The bettors believe in the Bills.
With the Patriots beating the Chargers on Sunday night, the Bills will travel to Denver on Saturday to face the Broncos. And the Bills have opened as 1.5-point favorites over the Broncos at DraftKings.
The Broncos are the No. 1 seed. The Bills will have six days to fly home, rest up, prepare, and travel to Colorado. Josh Allen, who got banged up against the Jaguars, will have less time to recover.
Regardless, he’s Josh Allen. He seems to understand the magnitude of the moment, in his first playoff run without Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow, and/or Lamar Jackson as potential impediments. And he was the NFL’s MVP in 2024 for a reason.
A win over the Broncos on Saturday would put Allen and the Bills one step away from the franchise’s first Super Bowl since 1993.
Bills Clips
The games have been set. The dates have been picked.
And that’s all we know, for now, about the divisional round of the playoffs.
The NFL has announced that Bills at Broncos and 49ers at Seahawks will be played on Saturday, January 17. On Sunday, January 18, the Bears will host the Rams and the winner of Monday night’s Texans-Steelers game will travel to New England for a game against the Patriots.
However, the league has not assigned a time to any of the games, or a network.
Between NBC, Fox, CBS, and ESPN, each will have one of the games. The Saturday contests will kick off at 4:30 p.m. ET and 8:00 p.m. ET. On Sunday, the games will start at 3:00 p.m. ET and 6:30 p.m. ET.
The Bills and 49ers will play on six days’ rest, against teams that will be going two weeks between games. (The Seahawks will have had 15 days between the Week 18 game and the division-round contest.)
The rest of the schedule will be set after Monday night’s game, when either the Texans or Steelers will earn a ticket to Gillette Stadium on Sunday.
The Bills scored a go-ahead touchdown with 1:04 left to play against the Jaguars on Sunday and head coach Sean McDermott was asked after the game if he thought about leaving Jacksonville with less time to try for a comeback.
Josh Allen was initially ruled to have scored a touchdown on a 4th-and-1 tush push from the Jaguars’ 11-yard line, but a replay showed he was down just short of the end zone. The Jaguars used their final timeout to avoid a 10-second runoff, which meant the Bills could have taken a knee to run time off the clock while leaving themselves three chances to punch the ball in.
They opted to run another sneak with Allen on first down and McDermott explained his reasoning after the 27-24 victory.
“I really, honestly, wanted to try and bleed the clock down if we could, but it’s like, ‘Okay, what plays that you have that do that?’ We can probably go through this for about an hour and talk about this,” McDermott said. “You take a knee, the ball is inside the one, by the time we take the snap and even just knee it, then you’re like ‘Okay, run the clock to what 30 seconds, 28, whatever.’ So we’re talking about these things. I’m going, ‘Man, I know who they have on that side of the ball, at a minimum, starting with the place kicker.’ And, so, we were like, ‘Alright let’s not get cute, let’s just go win this thing and put our defense out there.’ They did, and they executed at a high level.”
McDermott’s decision would have been viewed differently had the Jaguars gone on to score, but safety Cole Bishop intercepted Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence on first down and the Bills were on to the divisional round.
While scoring Buffalo’s first touchdown of Sunday’s playoff win at Jacksonville, Bills quarterback Josh Allen got twisted up after he crossed the goal line. He seemed to injure his knee.
He was checked out on the sideline and didn’t miss a beat.
“It was more of a precautionary thing. Just got rolled up on,” Allen told reporters after the 27-24 win. “And they wanted to take a quick look. But we’re all good.”
Allen’s mindset is that he’s all good, even when he isn’t. That’s how he handled the foot injury he suffered against the Browns last month.
Coach Sean McDermott seemed to imply some level of concern, telling reporters as to Allen, “We’ve got to get him as healthy as we can . . . for next week.”
And so it makes sense to watch the injury report in the coming days. Not that it will keep Allen from playing in the divisional round, even if he shows up on one or more of the three daily disclosures with a new injury.
There’s another important factor at play. With the winner of Monday night’s Texans-Steelers game due to play next Sunday, the Bills will play the Broncos on Saturday if the Patriots beat the Chargers tonight, and the Bills will face the Texans-Steelers winner on Sunday if the Chargers win.
That extra day could make a big difference.
Darius Slay could have been playing for the Bills on Sunday. He’s attending the Eagles game instead.
Slay is back in Philly for the playoff game against the 49ers. It’s the Eagles’ first postseason game since winning Super Bowl LIX, when Slay was a starting cornerback for the most recent NFL champions.
Last month, the Bills claimed Slay on waivers, after he was waived by the Steelers. Slay did not report. Many thought he wanted to get back to Philly. When asked if he would have reported if the Eagles had claimed him on waivers, Slay declined to respond.
