The Chronicle Herald (Provincial)
Bills, Packers advance to conference finals
Josh Allen isn’t all that interested in how a victory looks or whether pundits squawk about his team.
Having more points than the opponent is all that matters to the Buffalo quarterback.
Consider the goal accomplished as Bills cornerback Taron Johnson matched the NFL postseason record with a 101-yard interception return for a touchdown and host Buffalo delivered a 17-3 victory over the Baltimore Ravens in an AFC divisional playoff game on a windy Saturday night.
“We got the job done,” Allen said. “You don’t get style points for winning in the playoffs. You either go home or win and go on to the next round.”
Second-seeded Buffalo will play either the Kansas City Chiefs or Cleveland Browns in the AFC title game on Jan. 24. The Chiefs and Browns meet in Kansas City on Sunday.
Buffalo is one win away from reaching the Super Bowl after Allen completed 23 of 37 passes for 206 yards and one score and Stefon Diggs caught eight passes for 106 yards and a touchdown. Jerry Hughes recorded two sacks and the Bills’ defense held the Baltimore offense out of the end zone as the franchise qualified for the AFC championship game for the first time since the 1993 season.
Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson suffered a concussion on the final play of the third quarter and missed the rest of the contest.
“Anytime he goes down, you know he’s feeling something,” Baltimore tight end Mark Andrews said.
Jackson completed 14 of 24 passes for 162 yards and the costly interception by Johnson, a 2018 fourth-round pick from Weber State. Jackson was bottled up as a runner and had just 34 yards on nine carries.
The fifth-seeded Ravens were in position to tie the score late in the third quarter as Jackson dropped back to pass on third-and-goal from the Bills’ 9-yard line. But he forced a throw toward the well-covered Andrews in the middle of the field and Johnson intercepted the pass and raced the length of the field to give Buffalo a 17-3 lead with 41 seconds left in the stanza.
“Honestly when the play happened I didn’t know what was going on,” Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins said. “All we saw was the last name Johnson running down the field. I could barely see and I was like, ‘T.J. just scored!’ It was a game changer, a momentum changer.”
The 101-yard return matched the record set by George Teague of the Green Bay Packers against the Detroit Lions in an NFC wild-card game on Jan. 8, 1994.
On the Ravens next possession, Jackson was injured after chasing a poor snap by center Patrick Mekari and wildly throwing the ball out of bounds from his own 2-yard line. He landed hard on the turf and smacked his head and was taken to the locker room for evaluation.
Rookie Tyler Huntley replaced Jackson and completed 6 of 13 passes for 60 yards. Huntley threw five regularseason passes after recently being promoted from the practice squad.
Packers 32, Rams 18: In a matchup of the top-ranked offence and defence, it was Green Bay’s offence that carried the day.
Rolling up 484 total yards and scoring on their first five possessions Saturday, the topseeded Packers advanced to the NFC Championship Game with a victory over the visiting Los Angeles Rams.
Green Bay will host either Tampa Bay or New Orleans, who play Sunday in New Orleans, on Jan. 24 with a spot in the Super Bowl at stake.
Quarterback Aaron Rodgers completed 23 of 36 passes for 296 yards and two touchdowns, finding Allen Lazard for the game-sealing 58-yard score off play-action with 6:52 left in the game. Rodgers earlier scored on a 1-yard run as Green Bay controlled the ball for 36:12.
“It’s all about the offensive line,” he said. “I was barely touched all night. (The Rams) have some really good players on that side of the ball and they were non-factors. Guys made plays and we had some offschedule stuff that worked, but the run game was key.”
The Packers collected 188 yards on the ground, getting 99 on 14 carries from Aaron Jones. It was Jones’ 60-yard gallop on the first play of the second half that set up his 1-yard plunge to make it a 25-10 game less than three minutes into the third quarter.
The sixth-seeded Rams drew within 25-18 at 1:41 of the third on Cam Akers’ powerful 7-yard run and a twopoint conversion but couldn’t produce the equalizer. They gained just 244 total yards.
Jared Goff hit 21 of 27 passes for 174 yards and a touchdown for Los Angeles. Goff, playing with a thumb injury that kept him out of the starting lineup for last week’s wild-card win in Seattle, absorbed four sacks.
“You could see why they’re the one seed,” said Rams coach Sean Mcvay. “When you reflect on the game, there was a lot of back and forth, great plays on both sides. We had opportunities to sustain drives and get momentum going and couldn’t do it. That stings.”
Mason Crosby’s 24-yard field goal with 8:39 left in the first quarter initiated scoring. After Matt Gay drilled a 37-yarder just over four minutes later for the Rams, the Packers chewed up nearly eight minutes on a drive that ended with Rodgers’ 1-yard touchdown pass to Davante Adams.
Rodgers capped the next march with a 1-yard run, using a pump fake to get Leonard Floyd out of position for the tackle to make it 16-3 with 3:29 remaining in the half. Los Angeles pulled within 16-10 on Goff’s 4-yard scoring strike to Van Jefferson 29 seconds before halftime.
But Green Bay came up with the half’s last word, driving 54 yards to set up Crosby for a 39yard field goal as time expired to give it a 19-10 advantage at intermission.