• Bill Barnwell, ESPN Staff WriterJan 20, 2025, 08:25 AM ET
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      Bill Barnwell is a senior NFL writer for ESPN.com. He analyzes football on and off the field like no one else on the planet, writing about in-season X’s and O’s, offseason transactions and so much more.

      He is the host of the Bill Barnwell Show podcast, with episodes released once a week. Barnwell joined ESPN in 2011 as a staff writer at Grantland. Follow him on Twitter here: @billbarnwell.

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There’s a lot to break down from NFL divisional round weekend. On one hand, wins by the Bills and Chiefs gave us the AFC Championship Game most people were expecting to see heading into the regular season. On the other hand, if you predicted Commanders-Eagles as the matchup deciding the NFC heading into Week 1, you’re either located somewhere near I-95 in the Mid-Atlantic region or a time traveler.

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To figure out how we got here, let’s take a closer look at 10 plays that helped decide this weekend’s games. These weren’t necessarily the 10 most important plays, but they were moments that stood out as I watched all four games.

I’ll go chronologically and start in Kansas City, where the defending champs were every bit as frustrating — and successful — as they’ve been for most of the regular season. On Saturday, a widely panned call helped keep the Chiefs’ offense going:

Jump to a matchup:
Chiefs 23, Texans 14 | Commanders 45, Lions 31
Eagles 28, Rams 22 | Bills 27, Ravens 25

Chiefs 23, Texans 14

1. Patrick Mahomes gets ‘roughed’

The situation: First-and-10 from the Kansas City 35-yard line, Chiefs up 13-12 with 1:52 to go in the third quarter

In my columns and on social media, I’ve written about how the conspiracy theories surrounding calls going the way of Mahomes and the Chiefs are mostly bunk. There are reasonable explanations for why he draws conspicuous penalties — extending plays, simply throwing more and playing more often in prime time than anybody else — and the tortured logic used to create a conspiracy doesn’t hold up against any semblance of logic. The Chiefs drawing a pass interference penalty on fourth-and-16 to extend the game and eventually beat the Bengals in Week 2 sure seems fishy … until you remember the same refs called an illegal use of hands penalty on Kansas City to wipe out a fourth-and-6 conversion on the previous play.

Saturday’s Texans-Chiefs game was different. Not because there was a conspiracy; there were plenty of bad calls in the Commanders-Lions game that followed. The refs didn’t decide this game, though Kansas City certainly benefitted from the eight penalties Houston committed — including a pair of personal fouls for roughing Mahomes that extended drives — on a day in which the Chiefs’ offense generated 212 yards.

The second of those penalties is the one I’d be most concerned about, and the league needs to take a look at it this offseason. Scrambling out of the pocket on a busted play, Mahomes lost his protections as a quarterback and became a runner. He attempted to find a running lane before eventually giving himself up. As he did, two Texans defenders flew in to try to make a hit and collided with one another. Mahomes was grazed on the helmet, and the referees threw a flag for unnecessary roughness, granting the Chiefs a first down.

It’s fair to say Mahomes has a habit of stretching plays as a runner until the last possible second, hoping he can lure defenders into a false sense of security before accelerating forward for extra yardage. This isn’t the first time he has been accused of a late slide. He’s not the only quarterback to do this, either. And later in this game, he clearly exaggerated a hit on the sidelines that wasn’t illegal in the hopes of drawing a penalty.

The NFL protecting quarterbacks is a good thing, but in the process the league has incentivized quarterbacks to push the envelope until the last possible second before sliding. Any passer is going to take advantage of that if he can — Mahomes has done a better job of it than just about anybody else.

There were nearly two disasters on this play. One was the two defenders flying in and colliding with each other’s helmets, which could have led to them suffering a serious injury. The other would have been a more significant helmet-to-helmet hit on Mahomes, which could have knocked him out of the game. The NFL shouldn’t want either of those things to happen. And again, while there was a marginal amount of contact between Henry To’oTo’o and Mahomes’ helmet, the league shouldn’t want to see a call that is immediately and visibly wrong.

