‘We didn’t get it done’

The Bills’ chances were thwarted with two memorable fourth-down fumbles, both of which will be burned into the minds of their fans all season. The first was a failed Allen sneak on fourth-and-1 from the Kansas City 41-yard line early in the fourth quarter, with Buffalo clinging to a 22-21 lead.

The initial call on the field had Allen short of the yard to gain, and the play didn’t overturn the spot, despite Allen and the ball appearing to come extremely close to—if not across—the 40-yard line.

“The look we had in the stadium … I thought he had it,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott said after the game. “Just short of the line was actually the first down, how it looked to me when it was sitting next to me with the marker. Right inside the white stripe was the first down. It looked like he got to it . That was all I can say.”

The Bills’ second turnover on Downs came with less than two minutes left in the game, and Buffalo drove to either tie or potentially take the lead in what was a three-point game.

Defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo sent a blitz on a fourth-and-5, and Allen went backwards and threw off his back foot. The desperation heave somehow hit the hands of Bills tight end Dalton Kincaid, but he couldn’t corral the pass. The Bills would not get the ball again.

Allen credited the Chiefs for sending Trent McDuffie on the critical play with 1:58 left.

“They looked good,” Allen said. “Didn’t see anything in my first cadence. They slipped left. Corner coming. …yeah.”

The first fourth-down turnover resulted in a Chiefs touchdown and two-point conversion. The second allowed the Chiefs to run out the clock and secure another Super Bowl trip.

The Bills were 3 of 3 in the red zone on Sunday. They were also 4 of 6 on fourth-down conversions. But the two misses came at two of the biggest junctures in the game.

“You can either get it done or you can’t,” Allen said, “and we didn’t get it done.”

McDermott noted how big the first fourth-down stop was in a close game like Sunday’s.

“Yes. Of course it does. Darn it does,” he told reporters. “It’s a possession. We’re up at that point. A chance to go up maybe more scores at that point. It’s a big call. It’s definitely a big call.”

However, the Bills also failed to convert several third-and-fourth-and-short situations on Sunday.

McDermott said he had no regrets with his decision to continuously run Allen on those plays, though he wondered if they did enough to keep the Chiefs on their toes.

“It’s been our best play all year on one or inside a yard (to go),” McDermott said. “We won some of them, but to your point, they did a good job.

“I thought overall, maybe we could have disguised it. Maybe not. But at the end of the day, we trust Josh and our offensive line to get them. Have got them all year.”