As one of the NFL’s best teams all season, and a legitimate contender to emerge from the NFC and appear in what would be the franchise’s first Super Bowl, Detroit regularly overmatched opponents with physicality and aggression on its way to a 12-1 record.
Yet early in Sunday’s fourth quarter, one decision appeared to indicate a rare admission from the Lions: They simply could not stop the opposing quarterback, and they knew it.
Trailing the Buffalo Bills with 12 minutes remaining, but within 38-28 after scoring a touchdown, Detroit coach Dan Campbell called for an onside kick, one of the high-risk calls that has made him famous for his aggression and aided Detroit’s turnaround. The reasoning was obvious to anyone who has watched the NFL for the past month: To have any hope of slowing down Buffalo required keeping the ball away from quarterback Josh Allen.
Instead, Buffalo receiver Mack Hollins recovered the kick by tipping the ball to himself before returning it 38 yards to the doorstep of the end zone. One play later, Allen threw for a touchdown, his fourth total touchdown of the day. Buffalo went on to win 48-42.
In the process, a game billed as a potential Super Bowl preview ended as a statement win for the Bills and strengthened Allen’s case to win the league’s most valuable player award.
Two weeks after Allen became the first quarterback in NFL history to throw, receive and run for touchdowns in the same game while beating San Francisco, and one week after Allen made more history in a loss to the Rams while becoming the first player to throw for three touchdowns and run for three more in one game, the Bills star continued his torrid run to hand the Lions only their second loss.
On the road in Detroit, where the Lions had allowed opponents only 20.0 points per game, Allen threw for 362 yards and two touchdowns and ran for two more scores. In his last three games alone, Allen has now accounted for 14 touchdowns. To put that in perspective, that is one more touchdown than the Giants, the league’s lowest-scoring team, have produced in their last nine games.
The Bills (11-3) have now scored 40-plus points in three consecutive games for the third time in the franchise’s history, joining 2021 and 1990.
Allen has never been named the league’s MVP, and this season he has not only produced huge numbers but big moments that could stick with voters. Buffalo has now used his arm and legs to knock off a one-loss team (Detroit) in the same season that a fourth-down conversion by Allen beat previously undefeated Kansas City.
Buffalo scored touchdowns on its first three drives Sunday and failed to score on its fourth only after a missed field goal. In the second half, the Bills scored on five of their six drives before running out the clock on their final play, following a second onside-kick recovery. It was enough to beat Detroit even though Lions quarterback Jared Goff threw for 494 yards and five touchdowns.
The last three weeks have displayed vulnerabilities that make the Bills fallible, from questions about coach Sean McDermott’s clock-management decisions in a loss to the Rams, to concerns about their defense following Goff’s big game. (The Lions averaged 6.8 yards per play.) But what Buffalo does have is Allen, who has stood apart from even the league’s best players, and in the process Sunday helped differentiate his team from another of the NFL’s best teams.
The post Josh Allen stars again as Bills defeat Lions in potential Super Bowl preview appeared first on NBC News.
