The Broncos are headed to the AFC Championship Game after Saturday’s back-and-forth win over the Bills, a victory punctuated by a Wil Lutz field goal on Denver’s second possession of overtime.
But before the Broncos drove down the field to knock Buffalo out of the postseason, they were the beneficiaries of a controversial turnover.
On a third-and-11 from the Bills’ 36-yard line, Josh Allen heaved a deep ball downfield in the direction of Brandin Cooks. The veteran wideout, shadowed by cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian, appeared to haul in the pass as he fell to the ground near Denver’s 20-yard line. But after Cooks and McMillian rolled over with their hands on the ball, the Broncos defensive back emerged with possession. Officials ruled that McMillian recorded an interception and Denver would get the ball on its own 20-yard line with 7:46 to go in overtime.
As Denver walked to the line of scrimmage, ready to take possession and begin its next drive, Bills coach Sean McDermott called a timeout, urging officials to take more time to review the play.
“Obviously, I don’t have the power to challenge, right?” McDermott told reporters after the game. “We’re on overtime, so the flag is not an option to throw it down. So I called a timeout to try to get the process to slow down because it seemed like the process was not slowing down. It was a rather rapid unfolding of the review, if there was a review, and so I called a timeout to try to slow it down.
“It would seem logical to me and make a lot of sense that the head official would walk over and want to go and take a look at it. Just to make sure that everybody from here who is in the stadium, to there are on the same page. That’s too big of a play, in my estimation, too big of a play in a play that decided the game, potentially as well, to not even slow it down. That’s why I had to call the timeout. It’s not what I wanted to do, but I had to do it in order to make sure that I understood what was going on and that they did take a look at it.”