Bills find a way to win game they didn’t dominate

It’s not surprising that the run-up to Sunday’s AFC Divisional playoff game between the Buffalo Bills and Baltimore Ravens was framed as a quarterback showdown in which Lamar Jackson and Josh Allen would duel one another all game long.

It’s also worth remembering that football is a team sport where all kinds of elements come into play and that was certainly the case in the Buffalo’s 27-25 win over Baltimore Sunday night.

The Bills beat the Ravens, but not because Allen was better than Jackson – he wasn’t in most facets of the game. And not because the Buffalo’s defence outperformed Baltimore’s by any wide margin.

They won it because in a game played on a slick, frozen field at night, the Bills didn’t turn the ball over a single time and Baltimore did so three times.

In any football, playoff or not, a minus-three turnover margin is going to usually going guarantee a loss.

Those turnovers helped dictate the way Buffalo played on offence, the short fields minimizing the amount Allen had to throw the ball on the night and kinds of risks he had to take.

Buffalo has been elite at ball security all season, giving the ball away just eight times in 19 games (regular season and playoffs) and racking up an NFL-best plus-24 turnover margin during the regular season.

What the Bills did with ball security Sunday night wasn’t a fluke. It’s what they’ve been doing all season.

As Allen said post-game, “It wasn’t pretty.”

But part of a team having the ability to win a Super Bowl involves winning  games in all sorts of different ways. And the Bills demonstrated that against Baltimore on both sides of the ball.

Despite the Bills “everyone eats” mantra about sharing the football among their offensive skill players, this was not one of those games.

In a game with a slippery field and a tiny margin for error, Allen leaned on the two players he seems to trust more than any others in the offence – running back James Cook and receiver Khalil Shakir.

Cook has carried the ball 40 times in the Bills two playoff games, more than he did during any two-game stretch during the regular season. And for the second week in a row, the Bills lined up against one of the NFL’s best run defences and were able to move the ball.

When Allen did throw it, he went seven times to Shakir and three times to Cook.

No other player had more than two targets as Allen threw the ball just 22 times compared to 36 total rushing attempts for Buffalo. Allen had just 127 yards passing, which happened to be the exact same total as his three running backs – Cook, Ray Davis and Ty Johnson – produced along the ground.

Twenty-two pass attempts for 127 yards aren’t the kind of numbers people associate with an Allen offence. But smart quarterback play is about minimizing risk and taking advantage of the game script that develops when you get a lead and are forcing turnovers.

The Bills managed a clean game and in a night when the opposing quarterback was responsible for two turnovers – an interception and a fumble – managing risk was all-important.

Defensively, the Bills jumped in and out of their base defence all night, subbing in a third linebacker for slot corner Taron Johnson throughout the night in order to match up better with the Ravens personnel and limit the run. Doing so limited the great Derrick Henry to 84 yards on 16 carries, while Henry and Jackson combined for just 124 on the ground. In doing so, the Bills gave up more big plays in the passing game than normal, but that was a trade-off they understood and accepted.

All those elements put Buffalo in position to win a game they did not dominate and it still took some slippery fingers from tight end Mark Andrews on the Ravens second failed two-point conversion attempt to produce the win.

So, we didn’t get the great quarterback shootout everyone wanted. Nothing was settled in terms of which of Jackson or Allen is the superior player.

Jackson made more throws and more impressive throws than Allen, but he threw an interception and fumbled the ball away as well.

He will go into next season wearing a 3-5 playoff record and answering questions about why he’s been unable to play his very best in the games that matter most.

And the Bills and Allen?

Well, they are still writing their ending to this season.