On their path to a 12-1 record, Detroit consistently outplayed opponents with intensity and physicality, making them one of the NFL’s top teams of the season and a real candidate to win the NFC and make it to the team’s first Super Bowl.
However, one choice made early in the fourth quarter on Sunday seemed to signal a rare acknowledgment from the Lions: They recognized they couldn’t stop the opposition quarterback.
Detroit coach Dan Campbell, who is known for his aggressive calls, called for an onside kick when the team was down the Buffalo Bills by 12 minutes but within 38-28 after scoring a touchdown. This call helped Detroit turn the tide. The logic was clear to anyone who has seen the NFL in the last month: preventing quarterback Josh Allen from getting the ball was necessary to slow Buffalo down in any way.
Rather, the kick was recovered by Buffalo receiver Mack Hollins, who tipped the ball to himself and then returned it 38 yards to the end zone’s doorstep. Allen had his fourth total score of the day when he threw for a touchdown one play later. After that, Buffalo won 48–42.
Allen’s case for the league’s most valuable player award was reinforced when the Bills won a game that was hailed as a possible Super Bowl preview.
The Bills star continued his wild run to give the Lions just their second loss, two weeks after he became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw, receive, and run for touchdowns in the same game while defeating San Francisco, and one week after he made even more history in a loss to the Rams by becoming the first player to throw for three touchdowns and run for three more in one game.
Allen ran for two touchdowns and threw for 362 yards while playing on the road in Detroit, where the Lions had only given up 20.0 points per game. Allen has now scored 14 touchdowns in just his last three games. To put that in perspective, the Giants, who score the fewest touchdowns in the league, have only scored one touchdown in their last nine games.
After 2021 and 1990, the Bills (11-3) have now scored 40 points or more in three straight games for the third time in the team’s history.
This season, Allen has not only produced impressive numbers but also memorable moments that could leave an impression on voters. He has never been named the league’s MVP. In the same season that Allen’s fourth-down convert defeated Kansas City, who had been unbeaten, Buffalo has now utilized his arm and legs to overcome Detroit, a team with only one loss.
Buffalo only missed a field goal on their fourth drive Sunday, but they scored touchdowns on their first three. After a second onside-kick recovery, the Bills ran out the clock on their final play after scoring on five of their six drives in the second half. Even though Lions quarterback Jared Goff threw for 494 yards and five touchdowns, it was sufficient to defeat Detroit.
The Bills have shown weaknesses over the past three weeks, ranging from doubts about their defense after Goff’s great game to issues about coach Sean McDermott’s clock-management choices in a defeat to the Rams. (On average, the Lions gained 6.8 yards per play.) What Buffalo does have, though, is Allen, who has distinguished himself from even the finest players in the game and, on Sunday, helped set his club apart from another of the NFL’s top teams.
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