There are two things the NFL can and should do here. One is to address the habit of quarterbacks extending plays and delaying slides during the offseason by emphasizing that they don’t have their usual protections as runners outside the pocket. Nobody wants to see quarterbacks get injured, but as they continue to toe that line between actively running and giving themselves up until the last possible moment, it’s only a matter of time before someone gets seriously hurt. The league flagged this call as correct after the fact by suggesting that Mahomes had already gone to the ground when he was struck with a glancing blow from the defender’s helmet, but that sort of awkward, late slide in a situation in which he isn’t clearly giving himself up makes it impossible for defenders to fluctuate between holding up and potentially injuring an opponent.

The other is to afford the league’s replay assist system the ability to change obviously wrong calls on the field. While the replay process has sped up overturning elements such as catches and bad spots, it can’t overturn a penalty flagged on the field. The NFL flirted with this for pass interference after the Rams-Saints fiasco in the 2018 playoffs with a challenge system before almost comically rejecting any attempts to change a call for most of the season, but adding the ability to overturn or flag obvious mistakes on the field would be a positive. That would have hurt the Chiefs and Mahomes here, but it could also be used to help quarterbacks, including on the rash of unflagged facemask penalties during sacks that happened in the regular season. There’s no conspiracy here, but that doesn’t mean the league can’t do better.

2. C.J. Stroud gets sacked to end a key drive

The situation: Fourth-and-10 from the Kansas City 40-yard line, Chiefs up 20-12 with 10:05 to go in the fourth quarter

DeMeco Ryans has done excellent work as the coach in Houston, but for the Texans to get to the next level, he has to do a better job of managing game situations. He mishandled a pair of key moments in this game, and while some of that can fall on the players and offensive coordinator Bobby Slowik, Ryans has the power to control the clock and make big decisions.

First, on this fourth-and-10 in the fourth quarter, the Texans spent too long deciding what they were going to do. It was a difficult spot without any easy answers, but with Houston facing a third-and-10 from the same yard line on the prior play, Ryans needed to be thinking ahead. His offense needed to know what it was going to do on fourth down if it didn’t get anything on third down.

Instead, the Texans didn’t start lining up to snap the ball until there were five seconds remaining on the play clock. Without even evaluating what the Chiefs were presenting as a potential pass-rush look, the Texans had to hurry into the snap once they got to the line of scrimmage. As a result, they had to present a simple protection look, sliding their line toward Chris Jones, who was lined up as the defensive end outside right tackle Blake Fisher. That’s like handing Kansas City defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo an extra Christmas present.

The protection ended up being a mess. Nico Collins lined up in the slot and chipped Jones on the play, which kept Houston’s top wideout from getting out into his route quickly in a key situation. The interior of the line blocked three rushers with four linemen, and while defensive tackle Tershawn Wharton had a good game, there was no need to double-team him. The Texans had seven men in protection to block five Chiefs, but tight end Dalton Schultz ended up one-on-one against edge rusher George Karlaftis, and that’s a mismatch. Schultz was barely able to get a hand on Karlaftis, who chased Stroud down for a drive-ending sack.

The Texans made a similar mistake later in the game. Driving for a touchdown to make it a one-score game, Stroud & Co. tried to rush a play to the line to get an extra snap in before the two-minute warning. Once they snapped the ball, though, several of the receivers didn’t seem to be sure about the concept and ran atypically tentative routes. Nobody came close to getting open. Stroud wasn’t initially pressured, but when he couldn’t find a target, he was sacked by Felix Anudike-Uzomah. Another Karlaftis sack after the two-minute warning injured Stroud and ended Houston’s chance to score a much-needed touchdown.

In a vacuum, going for it on fourth down in no-man’s-land with 10 minutes to go and attempting to get in an extra play before the two-minute warning was fine. Understanding the situation and making sure the offense had everything ready for those key calls before the play even began was essential, however. Not taking a timeout as the clock was winding down before that fourth-down play was an obvious mistake, and that goes back to not having a plan as third down began. Ryans has the Texans going in the right direction — he has won back-to-back AFC South titles — but the margin for error against the Chiefs at Arrowhead Stadium is just too small.

