The Buffalo Bills were set up to finally win their AFC championship and earn their first Josh Allen-led Super Bowl trip, despite being a wild-card team in the 2025-2026 NFL playoffs. Not needing to worry about their nemesis Kansas City Chiefs gave the Bills a clear shot to go all the way.
Unfortunately, Allen and Buffalo found a way to lose a close, tough game to another strong AFC West foe in Denver in Saturday's divisional playoffs. There's no doubt being eliminated in a 33-30 overtime loss will sting even more than the previous failures.
The Bills were able to outlast the Jaguars in Jacksonville last week because of Allen's stellar play. They went down to the Broncos because of Allen's poor play.
Buffalo should have beaten Denver by the numbers. The Bills outgained the Broncos by 100 yards, 449-349. They outrushed the Broncos, 183-70. The Bills went 3-for-5 in the red zone. They were 11-of-16 combined converting on third and fourth down. They also won the time of possession battles by 10:40.
Unfortunately, the Bills shot themselves in the foot by making more critical mistakes. Here's looking at how they blew a most favorable chance to advance.
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Josh Allen was trying to do too much
Allen has been Superman in the playoffs, carrying the Bills' offense with his tough downfield passing and running. He made a lot of big plays with his 42 drop backs and 12 rushes.
But he also lost two fumbles in the first half trying to force things vs. The Broncos' pass rush. He also threw a third-quarter interception attempting a deep ball shot when operating at the Denver 40. His second interception was off an underthrown pass in OT, allowing the ball to be wrestled away from wide receiver Brandin Cooks on another downfield shot.
For the most part, those were unforced mental errors in the process that lead to those results. The Broncos put up nine points off those Allen turnovers. They already had seven from the Bills' first lost fumble by running back James Cook.
Buffalo didn't deserve to win a game losing the turnover battle, 5-1. Moreover, it was an uncharacteristically sloppy playoff game by Allen.
MORE: Inside Josh Allen's playoff record and stats
Bills defense didn't pressure Bo Nix enough
Nix had one key turnover, just a bad decision on a short interception pass when he wasn't under pressure. He also was bailed out by the Broncos' defense immediately, picking off Allen in third quarter.
But much like the Jaguars' game vs. Trevor Lawrence, the Bills' pass rush was ineffective in most key situations with zero sacks of Nix, while the Broncos got three on Allen. Nix didn't run for big chunks with his team-high 29 rushing yards, but his mobility and elusiveness came in handy a few times. For a team being so one-dimensional with the running game erased — despite facing a terrible Bills run defense — the Bills should have been teeing off with real results.
That allowed Nix to pick the Bills apart all over the field, despite losing two key receivers, Pat Bryant and Troy Franklin, early in the game. That also led to the secondary having too much pressure to cover one-on-one, leading to the the defensive pass interference meltdowns by experienced cornerbacks Taron Johnson and Tre'Davious White.
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Bills too reliant on Josh Allen's fourth-quarter heroics
The Bills were able to beat the Jaguars despite going down 24-20 with 4:03 left in the fourth quarter. The Bills dug themselves a much bigger hole, going down 23-10 early in the third quarter in Denver, thanks in part to the early turnovers, spotting the Broncos a two-possession lead.
Allen is a terrific Captain Comeback and "Playoff Josh" is hard to beat. But the playoffs can be a bit of a marathon and facing the host Broncos coming off a bye in high altitude made it unreasonable for the Bills to outlast another team late.
Getting into overtime after a late game-tying field-goal, there should have been little confidence in the Bills outplaying the Broncos in the long extra session. Allen is now 0-7 in his career in OT games, which is somewhat fluky but also telling. The Bills didn't come up with enough plays as a team independent of Allen to win the game.
In the past, the Bills' losses could be chalked up to Patrick Mahomes and Joe Burrow just outdueling him. Allen was 0-4 against the Chiefs and 0-1 against the Bengals in the playoffs. He was 8-1 against everyone else, including the Colts, Ravens, Patriots, Dolphins, Steelers and yes, Broncos, before Saturday.
Allen was supposed to be the next AFC QB to get to the Super Bowl with no Mahomes, no Burrow, no Lamar Jackson. It doesn't get any worse than Allen playing his worst with the best path to get to that elusive ring.
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