Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson and the razor-thin line between glory and frustration

By Nora Princiotti20 January at 07:22 UTC • 6 minutes

With just 93 seconds left, Sunday night’s AFC divisional round game between the Bills and Ravens was on the line. Baltimore lined up for a game-tying two-point conversion after cutting through the Buffalo defense on an eight-play, 88-yard touchdown drive. This year’s game had already lived up to the hype. Even on a sloppy, snow-soaked field, these looked like the best two teams in the AFC, if not the entire NFL, each led by an MVP-candidate quarterback. Anyone’s game. The Ravens picked the right play at that moment — a Jackson sprint to the right looking for tight end Mark Andrews, who ran to the right pylon exposed. Jackson’s pass was on target. And then Andrews, who might have slipped, dropped the ball.

Bills win. Ravens lose. Winning makes you zen, and Josh Allen was grateful for the coincidence of the universe after the game. “I had a conversation with (linebacker) Von Miller in the offseason and we just talked a little bit about, sometimes the ball will roll your way or it won’t,” Allen said. “It rolled our way.”

In the other locker room, Lamar Jackson was thinking about human error, not higher powers. “As you can see, we move the ball wonderfully,” he said. “Hold on to the fucking ball. I’m sorry for my language, but this shit is annoying. I’m sick of this shit.”

Bills-Ravens was not a game one team deserved to win and another deserved to lose. In many ways, the game here at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park, where it seemed like Bills fans were on the verge of combustion as the stadium PA blared “Mr. Brightside” and “Wonderwall” in the fourth quarter, felt like the true AFC – title game. These were top two teams in conference by DVOA this season, and this matchup was a heavyweight matchup between two teams that were entirely capable of winning the Super Bowl going into the game.

But that’s how quickly a season and a story changes. There’s only one winner, and in the split second that the football hit the snow on that conversion attempt, the Bills and Allen became the ones who advanced to Kansas City, and the Ravens and Jackson became the ones who again can’t get it done or get out of their own way.

Allen and Jackson have had their seasons hold up against each other because they have both been really, really good. One of them is almost certain to win the MVP, and it could go either way. Voting for the award closed nearly two weeks ago, so this game won’t have any bearing on the winner, though it will of course color the conversation around the price because that’s how it goes with quarterbacks. Though ironically, for all the ways this game could have played out, this one was relatively not QB-centric.

Despite the famous names under center, both teams seemed primarily interested in running really hard into each other. Somewhat shockingly, this strategy favored Buffalo. The Bills gained 147 rushing yards and three touchdowns on 36 carries, while Allen threw the ball just 22 times for 127 yards on 16 completions. Buffalo’s ability to attack the Ravens run defense was a big change from the regular season matchup between these teams in late September, when Baltimore won 35–10 and the Bills managed just 81 yards on the ground.

The Ravens spent much of the first half running into the Bills’ defensive line to no avail, but eventually began to find cutting lanes and get Derrick Henry going as the game wore on. Baltimore was by far the most successful offense overall with 416 total yards and 7.3 yards per carry. games to Buffalo’s 273 and 4.6 respectively. The difference was Baltimore’s three turnovers, plus Andrews’ costly drop that essentially cost them the game.

In the first quarter, Jackson threw his worst pass of the game, a bad overthrow that was picked off by Bills safety Taylor Rapp. On Baltimore’s next possession, Jackson lost the football while being sacked by safety Damar Hamlin. The ball was recovered by Miller, setting up a touchdown drive for the Bills.

The Ravens’ third turnover came in the fourth quarter when Andrews fumbled trying to get away from Bills linebacker Terrel Bernard after a 16-yard catch. It was the beginning of a nightmare quarter for Andrews, who was in the midst of one of the best — and most reliable — seasons of his seven-year career.

Jackson didn’t target Andrews with his frustrations after the game. “He’s been busting his butt. He’s been making plays out there for us,” the quarterback said.

Jackson was far more critical of himself for misplaying the coverage on his interception, targeting Rashod Bateman facing man coverage but not keeping the safety, Rapp, from getting over the top. Jackson said the ball simply slipped out of his hands on the fumble.

The loss, and the fact that his turnover played a part in it, is especially galling for Jackson given his postseason history. It was the fourth time in eight playoff starts that Jackson has turned the ball over at least twice, all losses. Especially on the heels of a regular season in which Jackson had nine turnovers totalis hard not to see the shift feeding a pattern of playoff underperformance. Jackson is the only two-time MVP winner without a Super Bowl ring.

Football discourses are brilliantly insane because it is a sport with small sample sizes. Jackson has now lost five playoff games. But in those games, he’s had what feels like more than his fair share of bad playoff bounces — last year it was Zay Flowers fumbling late, and on the goal line, against the Chiefs in the AFC Championship Game. The bad moments pale in comparison to all the great football Jackson has played. But in football, they are more than enough to establish a reputation for losing the big ones.

The discourse surrounding both quarterbacks in this game (although especially when it comes to Jackson) has become tiresome enough that there is now a separate discourse about how tiresome it is, which of course has gone on long enough to now to the discourse is getting old. Who is to blame for this? Bad posters and pundits, sure, but also the Kansas City Chiefs, since all of that would go away if any of these other AFC teams could get a real taste of postseason glory — but Patrick Mahomes and his teammates are the ones who always in the way.

The Bills got the nods on Sunday. And now, for the fourth time in five seasons, they will face Kansas City in the playoffs. By most metrics, the Chiefs have been a worse team this season than the Bills and the ravens, but getting the jump and doing all the little things that just add up to winning is what they do. Andy Reid and Mahomes’ team is a hurdle Allen and the Bills have yet to clear in January, and the relatively subdued celebration by most players after the game Sunday suggested they knew how easy that could prove to be too soon .

On the other side of that hurdle is what Buffalo got a little taste of against the Ravens — the ability to be at peace with the breaks you get, the randomness of any play, and to be excused from all the narratives grounded in the chosen moments about who can get it done. Or of course they could just go back home.

Nora Princiotti

Nora Princiotti covers the NFL, culture and pop music, sometimes all at once. She hosts the ‘Every Single Album’ podcast, appears on ‘The Ringer NFL Show’ and is The Ringer’s resident Taylor Swift researcher.