Offense Beyond Perfect and Surreal in Every way for Bills
On a night when Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen finished with more touchdown passes (five) than incompletions (four), it was only fitting that one of those touchdowns came when he was trying to throw an incompletion.
Happened right on the opening series. Allen was about to go out of bounds on a scramble and wisely figured it would be better to just throw it out of the back of the end zone on second-and-goal from the 8 and live to fight another down than to take a sack or try to force something in there.
The only problem was that Dawson Knox wasn't on the same page. The 6-foot-4 tight end was thinking the pass was thrown with a different goal in mind. He leaped and snagged it for a TD, celebrated, then came to the sideline to thank his teammate for thinking of him.
"He was like, `I meant to throw it away,' " Knox said. "... It just worked out for us. I mean obviously the plays that he's made all year have been just incredible. I think his passer rating was like almost perfect tonight.
"It's insane."
Knox was correct. Allen completed 21 of his 25 attempts for 308 yards, five touchdowns and no interceptions or sacks to finish with a passer rating of 157.6, less than one full point from the NFL's perfect standard of 158.3, achieved just 78 times in league history.
The only possession in which the Bills did not score a touchdown was the final one of the game, when backup quarterback Mitchell Trubisky came in and took a knee three times to run out the clock.
That is unprecedented perfection. Before Saturday night, no team had scored touchdowns on its first five possessions in a playoff game in the Super Bowl era. The Bills scored seven straight touchdowns to shatter the record convincingly against the league's second-ranked scoring defense and a head coach in Bill Belichick who's won more playoff games and Super Bowls than anyone else.
Saturday's game also was a night of firsts for rookie backup tackle Tommy Doyle and 12-year veteran wide receiver Emmanuel Sanders.
Sanders had been in 13 playoff games before Saturday night, including a pair of Super Bowls. But he had never caught a postseason TD pass until catching a 34-yard bomb from Allen in the third quarter to make ot 33-3.
Meanwhile, it took Doyle just one postseason route in his first playoff game to match Sanders' career total when he caught a TD pass as a tackle-eligible extra blocker near the goal line to complete Buffalo's scoring.
"I'm sick for Emmanuel Sanders because he's played 100 years in this league and tonight was his first playoff touchdown. Tommy Doyle plays one game and gets a touchdown," Allen joked.
On a more serious note, Allen added: "I'm glad his first touchdown was with us. He's had an up and down year with some injuries and he just puts his head down and works. He's a vet guy. He doesn't care how he gets the job done.
"If you watched that drive, I think two plays earlier he was on the edge and he's making an unbelievable block for [Isaiah McKenzie]. ... Two plays later, he catches the touchdown like that. He's a guy that stays ready, he knows his role, he knows his job and he makes a big play when it's there for him."
That's just the kind of crazy night it was for the Bills, who played their most complete game in the five-year era of coach Sean McDermott, who's undefeated in three home playoff games and winless in three on the road.
Terminating the second part of that trend is the obvious next step and could be what helps this team finally get back to the Super Bowl after all these years.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
