By Odin’s beard!! Unfortunately, the Bills and their fans are no strangers to last-second, heartbreaking losses. While Kyler Murray’s hail mary touchdown heave to DeAndre Hopkins certainly stings, that’s not where the game was lost. The Bills made plenty of mistakes along the way that allowed for the Hail Mary attempt to come up in the first place, so let’s a look at how it got there.
The first half was as good as you could have asked for, with a shorthanded Bills’ defense locking down the explosive Cardinals offense to the tune of only three field goals. Buffalo’s offense had some hiccups and Josh Allen got away with a couple of near-interceptions, but they scored on all of their possessions in the 1st half and even closed it out with a FG from the suddenly red-hot Tyler Bass to make it 16-9 at halftime. The Bills were playing with incredible confidence after their win over the Seahawks and in as good of a position as you could have hoped going into the break.
Buffalo punted on their possession to open the action in the 2nd half and seemingly wasted a golden opportunity to get a stranglehold on the game, but they forced a quick fumble from Kenyan Drake to take over at the Cards’ 20-yard line. They didn’t waste much time cashing in on the turnover, as Allen found Cole Beasley for the 22-yd touchdown. Up 23-9 in the 3rd quarter, the Bills were cruising and had the Arizona offense flummoxed. It’s difficult to know exactly what happened from that point, but it looked like they got complacent and a little over confident with the lead.
You knew the Cards were going to get something going eventually and it seemed like the two TD deficit catalyzed their offense. They capped off a 9-play, 75-yd drive with a Murray read-option keeper TD to cut the Bills lead to 7-pts. A quick 3 & out from Buffalo ended with a disastrous 12-yd punt from Corey Bojorquez that set AZ up at the BUF 30-yd line. If you’ve been reading my stuff lately, you know how I feel about bad omens and that was one of ‘em. The Bills’ defense won the moral victory and limited the damage to a Zane Gonzalez FG but, in less than two minutes, the Cards had scored 10-unanswered points.
Buffalo needed an answer to slow Zona’s momentum but, 3-plays and less than two minutes later, Patrick Peterson finally got Allen and picked off a throw into a conjested route combo. At this point, the game was sliding heavily in the wrong direction and it was up to the Bills’ defense to come up with a ciritcal stop. On the Cards’ prior TD, Murray used the read-option look to fake out the defensive end and basically walk into the end zone. Clearly, AZ Head Coach Kliff Kingsbury saw the Bills were taking the bait and losing edge containment, so he made sure to abuse their defense with that play call. Murray cracked two big runs on the three-play drive, one of which was a 15-yd TD scamper and within six minutes, AZ had scored 17-unaswered point to take the lead 26-23.
As I mentioned, you had to know the Cards were going to make a run at some point but it’s the way things turned that’s frustrating. I know it’s easier said than done, but the lack of edge containment cost the Bills over and over and over again. Murray repeatedly singled out the edge rusher and took advantage. The instinct is to go after the ball, I get that, but the Buffalo didn’t recognize and learn from the play design. At least if they’d committed to Murray on those handoffs, the running back is moving towards the help defense and you can limit those plays without allowing the most dangerous scrambling QB in the league to get into the open field. Buffalo did such a fantastic job on him up until midway through the 3rd quarter, it was extra painful to watch the game swing in that fashion.
After that TD, the Bills punted but the defense clamped down and Jordan Poyer came away with a tipped-ball interception off Larry Fitzgerald. It was exactly what the Buffalo offense needed, but they’d punt again 4 plays later. Their offensive efficiency completely went in the tank and even with forcing another quick 3 & out for AZ, Allen threw another pick on the first play of the ensuing drive and Buffalo’s hopes for a win looked sunk. However, that improving defense forced another critcal 3 & out to give their offense one more chance with about three and a half minutes.
Buffalo hand’t scored since about five minutes into the 2nd half so there was significant pressure on Allen and their offense to get something done. Only trailing by a FG, offensive coordinator Brian Daboll engineered a methodical 12-play drive that required Allen to play his best and he did. Starting at their own 22, he strategically marched his way 78-yds down field going 8/11 passing in the process. On 2nd & 1, Allen found his favorite target, Diggs, in the back corner of the endzone for a beautiful 21-yd TD strike to put the Bills ahead 30-26 with 34-seconds left in the game. It looked as though Buffalo was going to escape the desert with a huge win, but we all know that’s not how things would end.
All the Bills had to do was survive some desperation attempts to get the win, but sometimes great players go out and make great plays. Starting at their own 25, the Cards had to burn the rest of their timeouts and complete a couple passes to get to midfield. With 11-seconds left and the ball at the BUF 43-yard line, Murray scrambled to his left and Bills’ defensive end Mario Addsion took the bait and blew edge containment again which allowed the Cards’ QB to find a clean throwing lane. As the ball sailed into triple coverage, the pass looked destined to fail but destiny can be funny like that. D-Hop managed to high-point the ball, sandwiched between Buffalo’s three best secondary players, and come down with the ball for the game-winning TD.
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That’s definitely not how I wanted to see the game end, but I have to respect it. I’ve always thought very highly of Hopkins and was happy to see him get out of Houston, but it would have been just fine if he dropped that ball. It seemed like Tre White, Poyer, and Micah Hyde were all playing the ball and none of them were playing the man as Hop outreached the sea of Bills’ hands by a matter of inches. I’m not sure if it was a miscommunication thing, but the refs are unlikely to call collateral contact as PI in triple coverage, so I was surprised to see Poyer flying into the play but not ripping at Hopkins’ arms in the process. Hyde was behind him and White was in front, so it was on Jordan to make the play through the receiver as he came across. Instead, he collided with White and D-Hop hit the turf with clean possession of what will likely go down as the catch-of-the-year and one of the best big-play catches I’ve ever seen.
Performance Grade: B-
I had initially picked the Buffalo to win this game outright but, when the Covid-reserve list came out and sidelined a number of high-profile secondary players, I changed my pick. So, I wasn’t ultimately surprised by the outcome. That’s a game the Bills could have, should have, and damn near won. Going into the bye week at 8-2 would have been nice, but 7-3 is not too shabby and there’s a lot to be learned from this loss. Buffalo needs to use the time off to get healthy, address the mistake that let the Cardinals back in the game, and get ready for a very winnable game against the Chargers when they get back. With the Dolphins heating up and riding a nice win streak, every game down the stretch is going to be huge before their divisional battle to close out the season in Week 17.