Alan's gonna run it.
Brad loves it. Touch up, pressure again, runs away from it, throws on the run, put touchdown.
Tulton ten k.
Now it's a fourthing tent one last guest, and that is going to be caught for a touchdown by Mike Evans.
The ten yard line.
Five.
Mayfield dance some paul around, throw it as far as you can throw it, jump ball coming, crazy stuff, not this time incomplete.
Al, come on man, turn it up, Buddy Baker.
Mayfield's hal mary heave in the final seconds lands unmolested in the end zone, with Pro Bowl wide receiver Chris Godwin reacting just a touch too late. It was that close to one of the craziest come from behind wins in NFL history. I mean it would have been. It would have been an absolute, massive national story if somehow
the Bucks pulled that off. But they didn't, and the Bills, who badly outplayed their opponent for most of Thursday night, come out ahead twenty four to eighteen at Buffalo, with Josh Allen leading away, throwing for over three hundred yards, accounting for three total touchdowns. Bill's back on track at five and three. Bucks keep losing. Now three and four.
I am Dan hanss around the NFL podcast. Mark Sessler is with me, and Mark, I guess I'll start here, and I was texting with you that absurd was twenty four. This is where it was twenty four to ten. It's midway through the fourth quarter and the Bucks are going on this marathon drive that seems like a marathon drive to nowhere. Seventeen plays, ninety two yards, three fourth down conversions, it chews up half the quarter, and it just all
felt kind of sad, quite frankly. It does end with the touchdown and the two point conversion and the fact that they ended up getting the ball back and getting that ball on the end zone. I guess it's a minor victory for the Bucks, but the Bills take the real.
One, I guess.
So it felt like the Bucks were sort of like someone just hanging out in your living room and not refusing to leave a little bit, like it was something of a punchless long day at the office for them. But then there's there at the end and like the Chris Godwin moment in the final seconds, it's like that
could have been transformative. But it was very symbolic that that drive I mean typically, like historically you know me, well, Like if I knew that there was going to be a seventeen play ninety two yard drive that chewed up seven plus minutes, I'd be overjoyed. But in this game, it kind of just was like a building block to a kind of indestructible end. And I don't know, I fee like the Bills are just they're working their way
through these games. There were a couple positives for the Bills, certainly, like I thought a couple of people stepped up tonight in a way that gives you some hope.
On that I mean more than a couple mark this was.
That's why part of like the craziest thing about it, the way this game ended, is it tried so hard to obscure what was a tremendously positive night for the Bills and to extend what you were saying just a little bit further before I throw it back to you, buddy, you said it was like the the uninvited guest who stays till the end. It's almost like, but this guest that was staying till the end didn't say anything for the first four hours of the party and was just
kind of like taking up room on the couch. Then all of a sudden it became the life of the party and it was like, this would have been great if you did it earlier. But it's like, I still don't know if I'm gonna invite you next time.
Yeah, I'm not sure you're coming back, but yes you are right, Like I mean, I think that it was hopeful to see someone like Khalil Shakier have a career high in yardage like dalton Kin Kate, and you know, with Dawson knocks out dalon Ka Kate almost in a beneficial, wonderful way steps into this lead role, and tonight he
made a couple of huge plays. And I don't know if it's like maybe it's it's not the most inspiring performance from the Bills, and you look back to some of their dominant weeks from you know, three or four weeks ago, and it's like, we're not getting that version of this offense. But I really loved how guys like also gave Davis too, just stepped up tonight to perform and it was a nice performance by Josh Allen. But I don't know, I don't come out of this am
I wrong? I come out of this feeling like the Bill Bills are sort of just there right now, and I like, they don't strike me as an AFC dominant figure. They're doing what they're doing. Like the Bucks hung around till the end tonight. A lot of that had to do with other aspects of the game, but it's just like Buffalo to me is working through some of their own issues, even though they tonight produced like four hundred
and fifty yards. Like, when I think of a game where someone drops four hundred and fifty yards, it's not what I would have. I wouldn't think of this game even though there was production.
So yeah, I I disagree a little bit because I thought that other than their inability to kind of close that game out and make it, it's absurd that it got to that last point. And by the way, credit to Baker, that was a beautiful hail Mary throw. Yeah, I think there was so many positives for the Bills. I mean, the fact that you know, you let Josh Cook, you let Josh Allen Cook, and you let him run the football. Hey, do you have Randy Schave a big funk?
Do you have Because this kind of this is earlier in the game and It speaks to some frustration that was around this team.
Al Michaels even said it himself.
You know, the narrative around the team is like, why isn't Josh Allen running more? Here is right before the first play of the second quarter, when it's fourth and goal at the one yard line, and the sideline interview is with Todd Bowles, head coach of the Bucks.
Big fourth down coming up? What do you expect here?
I expect the quarterback to run the football.
