The Bills’ chances were thwarted with two memorable fourth-down failures, both of which will be burned into the heads of their fans all offseason. The first was a failed Allen sneak on fourth-and-1 from the Kansas City 41-yard line early in the fourth quarter, with Buffalo clinging to a 22-21 lead.
The initial call on the field had Allen short of the yard to gain, and replay did not overturn the spot, in spite of Allen and the ball appearing to come extremely close to — if not across — the 40-yard line.
“The look we had in the stadium … I thought he had it,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott said after the game. “Just short of the line was actually the first down, what it looked like to me, when it was sitting next to me with the marker. Just inside that white stripe was the first down. It looked like he got to it. That’s all I can say.”
The Bills’ second turnover on downs came with fewer than two minutes remaining in the game and Buffalo driving to either tie or potentially re-take the lead in what was a three-point game.
Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo sent a blitz on a fourth-and-5, and Allen drifted backward, throwing off his back foot. The desperate heave somehow hit Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid in his hands, but he couldn’t corral the pass. The Bills would not get the ball again.
Allen credited the Chiefs for sending Trent McDuffie on the critical play with 1:58 left.
“They gave a good look,” Allen said. “Didn’t see anything in my first cadence. They were sliding left. Corner came. … Yeah.”
The first fourth-down turnover resulted in a Chiefs touchdown and two-point conversion. The second one allowed the Chiefs to run out the clock and secure another Super Bowl trip.
The Bills were 3 of 3 in the red zone on Sunday. They were also 4 of 6 on fourth-down conversions. But the two misses came at two of the biggest junctures of the game.
-“You can either get it done, or you can’t,” Allen said, “and we didn’t get it done.”
McDermott noted how big the first fourth-down stop was in a close game like Sunday’s.
“Yeah. Of course it does. Darn right it does,” he told reporters. “That’s a possession. We’re up one point at the time. A chance to go up maybe multiple scores at that point. It’s a big call. It’s absolutely a big call.”
The Bills, however, also failed to convert multiple third- and fourth-and-short situations on Sunday.
McDermott said he had no regrets with his decision to continuously run Allen on those plays, even while wondering whether they did enough to keep the Chiefs on their toes.
“It’s been our best play all year at one or inside of one yard (to go),” McDermott said. “We won some of those, but to your point, they were doing a good job.
“I thought overall, maybe we could have disguised it. Maybe not. But at the end of the day, we have confidence in Josh and our offensive line to get those. Been getting them all year.”
