Richard Sherman (4:12)
Well, they got, they got past the divisional last year and you thought, hey, okay, that's them getting over the hump. And, and this year you again, you thought, hey, they look like the best team in football and if they lose it's going to be because they beat themselves, turned the ball over, they didn't run the ball enough, something like that. And that's exactly what happened. You know, give the Buffalo Bills a lot of credit. They made those plays. Matt Milano was back in this game. He didn't play in the first matchup. Epanessa made big plays in the game. They did a great job of, of really, really caging Derrick Henry and Lamar Jackson and keeping them in there. They were able to get a few plays. You know, Derek Henry broke through a few times, but for the most part, I think Buffalo did an outstanding job of keeping him bottled up. They didn't let a lot of explosives happen when they did. I mean, when Lamar Jackson needed it, he made it happen though, that last drive, a huge play to Isaiah, likely in a huge scramble play, hitting him in the back of the end zone. Again, this came down to the mistakes that he made. You know, he, he's, again, we're sitting here comfortable in our, in Our in, our man caves talking about this game when it was 12 degrees and they were playing on it, in it, and they couldn't feel their hands. But Lamar Jackson drops the ball, Buffalo recovers it. Critical mistake. I think the Baltimore defense played a really solid game against a really tough opponent. I think Josh Allen was going to get his. He only threw for 127 yards, ran a few in, and he was running hard, running strong. But I think for the most part, you look at that tape and you say, I think Baltimore's defense played good enough to win this game. What made it difficult was the three extra possessions that Buffalo's defense created. With the turnovers in the fourth quarter, you were left scratching your head at Mark Andrews because you know he caught a pass. You're like, okay, Mark Andrews, what are you doing after you caught this pass? Because you could have easily just got up the field, got tackled, signal first down and off, off to the races. And I think they would have scored on that drive, but instead he, he cuts back, kind of spins around and you're, you're left like, wait, where are you going? Wait, you're not, you're not a receiver. And of course the Buffalo Bills punch the ball out, recover it. 43, I think it was. Bernard recovers it. Huge play in the game. And that, that likely was the end of the game. But somehow Baltimore's defense gets another stop, holds them to a field goal, gives their offense another chance at it. And Lamar Jackson, I think it was an 88 yard drive, you know, after a penalty on the, on the kickoff return, has an 88 yard touchdown drive. And the two point conversion, they call a rollout sprint pass to the right, Mark Andrews to the flat, wide open. And you could see Lamar Jackson like trying his best to say, hey, I'm throwing it to you. Like, look at me, look at me. I'm, I'm, I'm giving you this one. And he touches touch, passes it to Mark Andrews and he just drops it. And it's not much more to it. Um, you know, I'm, I'm sure this one will haunt it, haunt him for a really long time. Just because it was a routine play. The conditions are what they are. It's cold, it's been cold. I'm sure he couldn't feel his hands. I'm sure, you know, a lot of things were going on in that game, you know what I mean? I can't be one to criticize that because I know it's going, but you got to catch that, you know, you got to catch it. Isaiah likely had just called a touchdown pass. You got to have that one for the game. They weren't able to do it. The Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen were able to do it. Now back to the conversation. Who outplayed who in this game? I don't know. I think, I think it's kind of a wash. I think lamar threw for 250, made huge plays down the stretch. Obviously the two turnovers were critical, and those are strikes against him. Josh played a pretty mistake free football game. He only threw for 127 yards, but he didn't turn the ball over. He didn't put it in harm's way. He made plays when he had to. He took what the defense gave him. Sometimes that's enough. Sometimes that's, that's a better performance, protecting the ball, putting your team in position to win the football game. Did, did Josh get a little more help from his defense? Of course. His defense made plays when they need to make plays, but Lamar Jackson gave the ball away more. So I think Buffalo fans would say Josh Allen outplayed him and Baltimore fans would say Lamar Jackson outplayed him. All right, Josh Allen won the game. And again, this, this is, this is what frustrates me with fans because they'll be sitting there like, my quarterback's mvp. No, my quarterback's mvp. No, my quarterback's mvp. Then when you say anything about their quarterback when he didn't play well, and then they're like, oh, it's a team game now. It's all on the quarterback. If they didn't win, it's like, yeah, it's a team game. It's 100% a team game. I played this team game. But they give the quarterbacks credit. Don't blame me. I didn't make the rules. I don't like it. But that's the way they, they call these games. So I think they'll give Josh Allen a lot of credit for this. He beat Lamar Jackson. If he goes on to beat Patrick Mahomes and potentially play in a Super bowl, maybe win a Super bowl, his legacy will be improved by this. Like, there were so many fans like, how are you going to, how are you going to say this is going to hurt Lamar when he has two MVPs and he's likely going to get a third MVP. But you have to win. You have to go into playoffs and win that, that matters in this league. You can't just get MVPs and then it means, hey, doesn't matter what happens in the postseason. He's better than all of them. That's not going to be true and nobody's going to see it that way. At least I'm not going to see it that way and I don't think the public's going to see it that way. They're not going to say, oh, this loss doesn't hurt Lamar at all. It does. I'm sure Lamar would say, Lamar would say, hey, this loss hurts. You know, they got me. I got to be better. I'm going to be better. And I'm sure he's going to spend all season watching the tape improving. He had an MVP season. I mean, you can't play much better than he did during a regular season. But there were two or three plays in his ball game that I'm sure he wants back. The, the corner route that he was throwing to Isaiah likely where he, where he felt the pressure from Matt Milano even though Derek Henry had picked it up. He let the ball go before Isaiah likely comes out of his corner route and he doesn't define the angle and it's a turnover to Taylor. Rap the fumble. You know, he's, he's in the pocket, he's moving around and I'm sure his fingers are cold and it's freezing out there and maybe he, maybe he couldn't feel his fingertips and he drops the ball. That's a critical mistake and a critical game and not. Those are things that you can't have and it happened. So it's going to make for an interesting conversation. It's going to make for a tough off season for Mark Andrews. Of course Lamar played good enough. You know, I thought he made plays down the stretch to put this game to give it a chance. It would have been cool to see what, what Josh Allen would have been able to do if Lamar did tie it up. Maybe Josh drove the ball down the field and won the game on the field goal anyway, who knows? But as, as we have it, we get Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes for the fourth time and Patrick has won the first three. So let's see how it goes.
