Bills quarterback Josh Allen wouldn’t say whether or not he thinks he should have been left on the field to go for it on 4th down a couple of times vs. the Chiefs in the AFC Championship.

Hindsight 20/20, he probably should’ve been given that chance considering their opponent. Kansas City lost one game during the regular season with their starters and it required the opposing team (Raiders) to score 40 points.

Buffalo ended up losing this one, 38-24, and at minimum, 38-32 is a much closer game. That’s what score it could have been had the Bills went for it instead of settling for two shorter field goals (& scored).

Allen didn’t exactly flare a competitive approach following the game by saying he wanted to go for it… instead, the quarterback took a statesman like approach.

“That’s coach’s decision,” Allen said postgame. “We had three downs to get it in there prior and we didn’t do our job.”

At minimal, Allen is right about one thing. That decision wasn’t his, it was Sean McDermott’s. Buffalo’s bench boss had a couple of questionable decisions in the game, no bigger than the 4th down situations.

After the loss, McDermott did admit that he might’ve changed his mind on at least one of those decisions. All things considered, it went down as a mistake.

“Yeah, I did, I thought about it on both occasions, really,” McDermott said via video conference. “Maybe if I had to do it all over again I would have went for one of them.

“The one before the half, for sure, I wanted to get points. We were having trouble getting points and I at least wanted to have something to show for it going into half, especially knowing they were getting the ball after half. I’ll look back at that and reevaluate that, especially the one after half there. Again, as an entire team we’ll learn about this experience.”

That second occasion McDermott referenced came on Buffalo’s first possession after the half. The Chiefs were held to a field on the first drive coming out of halftime, and the Bills marched all the way down to the KC eight-yard line and settled for a 27-yard Tyler Bass kick on 4th and 3.

Had Buffalo put up a touchdown, the score would’ve likely been 24-19 instead of 24 to 15. A one-score game instead of a two-score game.

The closest Allen came to referencing a mistake being made by not keeping him out there actually came in regard to the first field goal. Allen said his team kind of hit a slow point in the first half. What could have quelled that issue? Not settling for a field goal on the Chiefs’ two-yard line with 11 second left in the half.

“I wouldn’t say we started unraveling, I just think we hit a lull there in the first half. Again, I thought we moved the ball well enough, but when we got the ball into the red zone, we couldn’t get the ball in the end zone,” Allen said.

Typically the Bills do show a bit more of an urgent approach in terms of scoring. After all, they did win three games in a row toward the end of their regular season by at least 29 points.

The Bills faithful should hope such decisions in the future will hold a different outcome.

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It’s an easy thing to say the Bills will be back here again in 2021. It’s not that groundbreaking of a stretch to compare them to the team from 1988.

While Josh Allen and Sean McDermott can mention exactly that and everyone can think it on the outside looking in, there’s a lot of work that has to go back into it in order for Buffalo get back into next season’s AFC Championship game. Just saying “we’ll be back” holds little weight, remember that.

We also saw that the Kansas City Chiefs outclassed the Bills, not just once in 38-24 fashion on Sunday, but twice this season. Kansas City has done exactly that to multiple other teams as well.

With all that reality out of the way, let’s get to some more realistic things that are more positive in general.

Did you see Buffalo making it all the way to the AFC Championship game this season? If no, thanks for being honest, if yes, stop lying. No one did.

The Bills, a 13-3 team in the regular season, massively overachieved from the realistic goals many set for the team a year ago.

A huge chunk of that had to do with the emergence of their quarterback… and again, if you’re going to tell us you thought Allen would play at a near-MVP level in 2020? Please, again, stop lying. No one saw it coming.

The goal for the 2020 Bills was to win a playoff game. After losing in the postseason in 2017 to the Jaguars and 2019 to the Texans. The goal… well, realistic goal… was to win a playoff game.

Just one.

The AFC East championship was fun, but next step on the ladder wasn’t that. It was… win a… win or go home game. Buffalo didn’t do that, they did that twice and then they hosted both of those games if we’re looking to point out something a little bit sweeter along the way.

Now setting some realistic expectations for 2021, we’re expecting this unexpected ride from this year to be on the docket again. As the Chiefs eloquently put it… “run it back.”

But before setting that lofty goal, be thankful for the Bills did in 2020. Really the answer there starts and ends with the year mentioned.

Buffalo overachieved and became the feel-good story in the NFL, and perhaps all of sports, in what’ll go down as the worst year in many of our lives. There’s zero shame in admitting that. Remember, most things start as a feel-good moment… even Tom Brady did.

COVID-19 rocked the country and the world. Regardless of what sideline you stand on politically… it also wasn’t exactly a warm and fuzzy feeling in the regard, either. The list from 2020 goes on and on. It was the year that seemingly would never end.

This recent Bills loss will sting, but hey, the Bills emerging as a top team in league came at the perfect time, didn’t it? Imagine going through all of that… as say… a Jets fan? The Bills gave a sense of hope to their fans in an otherwise waste of year with their overachieving.

So onward to 2021 for them and everyone that went along for the ride that briefly gave us an all-important mental and emotional break from the world around us… but maybe nest year the rest of world and life as we previous knew it could “run it back” as well…?

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