The Buffalo Bills were riding a wave of emotion heading into Sunday’s divisional-round matchup. And with some really cool snow hitting the city of Buffalo rather quite hard, we expected to see an instant classic unfold from the get-go.
Except that didn’t happen. Before the Bills could even get settled in, the Cincinnati Bengals landed haymaker after haymaker. By the time a struggling Buffalo could look up, it was 14-0 — after respective touchdowns from Ja’Marr Chase and Hayden Hurst –with a 9-0 advantage (!) in first downs for Cincinnati near the end of the first quarter.
For a moment, it was almost as if the Bills’ defenders couldn’t see the Bengals’ convenient white jerseys in the snow. Buffalo may have had the home-field advantage, but Cincinnati appeared to have the aesthetic advantage … literally.
There was still a ton of football to be played, but this definitely wasn’t how the AFC’s No. 2 seed wanted to start a quarterfinal matchup at home.
For what it’s worth, the Bengals — despite being a close No. 3 seed that played in last year’s Super Bowl — entered their battle with the Bills as a relatively huge underdog. A +5.5 pre-game spread would suggest bettors expected the Bills to comfortably advance to a neutral-site AFC title game against the legendary Patrick Mahomes.
But the defending AFC champs had different ideas and made an early statement against the Bills.