How Josh Allens turnovers plagued Bills in Game of the Year choke vs. Vikings

June 24, 2024

The Buffalo Bills have shown disconcerting signs of being choke artists.

Two weeks in a row they failed to maintain a two-score lead, and they have dropped from first to third place in the AFC East after a colossal collapse Sunday in Highmark Stadium.

The Minnesota Vikings feasted off three Josh Allen turnovers in the fourth quarter and overtime to surmount a late, three-score deficit and win 33-30 in overtime.

Bills coach Sean McDermott’s unsuccessful fourth-quarter decision not to kick a point-blank field goal will be debated. Ken Dorsey’s four-minute offense and Leslie Frazier’s short-staffed prevent defense were flaccid. The Bills failed to eliminate Justin Jefferson despite everybody knowing the ball was headed his way.

All season, edge rusher Von Miller has pushed a team ethos: “Don’t blink.” Signs hang in the locker room. The mantra is repeated in meetings and interviews.

“I feel like we might be blinking a little bit,” receiver Stefon Diggs said.

Have you ever seen anything like this?!

📺: #MINvsBUF on FOX
📱: Stream on NFL+ https://t.co/uRjde5F169 pic.twitter.com/jZKc3LWWMA

— NFL (@NFL) November 13, 2022

Most of the scrutiny must regard Buffalo’s franchise quarterback.

A week of speculation over Allen’s injured throwing elbow — conjecture involved weeks of recovery and Tommy John surgery — set the stage for a dramatic emergence from the stadium tunnel to kick ass and take names.

Allen was every bit the superhero for three quarters. That military-grade right arm appeared unaffected. He said the elbow wasn’t an issue at all. He ran as he always does, absorbing hits and dragging linebackers. Buffalo’s offense remained explosive.

But by the time Allen trudged back up the tunnel ramp, you had to believe that whatever is happening between his ears is hurting him worse than the sprained elbow.

“I believe in him,” McDermott said. “That’s really where it starts. He’s a special person, special player. He’s a leader of our football team.

“Better days ahead. This is life in the NFL, unfortunately. It’s going to be a hard one to go to bed tonight with, but that’s why they put us in these positions.”

Allen exited the Meadowlands last week declaring he “played like s—” in an embarrassing loss to the New York Jets. His performance slipped even further Sunday in Orchard Park.

He committed a career-worst three giveaways from the fourth quarter onward. His fumbled snap inside the Bills’ 1-yard line gifted Minnesota the go-ahead touchdown with 41 seconds left.

He threw both interceptions within the red zone, a double blunder he’d never inflicted before in his NFL life. And not before the Week 8 victory over the Green Bay Packers had Allen thrown two interceptions in the fourth quarter or overtime.

Now he has done so twice in three games.

The Bills haven’t scored a second-half touchdown since beating the Kansas City Chiefs a month ago. They have four field goals over the three second halves since, and Allen has thrown six interceptions and fumbled twice, losing one.

Allen sounded spiritually defeated in his postgame news conference.

“I’ve got to execute better,” he said. “That’s on my shoulders. Four turnovers today, three were by me. Losing sucks. That’s just what it is. You hate to lose, especially that way.”

GO DEEPER

Seven Bills observations from Sunday's crushing loss vs. Vikings

Allen’s invincibility and MVP candidacy were galvanized through three quarters. At the time, he had completed 19 of his 25 passes for 215 yards and one touchdown without any turnovers. He’d also rushed three times for 46 yards.

Then everything imploded.

The Bills took a 17-point lead with 1:51 left in the third quarter and squandered it by allowing an 81-yard Dalvin Cook touchdown run on the very next play.

The Bills’ run defense has gotten julienned several weeks in a row. They looked effective up until Cook’s breakaway. Cleveland Browns tailback Nick Chubb, the NFL’s leading TD rusher, comes to Highmark Stadium next Sunday.

With 10:41 left in the fourth quarter, Buffalo could have kicked a 25-yard field goal to take a 30-17 lead. McDermott wanted a touchdown. Allen rolled right and threw an interception to all-decade cornerback Patrick Peterson in the end zone.

On the ensuing drive, the Vikings drove 13 plays to cut their deficit to 27-24 on fullback C.J. Ham’s first rushing touchdown in five years.