Commanders 45, Lions 31

3. The Commanders break the Lions’ defensive game plan

The situation: First-and-10 from the Washington 42-yard line, Lions up 14-10 with 6:33 to go in the second quarter

For all the talk about defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn’s game plan when the Lions held the Vikings to nine points in the Week 18 victory, a closer look at the tape made it clear the performance was more about Sam Darnold struggling to hit open receivers than the Lions having a genius scheme.

Glenn has done great work this season, but injuries to the pass rushers turned Detroit into a one-dimensional defense. It was almost invariably going to play a ton of man coverage and blitz. Teams were able to exploit that late in the regular season, with the Packers, 49ers and Bills all scoring 30-plus points. The one time Glenn changed up his game plan was in the 48-42 loss to the Bills, when he tried to play zone early while facing a quarterback in Josh Allen who can torch man coverage and blitzes. When Allen destroyed those zone looks, Glenn went back to man coverage. The Lions just didn’t have an answer.

As ESPN’s Mina Kimes and I mentioned on her podcast last week, Jayden Daniels was a terrible matchup for that sort of defense. He finished the season ranked in the top four in QBR against both man-to-man coverage and blitzes. Offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury is effective at creating leverage for his receivers with picks against tight man coverage, and Daniels’ ability as a scrambler stretches defenses. Washington’s no-huddle, which it runs three times as much as any other team, also promised to gas out a thin Lions defense as the game wore along.

So, whether it was the game plan coming in or a product of losing yet another cornerback when Amik Robertson went down on the opening drive (arm), Glenn went back to zone coverage early in this game. The Lions ran zone coverage on eight of Daniels’ 12 dropbacks in the first quarter, according to NFL Next Gen Stats. Daniels went 7-of-8 for 79 yards. Detroit leaned heavily back into man coverage the rest of the way.

One of those remaining zone snaps produced a long touchdown by Terry McLaurin. The Commanders lined up in trips on the outside of the formation, and the Lions matched with one defender over the stack and two deep safeties. Detroit’s pre-snap look was designed to lure Washington into running, but Glenn sent Brian Branch on a run blitz at Daniels after the snap in the hopes of taking away a potential quarterback keeper on a read concept.

Well, three (receivers) is more than one (cornerback), so the Commanders passed. Kingsbury dialed up plenty of RPOs with success during this game, but I don’t think Daniels was reading anybody after the snap on this play. This was designed to be a run, but with a favorable look on the outside, Daniels had the ability to throw a bubble screen to McLaurin. Washington doesn’t have great receivers beyond its star wideout, but Olamide Zaccheaus and Dyami Brown are both good blockers, and that goes a long way on perimeter screens such as this one.

As was a common problem for the Lions throughout the night, the many reserve defenders lining up for Detroit weren’t able to bring down a Commanders receiver in space. Zaccheaus blocked Kindle Vildor and Brown got to Ifeatu Melifonwu. Neither was able to shed his block or do enough to slow down McLaurin. Safety Kerby Joseph took a flat path toward the play, expecting McLaurin to either be slowed by the defenders or try to escape to the inside, but when the receiver ran through the blocks, it became a footrace. McLaurin outran Joseph 58 yards to the house, and the Commanders never trailed again.

4. Jared Goff gets intercepted during a two-minute drill

The situation: First-and-10 from the Washington 29-yard line, Commanders up 31-21 with 0:35 to go in the second quarter

Things were bad after Goff threw a pick-six to Quan Martin midway through the second quarter and had to be evaluated for a concussion after the play, but the Lions quickly righted the ship. Teddy Bridgewater came in and led them to a touchdown in three plays when Jameson Williams took an end around 61 yards to the house. The Commanders responded with a touchdown drive of their own, but Detroit was having no trouble marching down the field for a potential score to bring the game back within three points before halftime.

