The Wild Card showdown between the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans was absolutely bonkers, but which moment was the craziest of them all?
Final/OT
Houston Texans
22
Buffalo Bills
19
There is good football, and there is wacky, crazy, bad, insane, what-the-hell-did-I-just-watch football. The Wild Card showdown between the Buffalo Bills and Houston Texans definitely falls into the latter category, with enough craziness to fill a full four quarters of action.
We should have known that we were in for something strange when Josh Allen caught a touchdown pass in the first quarter, but when the referees nearly awarded a touchdown to the Bills on the opening kickoff of the second half when the Texans’ returner flipped the football down, this game went full off-the-wall bananas.
Flash forward to the Buffalo drive after Houston took its first lead of the game, making it 19-16. Josh Allen drove the Bills down the field and had them in field goal range with a 3rd and 13 on the Texans’ 28 only to lose 43 yards on two plays courtesy of an intentional grounding and a sack on 4th and 27, which the Bills went for instead of punting with all three timeouts.
All the Texans had to do to seal a win was pick up a first down, but facing fourth and one at the Buffalo 30-yard-line, Houston head coach Bill O’Brien tried to go for the win. Deshaun Watson couldn’t pick up with the first down on a sneak, giving the ball back to Buffalo.
Allen immediately went to work, running for a long first down but tried to lateral the ball to another player when he was being tackled . . . with over a minute on the clock. The ball ended up being batted out of bounds, and Buffalo would extend the drive on a questionable first down call before tying the game late, sending it to overtime. Allen himself was responsible for quite a bit of the wackiness in this game.
The Texans would end up surviving thanks to magic from Watson, who converted a 3rd and 18 (admittedly with the play clock at double-zero before the snap, which the refs missed) and made incredible plays like this . . .
Ka’imi Fairbairn’s 28-yard field goal finally stopped the madness by giving the Texans the win, but this is a game that will live on forever in the minds (if not necessarily hearts) of NFL fans.