Buffalo placed him on the reserve/did not report list, waiting for Slay to show up. Some believed that the Bills would release him after the Week 17 game against the Eagles. Buffalo did not do it.
And now that the Bills have won, Slay can decide after getting a taste of watching some playoff football to go play some, next weekend as a member of the Bills in the round of eight.
The Buffalo Bills are moving on to the divisional round of the playoffs, and the Jacksonville Jaguars’ season is over.
The Bills beat the Jaguars 27-24 after a wild back-and-forth fourth quarter that continued a thrilling wild card weekend in the NFL.
The game had four fourth-quarter lead changes, tied for the most in the fourth quarter of any NFL playoff game, ever. In the end, however, Trevor Lawrence threw an interception with 54 seconds left and the Jaguars out of timeouts, and that let the Bills just kneel out the clock to win it.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen ran for the game-winning touchdown on a one-yard quarterback sneak with 1:04 remaining, following a remarkable nine-yard quarterback sneak he ran on the play before. Allen finished with 33 yards and two touchdowns rushing, and also completed 28 of 35 passes for 273 yards, with a touchdown and no interceptions.
Lawrence had his moments, completing 18 of 30 passes for 207 yards and three touchdowns, but his two interceptions were killers.
Now Allen will lead the Bills into the next round, in pursuit of his first Super Bowl.
The Bills are back on top in a back-and-forth battle in Jacksonville.
Josh Allen hit Dalton Kincaid for a 15-yard touchdown pass that gave the Bills a 20-17 lead midway through the fourth quarter.
It’s been a great weekend of wild card playoff action, with every game having fourth-quarter lead changes. The Bills and Jaguars have already traded the lead twice in the fourth quarter today.
The Bills did have some bad news before the touchdown, as receiver Gabe Davis took a hard hit to his left leg and had to be helped off the field. Davis was carted to the locker room with a left knee injury. Davis suffered a season-ending left knee injury in Jacksonville last season, and it appeared that he may have done so again.
Now it’s time for Trevor Lawrence and the Jaguars to take their shot at another fourth-quarter lead change.
Wild card weekend continues to be wild.
Every game so far this weekend has had at least one fourth-quarter lead change, with the latest coming when Jaguars wide receiver Parker Washington caught a touchdown pass from Trevor Lawrence to give the Jaguars a 17-13 lead over the Bills.
Bills safety Jordan Poyer has been ruled out for the rest of the game with an injury, and the Jaguars have been picking on his replacement, rookie Jordan Hancock.
Now it’s time for Bills quarterback Josh Allen to show what he can do, as the Bills attempt a fourth-quarter comeback of their own.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen is having a good game today in Jacksonville, but he’s taking a beating in the process.
Allen had already been checked and cleared for a concussion when he led the Bills on a 10-play, 92-yard drive that ended with Allen himself running for a two-yard touchdown in the second quarter. On that drive, Allen hit his throwing hand on a teammate’s helmet, and he appeared to injure his knee on the touchdown run.
But Allen went into the medical tent only briefly before he emerged looking ready to go.
Late in the second quarter, Allen is 11-for-12 for 110 yards, plus 12 yards and a touchdown running, as the Bills lead 10-7.
Starting this week, former Ravens coach John Harbaugh will attack the interview process with an enthusiasm unknown to mankind. And with leverage the NFL hasn’t seen in decades.
Harbaugh has multiple options for his next stop. He’s being selective. And he could end up having even more choices, based on what happens in Green Bay and (if the Bills lose today) Buffalo.
He’s in position to request a very large salary. He’s in position to seek control over the roster. He’s in position to ask for the team to let him hire a General Manager, even if it means firing the one they currently have.
That doesn’t mean everyone would do it. But it only takes one who is sufficiently desperate to give Harbaugh what he wants. And if Harbaugh gives a little on one term, he could get more on another.
Harbaugh also has another potential play, one that we addressed on PFT Live after the Ravens moved on. He could take a year off and work in TV, like Sean Payton did four years ago. It would make Harbaugh the odds-on, A-list candidate throughout the next season, hovering over every hot seat as the next coach, if the current coach gets fired.
If Harbaugh decides to wait, the hot spots for 2027 would be (possibly) the Jets, the Bills (if they don’t make a change this year), the Bengals, the Colts, the Chiefs (if Andy Reid decides to retire), the Cowboys, the Commanders, the Buccaneers, the Panthers, and the Saints.
Either way, Harbaugh’s effort to explore his next coaching job starts soon. And he could decide to take a job now, or to take a job later.