And then, suddenly, the Lions didn’t have the ball anymore. After repeatedly hitting underneath targets for easy gains, Goff got a great look for a deep shot. The Commanders played quarters coverage, which creates a window to throw a deep post away from a cornerback with outside leverage and behind the two safeties. With both safeties biting on an underneath route, he absolutely made the right decision to throw the post to Williams.

The timing and the throw just weren’t right. A rush by Frankie Luvu around Penei Sewell created pressure, forcing Goff to step up in the pocket and reset. He might not have gotten quite as much acceleration on the throw as he would have hoped, and with Williams throttling down to try to bring in the pass, a trailing Mike Sainristil had just enough time to undercut the route and pick it off.

It’s possible Goff was in his head about a miss earlier in the game on the same kind of throw. Facing another split-safety coverage, he took a shot on a deep post to Williams, who had a step on Sainristil. That pass was thrown just a bit too far. While Williams maxed out at 21.5 mph on the play, Goff’s throw bounced off the wideout’s fingertips. On a good day, those throws are just slightly more accurate and produce two touchdowns. On Saturday, they yielded an incompletion and an interception. The Lions scored first after halftime to get back within three, but with a better end to the first half that Jahmyr Gibbs score would have tied up the game or given them the lead. Instead, they spent the rest of the game unsuccessfully chasing Washington.

5. The Commanders stick to their guns on fourth down

The situation: Fourth-and-3 from the Detroit 9-yard line, Lions up 7-3 with 13:13 to go in the second quarter

It would have been very easy for Washington coach Dan Quinn to justify kicking on this fourth down. The Commanders had been successful on fourth down during the regular season and converted in a key spot to score a touchdown and take the lead against the Buccaneers in the wild-card round, but they had failed earlier in this game on an ugly fourth-down call in which Daniels never touched the football.

The distance also matters here, though. Plenty of coaches have grown comfortable with the idea of going for it on fourth-and-inches or fourth-and-1, but they’re antsier about fourth-and-2 and even more conservative on fourth-and-3. During the regular season, in the first half of games inside the red zone, teams went for it 94.4% of the time on fourth-and-1, but only 45.2% of the time on fourth-and-2 and 16.1% of the time on fourth-and-3.

Quinn deserves credit for ignoring those arguments and playing to his team’s strengths. The Commanders are a great offense, especially when Daniels is added to the mix as a runner in key situations. They were facing one of the league’s best teams on the road as massive underdogs and were going to need all the points they could muster. Whatever happened with Marcus Mariota and Brian Robinson on the prior fourth down was a disaster, but that play was over. Going for it on fourth-and-3 was the right move.

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2:11
Tedy Bruschi on Lions: ‘Nobody is going to feel sorry for them’

Tedy Bruschi and Rex Ryan discuss the Detriot Lions’ season after their crushing playoff loss to the Washington Commanders.

The Commanders converted with a play that took advantage of the gravity created by McLaurin. He lined up in the slot at the snap and was double-covered, with Vildor on him from the outside and linebacker Jack Campbell coming across at the snap to try to take away an in-breaking route. McLaurin ran a slant, but so did Zach Ertz, who went past Campbell. With the Lions blitzing, backup edge rusher Trevor Nowaske was forced to come off the backside of the play to try to take away a quick pass to Ertz, which was an impossible assignment. Ertz moved the chains, and Washington eventually finished the drive with a touchdown.

After the early failure, the Commanders converted their next four attempts on fourth down. Daniels picked up a fourth-and-2 as a runner when cornerback Terrion Arnold got caught peeking into the backfield and wasn’t able to contain the quarterback from getting outside. The Lions had 12 men on the field for a fourth-and-2 inside the 5-yard line that created a first down. Then Kingsbury went back to his Air Raid roots and Daniels hit McLaurin on a mesh concept to pick up another fourth-and-2. Those drives all ended in touchdowns.

There’s a sad irony in all of this for the guy on the other side of the field. In last season’s NFC Championship Game loss to the 49ers, Dan Campbell was lambasted by some critics after the Lions went for it unsuccessfully on fourth down twice with a second-half lead. Many others, myself included, argued that Campbell was right to stick with what brought him within two quarters of the Super Bowl, even if the results didn’t work out as well as they had earlier in the season.

