Bills Season Ends After Tale Of 2 Drops

Trailing the Chiefs, 32-29, at the 2-minute warning at tense Arrowhead Stadium, the Bills faced 4th-and-5 from their 47-yard line. Under pressure from an all-out blitz, quarterback Josh Allen backpedaled to the 32 and heaved a pass toward a wide-open Kincaid. The pass was by no means perfect. But oh-so-catchable.

Kincaid had to slow down, stop and dive. But the ball arrived about knee-high, and he got both hands on it before being dropped for essentially a game-ending incompletion. It was the final pass of Allen's season.

Said CBS analyst Tony Romo, "That should've been caught."

Despite the Chiefs being awarded a controversial catch on a tie possession, being given an extra second to run the clock down to the 2-minute warning in the first half and being the recipients of a crazy favorable spot on Allen's fourth-down spot earlier in the fourth quarter, in the end Kansas City relied on dumb luck.

Monday morning on ESPN, analysts Dan Orlovsky and Ryan Clark salivated all over Chiefs' defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo for what they claimed was a "perfect blitz" on Buffalo's fatal fourth down.

Said Orlovsky, "Brilliant call!"

Really? A strategy that ultimately relies on a wide-open tight end with 47 catches on the season to blatantly drop a pass doesn't feel brilliant. It feels lucky.

Had Kincaid held on to what would have been a nice catch but one certainly not worthy of any Top 10 list, the Bills would have had first down at Kansas City's 35 with 1:50 remaining and three timeouts in their pocket. They would have already been in game-tying field goal range. They would have been eyeing a game-winning touchdown and a trip to Super Bowl LIX in two weeks.

Instead ...

“It was hanging up there and I just wasn’t able to catch it,” Kincaid said. “Right now it obviously hurts a lot, and it’s going to linger for a while, but eventually you’ve got to move on. And hopefully you grow from this, and I believe that will be the case, but for the time being, it’s going to hurt a lot.”

Said Bills coach Sean McDermott, "I love Dalton Kincaid and sometimes those just don’t work out. He makes more of those than he misses and he’ll make the next one.”

Because sometimes you live by the tight-end drop and sometimes you lose by it, Buffalo's "next one" won't come until next season.