Buffalo Bills (5-5) – Denver Broncos (4-5): 22-24
From the first to the last action, the Bills will have helped the Broncos. The game started with a fumble by James Cook (12 carries, 109 yards). It ended with a penalty because Buffalo had too many players on the field. A serious penalty because Will Lutz had just missed a 41-yard field goal. Instead, he was given a second chance, from 36 yards out, and made the shot to give the Broncos a last-second victory. A chaotic session!
The wild final sequence of #DENvsBUF in its entirety. pic.twitter.com/L9Y8pi3YBO
— NFL (@NFL) November 14, 2023
Josh Allen (15/26, 177 yards, 1 TD, 2 int, 1 fumble) participated in this festival of errors with three lost balls. Gaining more yards is not enough. You have to know how to minimize errors. That’s exactly where the Bills faltered on Monday night.
The Bills clumsy but not dropped
Fumble, interception, punt, punt. The game could hardly have started worse for the Bills. Their luck is that Denver did not maximize these opportunities. The first fumble is only punished with a field goal (0-3). Courtland Sutton (8 rec, 53 yards, 1 TD) scores in the middle of the second quarter, but Lutz misses the conversion (0-9).
Buffalo finally wakes up before the break, with a touchdown from Dalton Kincaid (5 rec, 51 yards, 1 TD), with a two-point transformation as a bonus (8-9). Even with Allen’s second interception, the score was only 15-8 at the break for the Broncos, who still only scored on kicks.
Russell Wilson decisive for the Broncos
Buffalo’s errors could only have been an anecdote in a well-recovered match. In the third quarter, a fumble by Courtland Sutton gave the ball back to the Bills almost at midfield. The Bills runners wake up, and Latavius Murray (9 races, 68 yards, 1 TD) equalizes by finding the end zone (15-15). Because for once the ground game works well for the blues, with 192 yards gained in total.
Even a new Buffalo fumble does not benefit the visitors. But in the last quarter, Russell Wilson (24/29, 193 yards, 2 TDs) remains precise, and even sometimes inspired. He strings together good passes throughout an offensive lasting more than seven minutes, capped off by a reception from Javonte Williams (21 races, 79 yards – 4 rec, 31 yards, 1 TD) for the touchdown. But the two-point conversion fails (15-21)!
The Bills respond immediately. They go up 75 yards and Josh Allen runs for the touchdown which puts his team in front (22-21). There’s a little less than two minutes left to play and Buffalo seems to have avoided the worst. But Wilson doesn’t give up. Precise, he also knows how to run to get a few lengths. Above all, the Bills defense falls back into the cycle of errors. A defensive interference pushes Denver from the opposing 45 to 17 yards! The kicker is at a distance. A fatal penalty therefore erases even his first failure, and Lutz becomes the hero of the evening with his victorious kick.
After victories against the Packers and the Chiefs, the Broncos have a third success. Without being explosive, they limit mistakes and play seriously. Buffalo can’t say the same.