One year later, Campbell is again out of the playoffs. And while the Lions turning the ball over five times played a huge role, one of the biggest reasons the Commanders are advancing is because their coach stuck to his guns and continued to trust his offense on fourth down. This time, though, a hyperaggressive Dan going for it on fourth down was rewarded for his decisions.

Eagles 28, Rams 22

6. Saquon Barkley torches the Rams on a 62-yard touchdown run

The situation: Third-and-4 from the Eagles’ 38-yard line, Rams up 7-6 with 1:17 to go in the first quarter

The Eagles’ offense has mostly been big plays or bust this postseason. They scored two touchdowns against the Packers in the wild-card round; one was on a short field and the other was on the only drive of the game in which they had two explosive plays, with DeVonta Smith‘s 28-yard catch followed by Dallas Goedert‘s 24-yard touchdown catch and run. They were 2-for-11 on third down and didn’t do much on offense otherwise.

Sunday was more of the same, just with more big plays. Philadelphia was 6-of-15 on third downs, but it scored three touchdowns, all of which came on long runs by Barkley or Jalen Hurts. The Eagles started two drives in Rams territory after back-to-back fumbles and managed only field goals. They left points on the field with an A.J. Brown drop that would have set up first-and-goal, an illegal man downfield penalty that wiped away another first-and-goal opportunity and a false start that forced them out of a fourth-and-goal tush push with an injured Hurts and produced a field goal instead. Rams rookie edge rusher Jared Verse took over for stretches, seemingly hoping to physically overpower every single Philly offensive lineman before the game ended. The Eagles were sloppy and frustrating in key moments on offense.

When an offense produces three long touchdowns, though, it makes up for a lot of other issues. Hurts had the first score when he ran 44 yards to the house on QB Counter Bash, where he kept the ball on a play so well-blocked that pulling tackle Jordan Mailata didn’t have anybody to hit until he was 20 yards downfield.

Barkley’s first touchdown was an even better example of the stress the Eagles can place on opposing defenses. Third-and-4 is a passing down for most teams, with the league calling designed runs about 12% of the time. The front the Rams presented was designed to stress a team throwing the ball. With the Eagles in 11 personnel, the Rams responded by putting six defensive backs on the field in a dime package. In a 4-1-6 alignment, the only linebacker on the field was Christian Rozeboom, who was lined up alongside free safety Jaylen McCollough in a “mug” look over right guard Mekhi Becton. There were no second-level defenders on the play.

For the Eagles, there’s no fear of running the ball on third-and-4, given they were comfortable going for it on fourth-and-2 or less with the tush push. (This play happened before Hurts suffered his knee injury.) They’ve called designed runs on 32% of their third-and-4 snaps this season, nearly triple the league average. Hurts saw an extremely light front and checked into a run. A six-man front isn’t great for a zone concept, as the Rams famously know from Super Bowl LIII, but it’s a little different when there’s no linebacker at the second level to take away a potential cutback lane or chase down the ball carrier.

It’s also different when the Eagles are blocking undersized linebackers and defensive backs with elite linemen. The 11 Philadelphia players on the field outweighed the Rams by 464 pounds, to be specific, and most of that gap came exactly where the Eagles were about to pound the rock. Cam Jurgens, a 303-pound center, overpowered McCullough, whom he outweighs by 101 pounds. Becton quickly displaced Rozeboom, who was at a 126-pound disadvantage. And all-world right tackle Lane Johnson had to kick out cornerback Cobie Durant, who he outweighed by 143 pounds.

With three mismatches at the point of attack, this was a colossal mismatch. NFL Next Gen Stats suggests that an average back would be expected to gain 22 yards on this run, which is the most expected yards Barkley has been afforded on a single run all season. He’s much better than an average back, though, and he had no trouble skipping past Kamren Kinchens‘ tackle in the open field for a 62-yard score.

