The best player in the NFL right now is Buffalo quarterback Josh Allen. It’s not even close. And the cardinal sin when playing against Josh Allen is letting him escape the pocket.
On Sunday at Ford Field, Allen left the pocket more than a man’s wallet at a Christmas shopping mall. And once out, he did more damage than a no-limit American Express. He scrambled. He fired. He dissected the Lions defense like a Benihana knife.
When the Lions pushed in, Allen stepped out. When they came in one side, he darted to the other. Elusive? Herding a cat would be easier. Herding waterbugs would be easier. Quarterbacks on the run often lose their accuracy. Allen, at 6 foot 5, somehow gets more precise. He’s like a gyroscope; the motion is what keeps him on target.
On Sunday, the Detroit Lions had no response for Allen’s dazzling four-touchdown performance (two passing, two rushing) unless that response was “Good God, not again!” He found streaking receivers. He zipped the ball between their knuckles and their fingertips. He took off for the sidelines, or shot up the middle as if jet-propelled.
He’s a massive target, yet the Lions didn’t sack him once. They only hit him three times. They have been getting by without a dominant pass rush for weeks. But on Sunday their vulnerability was exposed and their thin blue line was ripped apart — as were fans’ hopes for an easy cruise to the No. 1 seed in the NFC.
“Look he poses a huge issue,” Dan Campbell admitted after the Lions fell to Buffalo, 48-42, their first loss in three months. “He’s tough. We knew that going in. Certainly we wanted to be able to handle that better and it was one of those days when we just didn’t.”
Allen. Wrenched.
Snowball meet avalanche
Now we all knew that Detroit, without Aidan Hutchinson, Alex Anzalone and a rash of other injured linemen and linebackers, was already hamstrung when it came to the pass rush. Their best hope Sunday was to set the edges, keep Allen inside them, and hope their excellent secondary could disrupt enough of his passes.
That hope disappeared quickly. Allen’s first drive saw escaping often and firing two long beauties to his running back, Ty Johnson. The MVP candidate then scampered the ball into the end zone for the Bills’ first touchdown. Clearly the question on this dreary December afternoon wasn’t if the Lions would get hit in the face with a snowball. The question was would that snowball roll downhill and start an Allen avalanche?
It did. Allen led Buffalo to touchdowns on its first three possessions, all of them long drives, none needing more than nine plays. He racked up 362 yards passing and another 68 rushing.
“The mindset we had this week was win every play,” Allen said after the victory. “Whatever the play was, find a way to execute it at the highest level.”
You want to know how unstoppable Allen was on Sunday? With 12 minutes left in the game, and only trailing by 10, Campbell chose to onsides kick. That’s how much he didn’t want Allen getting the ball back!
Unfortunately, that onsides kick was snagged by Buffalo wide receiver Mack Hollins, who raced it down the sidelines to the Detroit 5.
“Obviously now, sitting here in hindsight … ” Campbell said, “I wish I wouldn’t have done that.”
The next play, Buffalo threw for another touchdown.
Allen. Wrenched.
“We gotta make stops,” said lineman DJ Reader. “That’s the bottom line. We gotta make stops.”
True enough. The Bills punted once all game.
That’s not enough stops.
No stopping Allen
Minutes into Sunday’s contest, one thing became quite clear: This wasn’t Chicago, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Indy or even Minnesota or Green Bay. This was elite-level football, the Black Ops of NFL offenses, weapons you haven’t seen before, punches you haven’t taken before. It’s the level where the Lions want to be and where many assume, by their record, they belong.
But it wasn’t a fair fight. Buffalo appeared to be on a different operating system. And Allen’s dominance over the Lions’ hobbling defense was so great, it even overwhelmed the Lions offense, which did enough Sunday to win a ton of other football games.
Jared Goff threw for five TD’s and far more yards than Allen (494 to 362.) But timing is everything. The Lions didn’t convert enough third downs when they needed them. Their run game wasn’t there early on. They fumbled away a drive. They missed a field goal.
“It just was one of those games we didn’t compliment each other well,” Campbell said.
Meanwhile, when Buffalo needed a critical down converted, Allen seemed to always find a receiver, or take the ball himself. No better example came on their third drive of the game, when, on fourth-and-2 from their own 49, the Bills imitated the Lions and went for it.
It was a throwdown moment. The Bills, who may yet face the Lions in a Super Bowl, seemed to be saying, “Hey, you aren’t the only guys confident enough in your offense to roll the dice.” Allen dropped back and threw another dart to Johnson for 31 yards. Soon, it was 21-7. Detroit would never catch up.
Afterwards, Campbell noted there was a difference in intensity between the two squads. For that, the coach blamed himself.
“Ultimately, I didn’t have those guys ready to go, not like that, not when you’re playing a team like that,” he said. “And that’s with me. …That’s me, man. I didn’t have these guys completely ready to roll…
“We didn’t play at the same level as that team did today. …You can get away with (that) maybe, if you’re not quite all the way to a ‘10’, but not against the Buffalo Bills.”
So maybe that was it. Or maybe this was just the difference between one team (Buffalo) coming off a stinging loss (44-42 to the Rams) and the other team (Detroit) coming off an inspiring last-second win over Green Bay. Defeat is a great motivator.
But this is undeniable: The Detroit defense is becoming the barricade in “Les Miserables.” They’re throwing every piece of furniture on top of it, hoping to stay safe. Sunday was the most points they’ve let up all year. The previous high came the game before (31 points). That’s 79 points in the last two games. You know what they call that?
A trend in the wrong direction.
On top of that, the Lions D, which I think stands for “decimated”, lost Alim McNeil, Carlton Davis and Khalil Dorsey to injury. Dorsey is certainly gone for the year. And the other two?
“I don’t feel good about either one,” Campbell said, glumly.
To paraphrase the Monkees, another Unpleasant Valley Sunday.
A ray of sunshine
Let’s be clear what this was: a humbling, stinging loss. Let’s also be clear what it wasn’t. It wasn’t overconfidence. It wasn’t Lions players believing their hype. It was one of those Sundays where the other team’s gameplan works perfectly against your weaknesses. And you game plan isn’t enough against their strengths.
The Lions needed to do what the Rams had done a week earlier. Play from ahead. Or at least stay even. Instead, Detroit opened slow, fell behind by 17, then tried to catch the Bills at the end, pulling within six in the final seconds before a last, desperate onsides-kick attempt. And you’re not likely to beat Buffalo with desperation.
Someone asked Reader if he thought this was a Super Bowl preview, and he scoffed.
“Ain’t no championships being won today,” he said.
And he’s right. The Lions can feel sorry for themselves. Or they can blink, shake it off and get back on the treadmill. A record of 12-2 is nothing to sneeze at. And, with three NFC games left, two against division rivals, it’s nothing to rest on, either.
“Tough pill to swallow,” Campbell said. “But like I told the team, nothing changed from whether we won or lost today. We’ve still got to win next week”
And next week brings at least one piece of good news.
No Josh Allen.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates with his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow him @mitchalbom.
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