The Bills had their Wild Card game against the Houston Texans wrapped up. Literally and figuratively, to an extent.
The game wouldn’t have been over, but the Texans also would not have won on an amazing play from quarterback Deshaun Watson had linebacker Matt Milano and defensive back Siran Neal wrapped up the QB for a sack.
With four minutes left in overtime on a second-and-6, that Bills’ duo blitzed the QB and had him. Until seconds later he spun out of it and dumped a pass off to former Bills running back Taiwan Jones, who scampered for 34 yards.
It set up the game-winning field game for the Texans which ended Buffalo’s season. Following the game, Milano and Neal both told the Buffalo News that there were no excuses for the Bills not being in a third-and-long situation via a sack, rather than defending a field goal, only seconds later.
“We just missed it. It’s that simple. I’m not going to go into making excuses for it. We missed the tackle,” Milano said.
“I had him,” Neal added. “When I hit him, I saw somebody hit him from the front and he just spun off. We hit him from the back and hit him from the front and he stayed up. It was a great quarterback play.”
While Milano and Neal were down about the situation, Watson, naturally, was puffing out his chest.
“I knew I was gonna do that, honestly,” Watson said. “I mean, I just knew I wasn’t going down.”
While the missed tackle is the most glaring squandered opportunity for the Bills to end the game, or give themselves another chance, that’s not the only reason Buffalo lost. The offense only mustered three second half points, the defense allowed a first down on third-and-16 in the second half plus other numerous missed passes and plays.
Still, one has to feel for both Milano and Neal, who will both likely be back with the Bills in 2020.
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