To the Rams’ credit, they came back later in the snow and stopped Barkley with six defensive backs on the field on a third-and-4 run in the fourth quarter, setting up an Eagles field goal. Even acknowledging that it worked on the second try, I’d have to argue the Rams were too aggressive with their personnel and their blitz look in a scenario where the Eagles are happy to run. It ended up producing one of the two long Barkley touchdowns on the day. What happened on the second one? Let’s break that one down, too.

7. Barkley goes 78 yards for his second long touchdown

The situation: First-and-10 from the Eagles’ 22-yard line, Eagles leading 22-15 with 4:47 to go in the fourth quarter

After Barkley ran for two long touchdowns the first time these two teams played, the Rams chalked up some of their woes to a lack of gap discipline. Indeed, they ended up with three defenders in the same gap on his 72-yard touchdown run in the fourth quarter of that game, with Barkley barely grazed by Verse before running unimpeded to the end zone. L.A. defensive coordinator Chris Shula reemphasized the importance of gap integrity in his comments to the media before the game this weekend.

It had to be disappointing, then, to see the Rams give up a 78-yard touchdown to Barkley on a play in which they didn’t have great gap discipline. The Eagles ran split flow inside zone, where the offensive line blocks with zone principles and tight end Dallas Goedert comes across the formation to block the edge rusher on the weak side of the play.

Verse had a phenomenal game, but it looks like the rookie might have been at fault here. He lined up outside the tight end as the edge defender. As Barkley took the handoff, though, Verse ended up so far inside that left guard Landon Dickerson actually had to step inside toward the center of the field to block him after executing the double team.

Verse ended up being contacted by Dickerson in the same gap as Rozeboom. There weren’t any Rams defenders in the B-gap, where Barkley cut and ran free into the second level. Kam Curl was the only player who had a shot at tackling Barkley, but by the time he got there, Barkley was already going 3 mph faster than him. Barkley shrugged off a diving tackle attempt by Curl and outran everyone else to the end zone.

It’s possible Verse was in the right place and somebody else was supposed to be in the B-gap or serve as the force defender, but if Verse was right, somebody else in the defense was wrong. (His movement also didn’t seem as deliberate as it would be on a play where he was designed to end up that far inside.) Either way, after blaming their inability to stop Barkley on gap integrity issues in the regular season, the Rams met the same fate on a critical run in the fourth quarter.

8. Jalen Carter stops the Rams’ final drive with a sack

The situation: Third-and-2 from the Eagles’ 13-yard line, Eagles leading 28-22 with 1:14 to go in the fourth quarter

The Rams’ best-laid plans came back to haunt them. The interior of their line was supposed to be a strength. They re-signed guard Kevin Dotson, who excelled after being acquired in a trade in summer 2023 with the Steelers. Wanting to build around a strong interior line, they then shelled out a three-year, $51 million free agent deal for Lions guard Jonah Jackson, with the plan of moving second-year guard Steve Avila to center.

It never worked out that way. Avila didn’t take at center, which led Jackson to move to the pivot, only for a fractured scapula to cost Jackson six weeks. He returned and played one game at center, at which point the Rams decided they were better off keeping rookie sixth-rounder Beaux Limmer in the lineup instead. Jackson didn’t play again until the Rams sat their starters in Week 18, and he took just one offensive snap as the sixth offensive lineman in Sunday’s loss.

Limmer and the rest of the line were fine after they got healthy, but they made a critical mistake on the most important snap of the season. One play after Dotson committed a false start on second down to push the Rams backward 5 yards, on a third down with a chance to take the lead, they turned Carter, the best player on the Eagles’ defense, loose for his easiest sack of the season.

At the snap, it looked like the line slid toward Carter, which makes sense. Limmer initially contacted Carter and then turned the other way, as if he was expecting Dotson to help take over the block. Dotson was already turned toward Nolan Smith, though, and he was helping Rob Havenstein block the edge rusher. Carter used a swim move past the distracted Limmer and blew up Matthew Stafford for a sack. Limmer jumped ever so slightly as Carter was about to run over his quarterback, seemingly knowing that Los Angeles’ best chance of winning was gone.

Then, on the fourth down that would end up being the Rams’ final snap of the season, Limmer ended up one-on-one vs. Carter. Again, even with Williams chipping on Smith, Dotson got into his stance and turned to help on the edge rusher. This time, Carter just beat Limmer head on, and his pressure forced Stafford to throw the ball out of bounds.

Who was wrong? It’s impossible to say without knowing the specific protection calls, but we know with some certainty the Rams couldn’t contain Carter on back-to-back snaps with the game on the line. It’s one thing to get beat by a great player, but letting him run virtually free on third down is a mistake that will haunt this team all offseason. It would be the sort of fiasco that might lead a team to make a major investment on the interior to avoid the same sort of mistake again. Unfortunately for the Rams, they already tried to make that move last offseason.

Bills 27, Ravens 25

9. Matt Milano swings the game toward the Bills

The situation: Second-and-11 from the Ravens’ 27-yard line, game tied at 7 with 3:59 to go in the first quarter

Sometimes, the simplest explanation is the correct one. The biggest reason the Bills had hope they could beat the Ravens after losing 35-10 earlier this season was at linebacker. During the regular-season loss, both Milano and Terrel Bernard were injured, depriving the Bills of their top two linebackers. Derrick Henry ran for 199 yards in the Week 4 win, while both of Lamar Jackson‘s touchdown passes were to receivers who were covered by linebackers.

Getting their two linebackers back might be the biggest reason the Bills are going to the AFC Championship Game. Bernard forced and recovered a critical Mark Andrews fumble in the fourth quarter. Milano was all over the field, with the Bills using him as a spy early on three-man “odd mirror” rushes. Milano beat a block at the goal line to help stuff Henry at the goal line, saving a touchdown on a series that eventually ended with a Baltimore field goal. And we’ll get to his 2-point exploits in a minute.

Milano also helped create a big play by forcing what might have been Jackson’s worst throw of the season. The Bills upped their blitz rate Sunday and it paid off. They ranked 27th in blitz rate during the regular season, sending extra rushers just 20.1% of the time. On Sunday, they more than doubled that rate to 41.9%, their highest rate in any game over the past two seasons.

Jackson ranked second in the league in QBR against the blitz this season, but without top receiver Zay Flowers (knee), perhaps the Bills felt like loading up on blitzes and playing more man coverage might be a viable solution. It worked. Jackson ripped apart the Bills in zone coverage and went 6-of-11 for 74 yards with a pick against man-to-man looks. And while he went 10-of-11 for 122 yards with two touchdowns against three- and four-man rushes, he was 8-of-14 for 132 yards with an interception against the blitz. Buffalo’s blitzes got home with pressure 60% of the time.

That pick came on a blitz in which Milano was the one pass rusher who won. He jumped onto the line of scrimmage just as the snap commenced and ended up one-on-one against Henry, who wasn’t able to slow him down. Milano didn’t quite get to Jackson’s face, but he was enough of a threat to prevent Jackson from holding onto the ball. If Jackson had one more tick in the pocket, he would have seen Nelson Agholor coming across the formation with excellent leverage for a completion.

Instead, Jackson sailed a throw to Rashod Bateman, who throttled down and seemingly wasn’t expecting to be targeted on what might have been a clear-out route or an alert. Even if Bateman had sped up, he would have been playing defense to try to prevent what ended up being an easy pick for Taylor Rapp, who set the Bills up with excellent field position. The Bills didn’t score after an awful holding call on Dion Dawkins got them behind schedule, but the Ravens had to battle out of difficult field position on the next drive, and after Jackson fumbled, that short field produced a Buffalo touchdown.

10. The Ravens fail on the first of two 2-point conversions

The situation: 2-point try from the Bills’ 2-yard line, Ravens trailing 21-19 with 1:41 to go in the third quarter

The Ravens’ second 2-point try was more dramatic and is going to be etched in the brains of Baltimore fans for years to come, but there’s not much to discuss there. The Ravens needed to go for 2 to tie the game. The pick play coordinator Todd Monken called freed up Andrews for what should have been a routine catch at the pylon to tie the game. Andrews didn’t make that catch. There’s not much else to say.

