The Buffalo Bills are no strangers to postseason heartbreak. There was 13 seconds in 2022, of course, and that time in 2024 when Tyler Bass’s kick sailed wide right (it’s always wide right, isn’t it?). Last year, with his team down three to the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC championship game, Josh Allen’s final throw hit the hands of his tight end before falling incomplete. But during all those previous January letdowns, meltdowns, and disappointments, there were two inescapable truths. One, Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs were a dynasty, a postseason juggernaut that seemed impossible to slay. And two, those losses were never Allen’s fault. They were the result of drops, or a porous defense, or a fallible kicker, or an inevitable opponent.
We’ve become so accustomed to the Bills’ superstar quarterback, the MVP of the 2024 regular season, becoming Super Man when his team needs him most that it was almost unfathomable to process his string of mistakes in Saturday’s 33-30 divisional-round loss to the Denver Broncos. Allen threw two interceptions on the night, including one in overtime, and lost two fumbles in the span of three snaps between the end of the second quarter and the start of the second half. The Broncos scored points off three of Allen’s four turnovers. When the game was over, Allen trudged silently off the field and into the locker room, his head down and his hands tucked into his pocket. When he stepped onto the interview podium about 15 minutes later, his face was streaked with tears.
“I feel like I let my teammates down tonight,” Allen said, his voice catching as he gripped the sides of the lectern and stared at his cleats. He admitted he hadn’t been able to do much talking to his teammates in the immediate aftermath of the loss. “I love my teammates, and I’m extremely sorry,” he said. “I’m disappointed in how this ended.”
This is yet another season for Allen and the Bills that ends without a Super Bowl appearance, and Buffalo fans must surely be wondering: If not now, then when? The Bills beat the red-hot Jaguars, who might have been the most complete team in the AFC, in the wild-card round, and for the first time in the Allen era were looking at a conference playoff field without Mahomes, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson, and Cincinnati’s Joe Burrow. Allen was, by far, the most accomplished and experienced quarterback left on his side of the postseason bracket. And with no dominant team in a playoff pool full of flawed contenders, this might have been Allen’s clearest path to the Super Bowl. But Allen was also being asked to play on hard mode. To get to Santa Clara, he’d have to lead the Bills to three road wins—and before last week, he had never won a road game in the playoffs—and do so with a defense that finished the regular season ranked 20th in defensive DVOA.
On Saturday, that Bills defense allowed a Denver offense that hadn’t scored more than 20 points in a game since mid-December to rack up 33 points—the Broncos’ third-highest output of the season. Buffalo didn’t sack Bo Nix once and gave up a touchdown pass that put the Broncos ahead with 55 seconds remaining. And yet the Bills, as they so often do, came back. They tied the game at 30 on Matt Prater’s 50-yard field goal at the end of regulation, and at the start of overtime, the defense that had been gashed late in the game forced three straight incompletions and a Broncos punt.
All Buffalo needed was another field goal to win it, and Allen tried to go full-on hero mode, launching a deep pass to Brandin Cooks, who had gotten a step ahead of Denver slot corner Ja’Quan McMillian. The two players went up in the air for the ball, and Cooks had it in his arms as they landed. As they rolled over each other, though, their arms intertwined, and McMillian came up with the ball. Officials on the field determined that while Cooks had started the catch, McMillian completed it for an interception, and the call was confirmed by replay officials in New York. Buffalo was then called for two defensive pass interference penalties (and a roughing the passer that was declined) during Denver’s ensuing possession, which ended with Wil Lutz’s 23-yard game-winning field goal.
The Cooks play is the one that will likely be added to the long list of infamous moments in Bills postseason lore—another what-if, coin-flip play for a franchise that can’t seem to ever catch a break. Bills fans will Zapruder the hell out of that film in coming days, and the controversial call may overshadow the uncharacteristically sloppy play from the quarterback that came before it. Allen’s fumble just before halftime, immediately following a Denver touchdown, was inexplicable. Scrambling from deep in his own territory, he simply dropped the ball as he was chased down from behind by Denver edge rusher Nik Bonitto. Denver recovered the ball at the Buffalo 32-yard line with two seconds remaining, and Lutz nailed a 50-yard kick to give Denver a 20-10 lead in a game that had been tied only minutes earlier. Then Allen fumbled again on the second snap of the third quarter.
All of this is to say: This loss wasn’t not Allen’s fault. But it surely wasn’t his alone. It was a deeply flawed Buffalo team that arrived in the playoffs as a no. 6 seed after finishing second in the AFC East behind New England. The Bills’ wide receiver corps was never impressive (and general manager Brandon Beane earned his share of criticism for not doing more to improve that group) and it was decimated by injuries late in the season. Three receivers landed on the injured reserve list in the past 10 days, and on Saturday, Allen was relying on a group led by the 32-year-old Cooks, who signed with the team the week of Thanksgiving, and former Chief Mecole Hardman Jr., who was elevated off the practice squad hours before the game.
This team knew it wouldn’t have had a chance at all without Allen; multiple Bills players cried during interviews when told that Allen had said he felt he let his teammates down. Left tackle Dion Dawkins’s message to his quarterback was simple. “We love you,” Dawkins said. “Hate to keep it short, but we love you.”
And they would have loved for Allen to finally get the AFC title and Super Bowl appearance they’ve been chasing together. Instead, they’ll have to watch a far less accomplished quarterback represent the AFC in Santa Clara—and it won’t be Nix, who, outside of a baffling third-quarter interception to a defensive tackle, played well against Buffalo, throwing for 279 yards and three touchdowns. The Broncos’ second-year quarterback broke a bone in his right ankle on the second-to-last play of overtime. Denver head coach Sean Payton announced the news Saturday evening as reporters waited for Nix’s appearance at the podium.
Payton said Nix is scheduled to have surgery on Tuesday, and named Jarrett Stidham as the team’s starter for next Sunday’s AFC championship game against either Drake Maye and the Patriots or C.J. Stroud and the Texans. Nix’s injury came as a stunning blow for a Broncos team that had spent the previous hour celebrating the franchise’s first playoff win in a decade—many players had already left the stadium before testing revealed the extent of Nix’s injury.
In so many ways, this has been a disorienting NFL season. The Chiefs crumbled. The Ravens and the Steelers parted ways with their longtime head coaches. Sam Darnold is a win away from the Super Bowl. A 44-year-old grandfather started a few games! (And no, Philip Rivers cannot suit up for the Broncos next week.) Things have been weird, and are only going to get weirder from here.
But for Buffalo, it’s simply sad. This was a golden opportunity, one Allen and the Bills may never get again. It would be silly to write off the Chiefs in 2026, even with Mahomes coming off a knee injury. Burrow and the Bengals will still have one of the league’s scariest offenses. Jackson will have a new head coach and, hopefully, better health. And there’s a new crop of quarterbacks, like Maye and Nix (once his newly broken ankle heals) muddying up the AFC hierarchy. Allen will be the reason the Bills always have a chance, but Saturday was a harsh reminder for Buffalo that he can’t always be their hero.
