In perception and perhaps in their own minds, the Bills have been pacing for a year, scrolling mindlessly on their phones and checking the time even when they knew what time it was. They have been waiting for another shot at a team that is their equal—for the highest stakes. That chance, finally, is coming. We are about to find out whether these Bills are who they think they are.
The Bills’ wild-card playoff win, 34–31 over the Dolphins, just proved that they are good enough to beat almost everyone when they play poorly. That’s a backhanded compliment, but, hey, it’s still a compliment! How comforting it must be to win with a mediocre performance. Texans fans are jealous.
The Bills will need to play better than this. Surely they know it. They need quarterback Josh Allen to play like the closest thing to Patrick Mahomes’s equal, as he did in last year’s playoffs, instead of reverting to his old careless habits, as he has too much this season. Against the Dolphins, Allen threw two interceptions and had a fumble returned for a touchdown. On the Bills’ second drive of the second half, Allen had Gabe Davis open downfield and Khalil Shakir even more open in the flat. He opted for Shakir, missed him badly and the Bills had to punt.
Allen threw for 352 yards and three touchdowns against the Dolphins but also tossed a pair of interceptions and fumbled in their wild-card win.
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There was more sloppiness. Nyheim Hines fumbled a punt return but the Bills recovered. Miami edge Bradley Chubb slapped the ball out of Allen’s hand, causing another fumble that the Bills recovered.
None of it ultimately mattered or will be remembered in a week. But this version of the Dolphins was probably the least threatening team in the playoff field. The Dolphins were 9–8. They had lost five of six, and their only win came by five points, 11–6, against a Jets team that should probably view every down as a punting opportunity. With a healthy Tua Tagovailoa, the Dolphins were both fun and dangerous. With his backup’s backup, seventh-round pick Skylar Thompson, they were a non-playoff team that happened to make the playoffs. The Dolphins were sloppy and unsure at the game’s start—dropping passes, and looking for flags instead of just playing football.
The Bills let Miami hang around all afternoon anyway. If the Dolphins had shown any awareness of the play clock at any point in the game, the Bills might have lost.
Miami beat the Bills in September and nearly beat them in Buffalo last month, so maybe this is just a tough matchup for the Bills. But Super Bowl champions have to win tough matchups, and they have to do it with cleaner football than this.
This needs to be said, too: As we all know, the Bills have had one of the scariest two-week stretches imaginable. Safety Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on the field during Monday Night Football in Week 17. Thankfully, Hamlin is now O.K., and he is out of the hospital, and ultimately that is (of course) what matters. The Bills going on to win a Super Bowl would be an incredible story, but the actual task requires a level of focus that they might not be able to restore so quickly—which would, frankly, be completely understandable.
So this is not a criticism or a judgment, just a statement of reality: The Bills can’t win three more games this way. It’s not going to happen. They are capable of playing much better, which is both the best and most maddening thing you can say about them. It should not surprise anybody if they win at home next week, get their revenge against Mahomes and Kansas City in Atlanta the following week, and then bring Buffalo its first Super Bowl win.
They have been aiming for this January since they had the Chiefs beaten last year and still lost. The Bengals then beat Kansas City, and the Rams then beat the Bengals, but the Bills had good reasons to think they were the best team.
They have reasons to think they are the best team again. But they still have to play like it.
