The 2025 Buffalo Bills season has been written, but the book is incomplete. Before we cast our full attention toward the 2026 season, let’s take one last glance back over our shoulder for our annual look at the Plays That Defined the prior campaign.
For any newcomers, first and foremost; Welcome! When it comes to the “rules” of this exercise, we’re not voting for our favorite highlight necessarily, but the one that best captures the essence of the game. Put differently, if you had to choose just one play
to show someone to explain as much of the contest as possible, which would you choose?
Divisional Round: Buffalo Bills at Denver Broncos
The Bills had survived a thriller in Jacksonville to earn the right to move on to the Divisional Round. Up next was the Denver Broncos and I’ll be candid right away for this entry into the series. With all due respect to the Broncos and their fans, no one watching this game should come away with the impression that the better team won.
Buffalo turned the ball over five times. FIVE! One wasn’t really but it still counted as one. One turnover was a play that will likely haunt Josh Allen for eternity. Of Denver’s seven scoring drives, four of them came off of turnovers. The one that the Bills forced on defense was immediately negated by the offense turning the ball over. Again.
Yes, the officiating left a lot to be desired. There’s no way to get around it though, Buffalo had every opportunity to put this game away and squandered like few teams have ever squandered. There will be no highlights to choose from for this game, only despair.
AAAAGGGGGGHHH! (Q1; 8:30)
With all the other bull**** from this game, I bet you forgot about this, didn’t you? Well yours truly, aka “The ***hole who spends way too much time on penalties” didn’t forget.
This was on the Broncos’ first drive where they put up a field goal. Three-point swing from that little bit of Larry Ogunjobi’s hand going over the line pre-snap. Can anyone tell me again how close the final result was?
Whatever the **** you want to call this (Q2; 0:16)
Let’s jump into the NFL Quarterback simulator (possibly assisted by Trent Edwards*). You have the ball. There’s 16 seconds left in the first half. You’re down by seven. The head coach wants to try one play and hope for a miracle. As you scramble due to the play being busted, you have a choice. Do you end the play and gracefully go into the half knowing you’re only down one score? Or do you recklessly and DELIBERATELY put the ball on the ground knowing the opponent will already be in field goal range if they recover? Easy choice right?
I still love you Josh Allen, but once again remind me how close of a game this turned out to be?
*Did you remember that Trent Edwards was co-founder of a virtual reality quarterback deal? This is the kind of thing occupying my brain rather than useful knowledge.
The “Interception” (OT; 7:55)
This is a catch in field goal range and while I know I’m supposed to be impartial I’m pretty confident this is going to win the whole darn thing this year and I’m not saying it’s the wrong choice but please at least pay attention to the other selections I’ve put out there this year because it was a lot of work and this is a run-on sentence and that’s fine because we all know how this is going to end, don’t we?
Pass interference (OT; 6:09)
Read my full penalty analysis here, where I also dive into the officiating a bit. The short version is that I don’t love the pass interference on Taron Johnson here and think it should have been offsetting if anything was called. There’s also the matter of Joey Bosa deciding to impact the game by getting a roughing the passer call on the same play so it’s all a convoluted mess. In the end, since they did call the defensive pass interference, yours truly feels they should have called the similar contact by the receiver and put the ball back where it was.
That gives the Bills another crack at stopping this drive and we all know I prefer a shot to stop them vs. “flag putting them right in field goal range.” You stopped reading this article when you saw the last play didn’t you?
Did you read any of this? You didn’t, did you? I bet you just scrolled down to the poll knowing that “interception” was on the list. Who am I even addressing here? None of you got this far. Maybe Matt B. or Chris felt obligated to read this far and edit to make sure I didn’t go off the rails. Nah. I bet even they tuned out.
Anyway, go Bills! Time to start writing some content that isn’t overshadowed by such a downer of a play.