Hey, you guys, so that was moments ago. You heard what he expects. Let's see what they do here on a fourth down and goal throws not the way.
So like Todd Bowles is saying it, and I appreciate the candor from Todd there.
Yeah, it's actually one of the better coaching terry's during the game because you don't get those too often.
I mean, you've never get the coach actually saying what
he thinks the play call he's gonna be. And you know, that's one of those things where Todd Bowles thinks he's gonna run the football Josh Allen, because that's the last thing that the Bucks want to see because that probably can't stop a giant like Josh Allen running downhill on a design play on fourth and goal, but they throw the ball and let him off the hook, and I'm like hit myself in the head, like why on those last couple of plays at the goal line is Josh
Allen not finding his way into the end zone?
And yet yes, they get turned.
Away there, but they still still you're feeling it feels like we're missing that extra touchdown that makes it the thirty burger that makes everything make a little more sense in this game. That was it right there. They didn't punch that in. But overall, like I thought, Allan was tremendous in this game. He threw the one interception, but was really good. I'm watching James Cook and I'm like, I'm having like a brain cramp, and I'm like, man,
he reminds me of somebody. He reminds me of, like a young Dalvin Cook who is his brother if I'm not mistaken. So that makes sense. And then you have, yes, Khalil Shakir you mentioned but Gabe Davis like welcome back, Bud, like we need the Buffalo Bills are saying we need somebody else to step up and deliver and he was getting open and pulling the ball in all day nine catches,
eighty seven yards, a touchdown in twelve targets. You mentioned kid kid as well, Mark who is going to step into a bigger role now they put Dawson Knox on the ir he has a big game, and I thought, even more importantly with Kinkaid, he looked like he's fit for the part and this is not going to be like one one game wonder in primetime. I think he's going to be a big guy for them the rest
of the year. And to do it when Stefan Diggs, despite nine catches, was really quiet in this game, so they were able to move the ball without him being the guy at the center of everything. I thought it was a tremendously positive day for their offense.
That's the takeaway because I yeah, it's like I think we've been talking about the Bills. It's like someone else needs to emerge as a difference maker, and it could be Kincaid, but it seemed like that would happen even earlier in the season and in these games when Stefan Diggs hasn't been almost like a wild, superfluous positive. Sometimes the Bill's offense has disappeared. What I mentioned before is just like, I guess what I wanted Buffalo to do. This would have changed my mind on the night a
little bit. And you know, everything that we've talked about is true. There were a lot of positives and things you can take away and build on.
But you close the.
Game with four punts, four straight punts all around midfield, and it's just like, it seemed like they kept inviting Tampa Bay, a very average team of vapor really just an apparition of a team back into the game. It's like, why are we in those final moments. It's like I want to see Buffalo just acts theirn heads off, to be honest, and like put a final arrow.
Into them and it ended with a sort of a whimper.
It doesn't take away from the rest of it, but it's just like Buffalo to me feels like they're still kind of figuring out working through some stuff and that's okay, and people stepped up tonight, but it wasn't like, Wow, without question, they went and dropped a hammer on a much less a much lesser opponent.
Yeah, I mean, I see what you're saying.
I think this game should what you're saying I think is the game should have been thirty four to eighteen or what.
Exactly what it should have been.
Like, absolutely, there's no reason that it's Baker Mayfield's.
Doing what he's doing it.
I also think that's why, as like someone who's watching, you know, we're watching these games closely and we're gonna be talking about it, and I'm like, I'm watching that drive by the Bucks and I'm like, oh my god, this is gonna make the game seem different than what
it was. And then when the Bills get one first down but not the second and punted away again, you know, all they really have to do then is burn twenty seconds off the clock and don't let the Bucks get in your midfield, and they do, which allows that Hail Mary,
which again was nearly completed. So yeah, that the game broke in a certain way to make it feel maybe differently than than what it was from my perspective, which was the Bills really in control and the Bucks and a lot of ways just feeling like, for you know, fifty four minutes, they were a bit player in this and you know they score, they're less than twenty points again, Tampa Bay.
I think this Baker is a tough guy.
That last that long touchdown drive in the fourth quarter that had that was extended by the way on after fourth down stops twice when a flag came out, including a face mask on a sack of Baker. He took a beating on that last drive, and you know, he does not quit. He's an easy guy to root for it from that perspective, But the offense has also been you know, very very very mediocre for about a month now, ever since the schedule tightened up, And I just think
that's what this is. This is an NFC South team, like the rest of them, deeply flawed.
So they'll hang.
Around probably in that division because it's just I think eight or nine wins will probably win it. But you saw this team is you know they could they hang around in a game like this if everything breaks the right way, which I think it pretty much did. You got a goal line stop and then the silliness in the last half of the fourth quarter. But this is probably as close as they can get to a big, big time team, which I think Buffalo is.
