The Buffalo Bills are going to the AFC Championship.
A 17-3 win over the Baltimore Ravens, as the score suggests, wasn’t exactly a high-flying offensive showcase that we’ve come to expect during the 2020 season. A win is a win, though.
With that, here are five takeaways from the Bills’ win over the Ravens in the AFC Divisional round:
What is running the ball?
A big headline coming into the game was the Bills’ backfield situation. What would happen without Zack Moss in the lineup? In the Wild Card round against the Colts, the Bills lost the rookie due to an ankle injury. Upon further review, his season was deemed over.
Devin Singletary was dubbed the guy that would step up in his place… but he didn’t exactly do that.
Scratch that, he didn’t really even get a chance to do so.
The Bills decided to nearly take the rushing game out of their offensive playbook completely, especially in the first half of the game. In the first 30 minutes of the game, Singletary was given the ball once on the ground which came just before the half.
This was no slight against Singletary, though. This was the plan by Buffalo offensive coordinator Brian Daboll. He decided that the Ravens run defense, who held 2,000-yard rush for the Titans, Derrick Henry, to 40 yards was too good.
While the game was tight early, it paid off.
Singletary finished the game with seven carries and 25 yards. Quarterback Josh Allen, often mobile himself, only had three yards rushing. Overall for the game, the QB had 37 pass attempts and was 23-for-37 passing with one score in the air. For once, the Bills didn’t win because of him, but they didn’t need to.
Who knew that’d be such a welcoming sight?