Super Bowl suddenly within Bills’ grasp
Call it the tale of two concussed quarterbacks.
In an era in which brain injuries are taken more seriously in football than once was the case, that’s no joke. But for the Buffalo Bills, it partially defined the team’s most successful weekend in a generation, and may have paved the way for them to finally get back to the Super Bowl.
First, the Bills knocked out Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson on the final play of the third quarter of their playoff matchup on Saturday night. Jackson, the reigning NFL most valuable player, fell back and hit his head hard while being sacked in the end zone. He left the game, the Ravens didn’t score another point and the Bills advanced to the AFC championship game for the first time in 27 years.
Then, as the Bills and their legions of hardcore fans watched on Sunday, Patrick Mahomes suffered a similar fate as Jackson. With the Kansas City Chiefs leading the Cleveland Browns in the third quarter, Mahomes was tacked around the neck by Browns linebacker Mack Wilson and left so groggy he could barely get to his feet.
Mahomes went to the locker room for tests and also did not return. The Chiefs managed to barely hold on for the win, with backup Chad Henne at the controls, but now we’ll see just how quickly Mahomes is able to recover, or if he’s able to be at his best for the BillsChiefs title game in Missouri next Sunday.
Amazing when you think about. We spend the entire football season discussing COVID and teams losing players because of it, and the game’s age-old problem with brain injuries could end up playing a more pivotal role in the post-season.
If Mahomes can’t play, it would also make the Bills prohibitive favourites. Henne may have been able to pull off a huge play in the dying moments Sunday, connecting with Tyreek Hill on a firstdown pass when everyone in Arrowhead Stadium was expecting the Chiefs to try to draw the Browns offside and then settle for a punt. But he hasn’t started an NFL game since 2014.
Mahomes was also limping with an apparent case of turf toe before he left the game.
“He got hit in the back of the head,” Chiefs head coach Andy Reid explained after the game. “He’s feeling great right now. He passed all the things he needs to pass.”
Feeling “great” after it looked like he was out on his feet? Maybe. The condition of the brilliant K.C. quarterback will be one of many storylines
going into next weekend.
The Bills, meanwhile, are the hottest team in football.
Josh Allen, viewed with suspicion as a decision-maker a year ago, is suddenly seen as one of the very best at his position. Not only is head coach Sean McDermott regarded as someone who understands how to unite athletes behind a single goal, his top assistants are similarly viewed as geniuses. Both offensive co-ordinator Brian Daboll and defensive coach Leslie Frazier are been sought by other clubs as possible head coaches.
Receiver Stefon Diggs, very good in Minnesota, has become great in Buffalo. Even once-embattled Terry Pegula is being celebrated as an excellent owner seven years after outmanoeuvring Donald Trump for the right to purchase the Bills for $1.4 billion (U.S.). The Pegula-owned Sabres are still lousy, but it’s the Bills that matter most in western New York.
This is no fluke. It’s the product of an organization doing a lot of things right over a period of several seasons. The Bills have also learned to win different ways. On Saturday, in irritatingly windy Orchard Park, they hammered the hardnosed Ravens, holding the red-hot team to 220 yards of offence.
Daboll, the consummate innovator, called only one run play in the first half despite conditions that might have convinced other co-ordinators to keep the ball on the ground. In the second half, with the Ravens having moved deep into Buffalo territory looking for the tying touchdown, Jackson made a rare throwing error in the red zone. Bills defensive back Taron Johnson snagged it and ran for 101 yards, an interception return that Allen called “potentially a franchise-altering play.”
This is a confident organization, very different from the team that was shared with Toronto for five years earlier this century.
From 2008 to 2013, the Bills played six home games at the Rogers Centre and lost five of them with a revolving cast of players.
The first four averaged more than 50,000 fans through various promotions and stadium-stuffing, and the last two drew less than 41,000. The Bills in Toronto series was postponed for a year, then cancelled.
You do wonder what might have been had a team like the current squad been part of that agreement. But then, with a rich owner, diehard fans and a strong team, there’s really no motivation for the Bills to share or look for outside collaborations, is there?
What we do know is that the Bills are 60 minutes away from getting back to the big game for the first time since they went to four consecutive Super Bowls with Jim Kelly, Thurman Thomas, Bruce Smith and Co. — and lost all four.
Even with Mahomes in the game on Sunday, the Chiefs didn’t look to be at their best. They caught a big break in the first half when safety Daniel Sorensen got away with an illegal helmet-to-helmet hit on Rashard Higgins at the oneyard line, which caused Higgins to fumble the ball through the end zone for a touchback.
By the fourth quarter, with Mahomes out, the Chiefs looked to be on the ropes. But the Browns couldn’t knock out the champs.
Here’s betting the Bills will.