Yeah, and someone had told me that, you know, with minutes to go, that Mike Evans would have seven yards. I would say the Buffalo's defensive game plan or whatever they came in hoping to do, would have been to absolute perfection because Evans is the key to that offense. And you get a little bit of Chris Godwin and Kate Odden. Outside of that, they've got nothing. We've talked
about their running game, it doesn't exist. But Baker Mayfield, it's like, I will say what like I'm with you in the sense that like, I mean, I've been as frustrated by Baker Mayfield career wise as anyone because he was Cleveland's quarterback and there were so many ups and downs. But it's like he just does not Like the thing I like about him is like that insane drive, Like he doesn't care what the score is, He don't care what happening, Like he doesn't matter what the stats are.
It's like he just keeps going.
And like he looked to me almost like he was in physical pain during part of this game, and I think he came into the game banged up and I just don't think he was at full health. And it's like the one thing I can give Baker Mayfield credit for is like he will just he will keep toiling
on and he'll keep a team like the Bucks. Like if you're not if you're hoping for the Bucks to be out of the picture, I think the problem is they're gonna be in the picture until like the second to last week of the season, and we'll find out what happens to him. They'll be average enough and just good enough to hang around. And even tonight I thought was a micro cause some of what I think their whole season will be.
Yeah, I mean, I think he had thrown for about one hundred and twenty five yards before that last drive.
And the offense was just stuck in mud.
And even that's still it's one of the craziest drives you'll see all season. It I mentioned that I got extended twice on fourth down on penalties. The touchdown bounced off Baker underthrew it, it hit the defender's helmet and then bounced into Mike Evans's arms. Then they go for two and it gets batted straight up in the air and right into the arms they believe Avaden for the two point conversion.
It was just like bonkers. And I think the Bills and sear.
Dan that blew up the spread.
I believe too, Like I think there are all these people going, you know.
Listen those commercials all around us. They say go do it. I say, don't do it because they will drive you crazy. And uh yeah.
But I think the Bills, I guess for in terms of lessons because they came very close to again in a shocking rock the NFL world, losing this game in a stunning matter.
Close out, yeah, close out.
The team, like you're saying they I think they took their foot off the accelerator running out the clock, cause I think they kind of thought the Bucks were ready to go home too. And and then all of a sudden they score that touchdown, and it gets a little interesting. A couple of things. Mark the red lamps were off in the loge. I talked about the Bills had any chance of fulfilling their dreams and finally getting back to the Super Bowl and finally taking a Lombardi Trophy to
Western New York. You got to shut off those heat lamps. I understand it was a bit of a mild night in late October in Western New York, but let's keep those red lamps off because I thought the offense was humming in a way. We haven't seen since the Miami game. I don't think it was a coincidence.
No, I mean so yes, I believe it was at the start of the game. It could have been in the fifties or sixties, which most humans can endure to some degree. But we're dealing with again, the Buffalo elites. But you know, listen, you they've not turned those off before as far as we know, Like you issued that edict on yesterday's show, and I think Western New York or the powers that be at that stadium thought we need to listen to this wisdom and tough enough, and
they did. And so you have incredible civic power over the Buffalo.
Reach it this way.
If those red lamps are flipped on, it might catch Chris Godwin's attention and he looks up just the split second sooner and he catches that ball in the end zone. Let's just you can't say that that's not what happen, you know what I'm saying.
So Dan, like the lifelong loyal Jets fan, helps create a tremendous regular season victory for the Buffalo Bills. That is a strange legacy.
It's magnanimous. I also thought we were denied something in this game. A kicker, the kicker who was the kicker for the Bucks, crazy son of the bit.
Oh do you mean the helmet, dude, Chase McLaughlin. You know, he hits a fifty seven yarder and then a scrum breaks out and the guy took his helmet and took a swing. Like we were ready to give Miles Garrett the electric.
Chair for this a couple of years back, and the officials and you know they have Park Avenue or whatever taking a look at these replays for these type of fouls.
They come back and they're like, no penalty.
I wanted a kicker to be kicked out of the game for swinging his helmet like a caveman at an opponent.
We should have had that. That should have been a major storyline today. Yeah.
I thought it was the punter, but I you know, like either way it should be like we've we've got to be ja Camarda.
I think you're right, I think, but but you know, he's a sort of a beefy individual too.
From from the replays.
Uh yeah, I feel like we have precedent that swinging helmets on you know, island games. It's not a great idea and attracts attention and attracts punishment, And this just flew under the radar.
Like they were ready to reopen Alcatraz.
When Miles Garrett swung his helmet against Pittsburgh, Yeah, there's gonna ship him out there and seal the seal the gates, let's see.
Uh.
So I was bummed about that. I was bummed when I saw Green Day, little passage of time stuff going on there.
I don't know if you.