Buffalo took over with 4:34 to go. Minnesota owned a single timeout.

The Bills’ possession to forget went like this: Allen pass to tailback Devin Singletary for no gain; Diggs false start (clock stopped); Allen incomplete short left to Diggs (clock stopped); Allen incomplete deep left to Diggs, who dropped it while leaping over safety Harrison Smith (clock stopped).

Dorsey’s offense drained 68 measly seconds and gave the ball back with 3:26 remaining. Minnesota retained its timeout ahead of the two-minute warning.

Minnesota, with time waning, couldn’t depend on carving Buffalo’s run defense anymore.

Alas, Buffalo didn’t defend fourth-quarter passes well, either.

Jefferson was a perpetual nuisance. No matter the situation, Kirk Cousins fired in Jefferson’s direction, and regardless of how tightly Buffalo covered him, doom ensued.

Jefferson made five catches for 88 yards from the fourth quarter on. The most devastating was a magnificent, torso-torquing, ground-surviving wrestle from Bills safety Cam Lewis to convert a fourth-and-18 at the two-minute warning. Lewis should have knocked down the ball. Instead, the Vikings gained 32 yards to reach the Bills’ 41-yard line.

Just throw it to @JJettas2

📺: @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/iOzht9ddoU

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) November 13, 2022

The Bills seemed to avoid catastrophe on a goal-line stand with 49 seconds left, stonewalling Cousins’ sneak from the 1-yard line.

Buffalo took over with inches to spare. Allen fumbled center Mitch Morse’s direct snap. Minnesota linebacker Eric Kendricks pounced on the ball for a 30-27 lead.

Helped by an incorrectly called, 20-yard Gabriel Davis reception on the left sideline — Buffalo snapped the ball before replays could show the ball hit the turf as Davis dove to collect it — Tyler Bass kicked a 29-yard field goal to force overtime.

Minnesota got the ball first and drove the field. On the last set of downs, Buffalo made a stop with 12 defenders on the field, a penalty officials didn’t spot. Minnesota kicked a field goal.

Allen put on his cape and ran for 18 yards, ran for 20 yards, completed consecutive passes to Diggs for 7 yards apiece, threw an incompletion to tight end Dawson Knox in the end zone and then, on second-and-10 from the Vikings’ 20-yard line, delivered another interception to Peterson in the end zone.

“If I know Josh, I know he’s extremely hard on himself,” Diggs said. “I never even talk about the negative. I’m more of a positive guy anyways.

“But I got his back no matter how this s— shakes out. Our quarterback gives a lot of effort. At the end of the game, you saw him lead us all the way down the field.

“He’s going to hate it for 24 hours, but I got his back. I’ll take the good with the bad any day. My quarterback is a winner.”

Allen leads the NFL with four multi-interception games.

Buffalo’s offense hasn’t struck a consistent identity aside from relying on Allen to do almost all the work.

The Bills ran effectively out of the gate. Singletary carried nine times for 41 yards and two touchdowns by halftime. Allen ran three times for 46 yards, helping the Bills rush for 116 yards after 30 minutes. Allen’s passing also looked crisp. He was 14-of-18 for 134 yards and a touchdown for a 116.2 passer rating.

“I thought we did a pretty good job (running) in the first half,” McDermott said. “In the second half, we got a little bit out of whack there.”

In the third and fourth quarters, Buffalo ran eight times for 21 yards. On the drive that ended with Allen’s first interception, the Bills had second-and-2 from the Vikings’ 7-yard line and passed on three consecutive downs.

Bills fans looking for solace can think back two years ago to that heartbreaking DeAndre Hopkins Hail Mary loss to the Arizona Cardinals or last season’s heartbreaking Tom Brady comeback loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

The Bills seemed lost but bounced back each time, reaching the AFC Championship Game and then coming within 13 seconds of returning.

Those doldrums, of course, didn’t involve the star quarterback playing poorly for nearly three straight weeks and the team choking away two-score leads two games in a row.

“I believe in them, and I believe in our coaching staff,” McDermott said. “We’re 6-3. So, we’ve done some good things, but we’ve also gotten sloppy at times.

“Sometimes before you win, you’ve got to prevent yourself from losing. I know that’s a negative connotation, but that’s really where it starts.”

(Photo: Mark Konezny / USA Today)

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