The forgotten play in Bills’ comeback win — a 1-second preserver to end the first half

Billy Heyen

The forgotten play in Bills’ comeback win — a 1-second preserver to end the first half image

The closing stages of the Buffalo Bills' epic comeback win were so crazy that it was easy to forget about one of the game's most important plays on Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens.

It ended up being the penultimate play of the first half, and without it, the Bills would've at best needed a TD to win the game in the final seconds, not just a field goal.

Buffalo, down 20-10, had the ball at the Baltimore 47-yard line with seven seconds on the clock and no timeouts. 

It seemed the options were to throw a very quick sideline pass and then attempt a long field goal, or to just throw a Hail Mary.

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The Bills did something else: They ran tight end Dalton Kincaid essentially on a corner route toward the left sideline, about 20 yards down the field.

Allen waited, waited, clock ticking, then lined a throw into Kincaid, who made a ridiculous catch and was tackled out of bounds after a 22-yard gain.

It looked to be for naught as the clock hit all zeroes, and some Ravens started jogging to the locker room. 

But replay review came on, and the on-field referee announced into his microphone, "Baltimore hold on," and eventually a second was put onto the clock.

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Matt Prater made it count by nailing his 43-yard field goal to go to half down seven instead of ten.

Somehow, that lone second just stayed on the clock. Without it, the ending the Bills wrote may have been very different.

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Billy Heyen

Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who has written about many sports and fantasy sports for The Sporting News. Sports reporting work has also appeared in a number of newspapers, including the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle