DENVER — Dawson Knox emerged from the shower and walked slowly toward the corner of the locker room, water dripping from his hair and torso, his eyes still wet with tears.
For the seventh time in his seven seasons, the Buffalo Bills veteran tight end had come up short in the postseason. For the seventh time, the Bills’ spectacular quarterback, Josh Allen, had failed to deliver the championship that a franchise, a city and a fan base so desperately craves.
This time — in the wake of a 33-30 overtime defeat to the Denver Broncos in Saturday’s divisional-round playoff clash at Empower Field — Allen had taken all of the blame, tearfully telling reporters, “I feel like I let my teammates down tonight” and explaining that his message to them was, “(I’m) extremely sorry.”
Now, as he prepared to deal with the fallout of another heartbreaking end to a once promising season, Knox stopped in the middle of the locker room and tried to halt the notion that this defeat was his quarterback’s fault.
“The way he beats himself up is because he’s an incredible leader,” Knox said softly. “The way he puts this whole team and city on his shoulders — I can’t imagine the weight he has to carry.
“Heavy is the head who wears the crown.”
Allen, the reigning NFL MVP, was justified in accepting at least some culpability for a bitter defeat that exposed the limitations of his team, at least as currently constructed. With two fumbles and two interceptions, he was responsible for four of the Bills’ five turnovers, costing them a chance to advance to a second consecutive AFC Championship Game.
“When you shoot yourself in the foot like that,” Allen said, “you don’t deserve to win football games.”
Yet for the sixth-seeded Bills to have had a shot to win this game — as with almost any game — they needed Allen, their 29-year-old superstar, to be a superhero. It’s a massive ask, and as great as he often is, it does not appear to be a viable formula for getting a flawed team to the Super Bowl.
That’s even true in a year when Allen’s most talented quarterbacking rivals in the AFC, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow, missed the playoffs, making Saturday’s defeat to the top-seeded Broncos all the more painful.
“It makes us even more sad, because this ain’t on him,” left tackle Dion Dawkins said. “It’s not on him.”
Yet week in and week out, there is so much on Allen, whose “mythical” on-field efforts and lauded leadership skills have made him a beloved figure in the Bills’ locker room. The man who regularly hosts gathering for teammates and their families may have felt like he blew this game, but not a soul who flew home with him on the team plane wanted to hear it.
“He’s the best leader you can ask for,” said Mitchell Trubisky, Allen’s backup. “I wish we could do more for him.”
Added Dawkins: “We’ll protect him. He’s a true warrior, a true battler. It’s on the rest of us to keep him from having to do too much.”
On Saturday, Allen threw for 283 yards and three touchdowns and ran for 66 yards on 12 carries, giving the Bills a chance to pull out a game while allowing 30 or more points for the fifth time this season.
That’s a statistic that says everything about Allen’s heavy load.
In the end, Buffalo’s battered secondary couldn’t hold up against the Broncos and second-year quarterback Bo Nix, who suffered a season-ending broken ankle shortly before Wil Lutz’s game-winning 23-yard field goal on the third possession of overtime.
Offensively, aside from Allen and running back James Cook (24 carries, 117 yards), the Bills were short on playmakers: Consider that Allen’s second-most targeted wide receiver, 12th-year veteran wide receiver Brandin Cooks, was signed in late November.
Clearly, the current model isn’t working — and Saturday’s missed opportunity felt like a closing argument.
The question now is whether owner Terry Pegula will make any big changes, with head coach Sean McDermott and general manager Brandon Beane each completing a ninth seasons in those roles. They’ve now had eight chances to get to the Super Bowl with Allen, drafted seventh overall out of Wyoming in 2018. Yet Pegula, Beane, McDermott and Allen are soul-searching for the eighth consecutive January.
As one Bills source put it before Saturday’s game, “Every year we don’t win it with Josh, it just feels like a missed opportunity. We have this gift of a franchise quarterback that doesn’t come along often, and we need to figure out how to take advantage of that.”
The Broncos’ dynamic defense took advantage of Allen’s most unconscionable miscue, which came with 16 seconds remaining in the first half. Denver had just taken a 17-10 lead on Nix’s 29-yard end-zone strike to wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey. Rather than taking a knee, McDermott chose to try to unleash Allen on first-and-10 from their 30 with no timeouts.
Allen, after trying to find an open receiver, bolted 12 yards up the middle before being stripped from behind by Broncos edge rusher Nik Bonitto, who spun him and batted the ball back toward the line of scrimmage. Buffalo guard David Edwards had a clear shot at a recovery but failed to come up with the ball, and Broncos safety Devon Key grabbed it at the Bills’ 32 with two seconds remaining — allowing Lutz to nail a 50-yarder at the halftime buzzer.
Josh Allen’s misadventures late in the second quarter ended in a fumble and a crucial Broncos field goal. (Justin Edmonds / Getty Images)
On the second offensive snap of the second half, a Bonitto strip-sack of Allen gave the Broncos the ball at the Buffalo 17. A few plays later, Lutz’s 33-yard field goal increased the lead to 23-10.
Allen, however, remained undaunted, throwing touchdown passes to wide receiver Keon Coleman and tight end Dalton Kincaid to reclaim the lead. When the Bills forced a three-and-out and took over at their 20 with 11:50 remaining in the fourth quarter and a 24-23 advantage, it looked like the superhero had saved the day once more.
“The light was shining,” Dawkins said. “It went out fast.”
Down 30-27 after Nix’s 26-yard touchdown pass to Marvin Mims with 1:01 left in regulation, Allen did enough to force overtime on Matt Prater’s 50-yard field goal in the final seconds. The Bills won the toss, elected to kick and forced a Denver punt, taking over at their own 7-yard-line with a chance to win the game with any score.
On third-and-11 from the Buffalo 36, Allen dropped back and unleashed a pass designed to end things once and for all. He threw deep down the middle of the field for Cooks, who had a step on nickel cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian. The ball was slightly underthrown, but Cooks slowed and appeared to catch it, only to have McMillian seize it as the two men landed near the 20-yard line.
There was a case to be made that Cooks might have momentarily secured the ball while landing — or that there was simultaneous possession, which would also have counted as a catch for Cooks — but a very quick replay review ruled otherwise. (In an interview with a pool reporter after the game, referee Carl Cheffers said that Cooks hadn’t completed the process of a catch when the receiver lost possession of the ball upon hitting the ground, and that “the defender gained possession of it at that point.”)
Afterward, McDermott was angry, questioning why such a pivotal decision shouldn’t be made in more deliberate fashion. He’s absolutely right: These teams have been preparing for this moment since July, and they’d just spent 3 1/2 hours battling on even terms. With their seasons on the line, what’s the hurry?
On the other hand, a playoff game was partly decided by controversial officiating decisions which didn’t work against Broncos coach Sean Payton for a change (though that doesn’t bring much solace to fans of the team he formerly coached, the New Orleans Saints).
The controversy continued after the Broncos took over following McMillian’s pick. Allen could only watch helplessly as a pair of pass-interference calls accounted for 47 yards on Denver’s subsequent game-winning drive, cementing another abrupt ending to a hollow Bills campaign.
Once again, the Bills weren’t good enough to end a conference title drought that is now 32 seasons long — and Allen was visibly devastated in the aftermath.
“I think he’s beating himself up because he saw an avenue open up,” Payton said about 90 minutes after the game as he prepared to leave the stadium. “Mahomes is out, the guy in Baltimore (Jackson) didn’t make it, and neither did Burrow — only these young quarterbacks (in the AFC) were standing in his way. So that’s probably a big reason it stings.”
It stung enough that Allen, with a cream-colored backpack over both shoulders, pulled the hood of his brown sweatshirt over his head as he walked slowly and silently toward the team buses behind the south end zone. He was alone in his thoughts, but his coach and teammates were determined not to let him bear the brunt of the defeat.
“That’s how he is,” McDermott said of Allen a few minutes later. “It’s not all on him. It’s on all of us. It’s not a perfect game.”
Earlier, as he stood dripping in the middle of a mostly silent locker room, Knox became animated in defense of his friend and quarterback.
“The type of leader he is — the type of man he is — he’s naturally going to put it all on himself,” Knox said. “That’s something we can’t let him do.
“He’s going to keep wearing that crown. He’s Superman, and he’s not going anywhere.”
For now, once again, Allen is going home to ponder what might have been — and what must be fixed.
The inescapable conclusion is that for Superman to take the Bills where they want to go, they’re going to have to find a way to reduce his burden.