As one of the NFL’s best teams all season, and a legitimate contender to emerge from the NFC and appear in what would be the franchise’s first Super Bowl, Detroit has regularly overmatched opponents with physicality and aggression on its way to a 12-1 record.
Yet early in Sunday’s fourth quarter, one decision appeared to indicate a rare admission from the Lions: They simply could not stop the opposing quarterback, and they knew it.
With Detroit trailing the Buffalo Bills with 12 minutes remaining but within 38-28 after having scored a touchdown, coach Dan Campbell called for an onside kick, one of the high-risk calls that has made him famous for his aggression and aided Detroit’s turnaround. The reasoning was obvious to anyone who has watched the NFL for the past month: Having any hope of slowing down Buffalo required keeping the ball away from quarterback Josh Allen.
Instead, Buffalo receiver Mack Hollins recovered the kick by tipping the ball to himself before returning it 38 yards to the doorstep of the end zone. One play later, Allen threw for a touchdown, his fourth total touchdown of the day. Buffalo went on to win 48-42.
A game billed as a potential Super Bowl preview ended as a statement win for the Bills and strengthened Allen’s case to win the league’s Most Valuable Player award.
Two weeks after he became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw, receive and run for touchdowns in the same game as the Bills beat San Francisco and one week after he made more history in a loss to the Los Angeles Rams by becoming the first player to throw for three touchdowns and run for three more in one game, Allen continued his torrid run to hand the Lions only their second loss.
On the road in Detroit, where the Lions had allowed opponents only 20 points per game, Allen threw for 362 yards and two touchdowns and ran for two more scores. In his last three games alone, he has accounted for 14 touchdowns. To put that in perspective, that is one more than the New York Giants, the league’s lowest-scoring team, have produced in their last nine games.
The Bills (11-3) have scored 40-plus points in three consecutive games for the third time in franchise history, joining the 2021 and 1990 teams.
Allen has never been named the league’s MVP, and this season he has produced not only huge numbers but also big moments that could stick with voters. Buffalo has used his arm and legs to knock off a one-loss team (Detroit) in the same season that a fourth-down conversion by Allen beat previously undefeated Kansas City.
Buffalo scored touchdowns on its first three drives Sunday and failed to score on its fourth only because it missed a field goal. In the second half, the Bills scored on five of their six drives before they ran out the clock on their final play after a second onside-kick recovery. It was enough to beat Detroit even though Lions quarterback Jared Goff threw for 494 yards and five touchdowns.
The last three weeks have shown vulnerabilities that make the Bills fallible, from questions about coach Sean McDermott’s clock management decisions in a loss to the Rams to concerns about their defense after Goff’s big game. (The Lions averaged 6.8 yards per play.) But what Buffalo does have is Allen, who has stood apart from even the league’s best players, and Sunday he helped differentiate his team from another of the NFL’s best.