Look looking like you know, they were the Hobbits from Lord of the Rings next to I don't know who they were. They looked diminutive compared to the people they were standing next to.
But yeah, Trey Cool looked almost embalmed and uh and then the other thing. The only thing I want to say about the game is they downplayed it. And he certainly didn't seem to struggle throwing the football, but they also were pretty conservative down the stretch. And the sideline reporter for Amazon made a note that after one of the touchdowns, Josh Allen didn't even lift his right arm to high five people.
So he's clear and he went into the blue ten for a little bit.
And he made it through this game and Sean McDermott downplayed it coming out of halftime, and Randy just said it gave us a little note that was two Chains, by the way with green Day, as you could tell the chemistry between two Chains and green Day, you can't reproduce that. That's like John Madden and Pat summerle is the way I thought about it, and Al Michaels called him deuce.
It was an odd pairing.
I mean, I know there were more than two people, but was an odd mixture of two entities.
But yes, the Josh Allen shoulder situation is something to keep an eye on because this team is in a fight here for both the division and hopefully they hope the top seed and a bye in the AFC. So you need the quarterback to be healthy. So that's something to keep an eye on. Finally, saw this tweet come across my timeline and my mentions during the game. It was from Miles Thomas. Don't ask how we got here,
but found some deep buried internet treasure. And this is Mark Sessler from our blogging days for NFL dot com the Around the League Blog. Colt's victory takes back seat to monkeys riding dogs and let me I got you. I got you a lead that will cook your butt off. The Indianapolis Colts deserve praise for Sunday's twenty eight to sixteen win over the Houston Texans, but let's not forget what matters here, really matters stylized with italics. That's right, monkeys riding dogs.
Okay, so hold on.
First of all, this was back in the days when like we'd go to work and we were just it's funny that they put my name on that, because I don't even know if I had a byline initially back in those days, and they're putting my current headshot, like I wrote this two weeks ago, like I'm a total psychotic. But we were often told like quickly listen, this is a big moment, and I do remember this like event, and it was quite visually enticing the monkey riding the dog,
and like it had our whole newsroom. Watch the YouTube version. Tell me this is not cool. This is cooler than anything we saw tonight. This is a small monkey on top of a What kind of dog is that, like a sort of a labrador?
I don't know, che is not a labrador.
I don't think about dogs like it's like a shepherdy, a shepherdy type dog. But the monkey clings to it. Its legs are striking.
The monkey is probably absolutely terrified.
But anyway, this is from a decade ago, and it just was a reminder of a lot of we wrote a lot of dumb shit for this website. Now, yes, the twentieth anniversary of NFL Media, that might have been they asked us to do those little videos like talking about our time with the company and celebrating the anniversary.
You could have just.
Done three minutes on that article, the fifty eight words and put the slapped the video on top and check that one off the box that day.
It would have taken off.
It would have been, you know, celebrated the way it was when I wrote that article, So it's it would have just been, you know, I wouldn't call it redundant, but a celebration of those lays.
So there you.
Go, good stuff, bills, get it done.
It gets scary.
If Chris Godwin has the red heat lamps catched his corner of his eye, he catches the hall Mary and the Bucks win twenty five to twenty four. But the lamps were off so he didn't see it and the ball went unmolested to the turf at high Mark State. I think that is the big takeaway today, unmolested. I do feel better about the Bills than you, Mark, but I get what you're saying as well.
I feel fine about them. I just like I don't know something. There's something about their energy, the journey. It feels like we're a year past the window being wide open. But you know what, Like I'm typically wrong about nineteen out of twenty things, so probably most of Buffalo can take hope in that.
I guess the one other thing, because we didn't really touch on it, was they jump ahead ten nothing and then the Allen interception leads to a short field and a touchdown, and all of a sudden it's ten ten and the stadium gets a little quiet. Otherwise it was raucous there, and I did again the positives like the instead of the Bills going into a shell, which they have in different spots this year, they took control of the game, went ahead by two touchdowns before things got
funky late. But I think there are very major pauses to take out it as they look to really start building some momentum and reestablish himself as a top dog in the AFC. Next week at Cincinnati Sunday Night Football. So no, not next week. They're on a bye and then they go to Cincinnati, so Josh Allen in that gets a long rest. Now if he does have shoulder issues, he doesn't play again. It's October twenty sixth as we tape this. He doesn't play again until November fifth. So
that's very good news for the Bills as well. So in a lot of ways, a very good night for the Buffalo Bills, even if the final score made it feel a little bit different than that. That's it for the Thursday Night Football edition of Around the NFL. Make sure you check back in on Sunday for the flagship program where we recap every game on Sunday till then he the cap. I mean, the monkey's got to be scared, right.
There's also sixty five thousand people there watching it, yelling they're intelligent creatures, but you know, not that intelligent.