The prior 2-point conversion was more interesting. The Ravens had marched down the field on a seven-play, 80-yard drive with six runs and one pass. They spent much of the game in two-TE sets while daring the Bills to match with their base defense, but on a third-and-1, they actually sent out seven offensive linemen to block for Henry, who picked up 17 yards.

It probably wasn’t a surprise that the Ravens went for 2. While they ended the season with just one conversion on five 2-point tries, they have been the league’s best short-yardage team and red zone offense all season. You probably don’t need me to explain how an offense with Jackson and Henry would be good in these situations, at least on paper.

Should the Ravens have handed the ball to Henry at the end of a drive where they had dominated with the run? I can certainly see the argument, but the play they called worked. Henry went into motion just before the snap and it threw the Bills into confusion. Buffalo ended up with two defenders trying to chase down Henry in man coverage.

The Ravens ran mesh and were about to throw a pass to a wide-open Isaiah Likely as his trailing defender fell down, but Jackson’s pass was tipped at the line by Milano, with the star linebacker making another critical play to help the Bills win. We’ll never know whether a Henry run would have succeeded, but I’m not going to call this a bad decision, since the play created a Bills mistake and gave Baltimore an open receiver.

The other alternative was a play the Ravens never went to all night. For the first time all season, they didn’t dial up a run for Jackson, who had zero carries on designed runs. His five rushes included three scrambles on pass plays, a loss on a play in which he was handing off the ball and tripped and a kneel-down. I’ll have to look at the tape Monday to see if the Bills were playing Jackson on any potential option looks, but if there was ever a moment for Monken to get his quarterback involved on the ground, it seemed like either of the 2-pointers would have been the opportunity.

Was it too early to go for 2? I’m not sure that has ever made sense as a real argument beyond it being what coaches have argued forever. There’s no way to know if a team will actually end up needing a 2-pointer given the various permutations of potential possessions and scores over the remainder of the game. Computers are much better suited to that task, and they typically say going for 2 when trailing by 2 points to tie the game is a good idea. The NFL Next Gen Stats model had this as an obvious call, with a 4.4% win probability swing between the Ravens attempting a 2-pointer or kicking an extra point.

There will be people who point out that the Ravens could have kicked two extra points and gone into overtime, and obviously, kicking two extra points is better than failing to convert a pair of 2-pointers. I’m not sure the game would have played out the same way, though. If they kicked the extra point to go down one and the Bills kicked a field goal to establish a 4-point lead, Buffalo’s biggest decision of the game might go differently.

After the Andrews fumble in the fourth quarter, the Bills drove all the way to the Baltimore 2-yard line, searching for a score that would have all but put the game away. After Josh Allen was stuffed on third-and-goal, coach Sean McDermott called timeout and decided to kick a 21-yard field goal, extending Buffalo’s lead to 8. McDermott surely wanted a touchdown, but kicking the field goal ensured that the Bills couldn’t lose the game on the Ravens’ next possession.

If the Bills are only up 4 points in that situation as opposed to 5, would the math play out differently? A field goal would have put the Bills up 7 as opposed to 8, leaving Buffalo at risk in a scenario in which Baltimore went downfield and scored a touchdown. McDermott surely remembered Baltimore’s Week 1 game against the Chiefs, where the Ravens scored what appeared to be a touchdown when then were trailing by 7 points and immediately signaled for a 2-point try to win the game, only for the TD call to be reversed and end the game.

It would have been easier to stomach if the Ravens had made the wrong decisions. Maybe they could have slept easier if Henry had gotten stuffed in a pile of bodies or if an Allen touchdown put the game away. Instead, given what happened, I don’t have any issue with the Ravens going for 2 and throwing passes to try to convert twice. Credit the Bills for knocking away the first pass and, sadly, blame Andrews for dropping the second.