to have the numbers in their favor.

But God hates the Buffalo Bills. Hamlin’s convoy disintegrated as soon as he caught the long snap and took off to his left. The Chiefs tackled him after a 2-yard gain and took over on downs. The Bills undoubtedly drilled the play a ton, and the ideal situation presented itself for Hamlin to take off with grass in front of him. It did not materialize, turning coach Sean McDermott’s savvy call into a disaster and symbolizing the inability of the Bills to get over the hump that the Chiefs have become. Neither team scored another point, and the Chiefs won another playoff game against the Bills, 27–24. Whether this was the most painful Buffalo defeat at K.C.’s hands is a matter of perspective. A loss in maybe the greatest playoff game ever, a 42–36 contest in Missouri two years ago, featured more twists and turns and saw the Bills closer to victory more often than they were this Sunday. But Sunday’s loss was at least differently painful because it underlined a sad reality: There’s no number of things that can break the Bills’ way against the Chiefs and come close to guaranteeing that the experience will not end in sadness.

A lot of things went the Bills’ way on Sunday. First among them, that botched fake punt did not kill them. The Chiefs took the ball at the Bills’ 32-yard line, but two plays later, wide receiver Mecole Hardman fumbled through the end zone to give the ball right back to Josh Allen and company. It should’ve been a game-turning play in what remained a one-possession game all the way through. Other than that stroke of good fortune, the Bills’ defense did not excel against Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City offense. Mahomes is the best quarterback drawing breath, and he was lethal despite an ultra-bad corps of wide receivers. The Chiefs punted just once on nine possessions, and Mahomes connected with his one trusty target, Travis Kelce, for two touchdowns. And yet Buffalo was still right there, with every chance to win or at the least force overtime if any number of little things had gone differently.

None did. With the Bills still behind by a field goal on their last drive, Allen either never saw or elected not to throw to his best receiver, a wide-open Stefon Diggs on a crossing pattern on a second-and-9. Instead, he tried a game-winning deep ball to Khalil Shakir, who had gotten ahead of his defender in the end zone. Allen, with his left tackle being pushed back into him, underthrew Shakir by about a foot. A slightly better throw meant a touchdown, and a slightly better decision meant a first down and then some. The Bills got neither, then had to settle for a 44-yard field goal to tie the game with 1:47 left. But kicker Tyler Bass—who had made 26 of 31 field goals in his career from between 40 and 49 yards—sent this one way, way wide right. The Bills’ defense provided no resistance as the Chiefs pounded ahead for a game-sealing first down, and then it was over.

Bills fans are not new to pain. Those who were alive to watch four consecutive Super Bowl losses in the early 1990s have seen considerably worse than what they got this weekend. But this one was a cruel trick; the stars had aligned so nicely both before and during the game. The Bills were 2.5-point favorites despite a raft of defensive injuries. Allen’s two prior playoff losses to Mahomes had come in Kansas City, but this year’s Chiefs team is the least impressive in years and didn’t claim its customary No. 1 seed in the AFC. Mahomes was playing his first road playoff game, and he was doing it with the NFL’s worst group of wide receivers, a collection of misfits who have blocks for hands. The Chiefs are eternally a threat because they have Mahomes, and if a team has Mahomes, that team has everything it needs. But as far as Chiefs teams go, this year’s is not a good one. Buffalo had won seven games in a row.

The Bills had a good plan to make their opponent’s shortcomings matter. Mahomes is good at everything, but he is downright deadly when the defense blitzes, so the Bills barely sent more than four pass rushers all game. They blitzed on just 8 percent of his dropbacks, sitting back and daring Mahomes’ receivers to get open against seven or more coverage defenders. Mahomes found them often enough anyway, completing 17 of his 23 passes for 215 yards, two scores, and no interceptions.* They didn’t sack him and didn’t pressure him much, but the Bills were missing two key secondary players and two linebackers with injuries—and there’s no such thing as a great defensive approach against Mahomes when a defense is hobbled like that. Still, while Mahomes did damage, the pace of the game and the Hardman fumble at the goal line prevented him from posting a huge point total. The Bills managed to go shot-for-shot with him despite their No. 2 receiver Gabe Davis, a central figure in that classic playoff game two years ago, sitting out with a knee injury. For what the Bills had at their disposal, they put an impressive foot forward against a terrifying but beatable opponent.

So of course, this being Buffalo, the Bills lost in the most random ways imaginable. Allen has the occasional bad game, but the driving cause of those games is usually a turnover or some boneheaded decision. In this one, Allen was steady as he went, but he just missed on a few critical throws and lacked the explosiveness he almost always brings. (The stat of the night, via the Ringer’s Benjamin Solak: This was the fourth time in 104 career games that Allen did not register a play for 20-plus yards with his right arm or his legs.) The Bills had chances to turn the game on special teams, too. But they squandered them via the horrendous blocking on the fake punt and Bass’ brutal missed field goal, the kind that will regrettably make him a pariah in western New York for all his days. At least he’s unlikely to work there much longer.

Still, the Bills will keep plugging. Allen is 27. As long as he remains healthy over the next eight or 10 years, the Bills will keep playing into January nearly every year. They will get more cracks at Mahomes even as both Buffalo and Kansas City see their rosters turn over around their quarterbacks. If the Bills decide McDermott isn’t the coach to maximize Allen, then the guy who tries next will get plenty of postseason chances to prove it. The Bills, just as they did on that fourth-and-5, have the look. They also have a deeper understanding than just about any other franchise of how little that promise can mean.