Last Sunday’s NFL playoff match-up between the Buffalo Bills and the Kansas City Chiefs was one for the ages! It was the equivalent of a really great boxing match up, just two champs going at it and giving out all the blood, sweat, and tears that they have to achieve victory. It was a quarterback duel like we’ve never seen before, Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen were absolutely phenomenal in leading their offense lines to touchdown after touchdown to keep the game going in intense and excitement! Two teams giving all they got to get to the NFC Conference championship! It’s games like this that make the game of football as loved and worshipped as it is! Which makes it all the more unfortunate that the fate of the game had to been decided in overtime, or in more simpler terms, a mere coin toss!
It was well into the 4th quarter which just 13 seconds left remaining in the game where Allen threw to his wide receiver, Gabriel Davis for the touchdown to give the Bills a 36-33 lead. It looks as though the game was over but not to Mahomes and the Chiefs. Within just 10 seconds on the game clock that the Chiefs offensive lines where able to gain just enough yards to be within field goal range! It was then that Harrison Butker was tasked to kick one the biggest field goals of his entire life. He was able to get that 49 yard field goal with ease to tie the game for the Chiefs, 36-36, and send this game to overtime!
With the way NFL does overtimes, they do a coin toss before the quarter starts and whoever wins the coin toss gets the ball. When it comes to what score decides the game, the offense kicking a field goal but not a touchdown can allow the other side to either tie the game with a field goal or score a touchdown. However, it’s the team that scores the very first touchdown that decides the outcome of the game. Whoever scores a touchdown first wins the game. The other team doesn’t get another chance to score a touchdown, it’s all over the moment that one side is able to gain those six points with one coverage.
Because of that, the Chiefs were able to win the game in overtime rather easily. As they won the coin toss before overtime started and just needed to score one touchdown to win the game and not have to worry about using their defensive lines one last time to prevent the Bills from scoring. It was 42-36 the final, the Chiefs emerged victorious and the Bills ended up with nothing but heartbreak!
Let me start off by saying that yeah, this is a rule that quite frankly stinks. It doesn’t seem quite fair that the outcome of a game going into overtime can be decided by a coin toss. It be like if in hockey when there’s a shootout and the very first team that scores a goal wins and the other team can’t respond. Or imagine in baseball where the game goes into extra innings and the away team is able to score first and win the game before the home team even has a chance to hit. It just doesn’t seem right. There’s no denying that the rule is BS and should be a rule that the NFL should consider changing in the future.
However, let’s not getting ahead of ourselves, you can’t only point your fingers at the rules for so long and have that be your convenient scapegoat. Even before the overtime, the Bills and Chiefs both had plenty of chances to win the game!
The Chiefs had a good enough lead where all they needed was to run the clock for a few minutes, kick a field goal or two, and have this game secured for themselves! There was also one extra point that they miss that nearly cost them the game. If they didn’t miss that extra point, that would have made things much easier on themselves and the game would at best be tied approaching the end of the 4th quarter without the need for to make one last desperate move to keep the game going. Lucky for them, they were able to bail themselves out to get to OT for a chance to win the game but still, it could have been done without getting themselves and their fandom hearts attacks in the process.
As for the Bills, they literally had the game up for grabs right there. As they fought and clawed their way back into the game and took that 4th quarter lead with that touchdown with just 13 seconds left to go in the game, that was their game for the taking right there. That should have been seen as the final blow. They just needed to stop one more offensive play or two from their opponent and the game is theirs. Instead, they left it slip through their fingers and allowed the Chiefs to kick a field goal to tie the game at the end of regulation. With just 13 seconds left on the clock, the Chiefs were able to get two passes of 45 yards past the Bills so they could get those three points and keep their season alive.
This game was winnable for both sides even before OT started! Regardless of who won because they were able to win a coin toss and get offense, it was both teams that allow their fates to come to this, down to a mere coin toss. If Chiefs didn’t want to be in this position, then they shouldn’t have miss that extra point and allowed Bills to get back in the game. If the Bills didn’t want to be in this position, then they shouldn’t have giving up those two big passes with less than 15 seconds left to go to get the Chiefs within field goal range.
You might think that I’m a Chiefs fan that is telling Bills fans and everyone else to stop whining and accept defeat but quite frankly, I am not, at least to that extend. I actually thought the Bills had been a much better team than many gave them credit for all year and this game only confirms I was right in that case. Regardless of the results of this game, Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills do have a very promising future lying ahead with very good things on the rise. Even if the game turned out the other way around, I would still stand by my point with this post.
As much as we emotionally react to way things turn out in sports game due to rules, we shouldn’t force change out of those emotions or they would be more chaos than before. Rules that are established are there for a reason and not out of spite. No matter how dumb a rule might seem, it exists for a reason.
Sports can be unfair at times and give out breaks for opponents but it’s up to those teams to overcome that cheapness and breaks the league may give to their opponents to be able to achieve victory. The best teams find ways to win, not excuses to lose. In this case, the Chiefs found their way to win and the Bills were left with their excuse to lose. It’s now in the hands of the Bills with how they chose to act for next season and beyond. Only they can act wisely to make this devastating lose a haunting memory in the past to pursue for a more uplifting and satisfying future.
Regardless, there’s no crying in football or in any sport and we should all realize that by now.
Adam's Blog 