Buffalo Bills coach Sean McDermott felt the questions around his team were answered emphatically by their 27-25 defeat of the Baltimore Ravens last night.
The Bills advanced to the AFC Championship Game against the Kansas City Chiefs next week after gutsing out a hard-fought win, albeit aided by Mark Andrews’ costly fumble on a Ravens’ two-point attempt with 93 seconds remaining.
Much of the build-up centred around the Ravens’ offensive power, and Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry in particular, but McDermott felt his defense handled them well.
📰 Table Of Contents
We’ve heard it all…
He said: “Our guys heard it all – they heard it all week long. We’re not big enough, we’re not strong enough. Not talented enough. Whatever it is, they heard it.
“I don’t do the social media things, but I think most of those guys do. And look, we did, I think, in the first half a pretty darn good job. Second half, [Henry] got rolling a little bit. And he’s going to pop some runs, I mean, when he gets that momentum, he’s hard to stop.
“So we could have done some things better, and I think fundamentally, so when we just look at this game, it came down to fundamentalism in football. And we talked a lot about that.”
“Buffalo is a city of winners and the people here are different.” ❤️💙#GoBills | #BillsMafia pic.twitter.com/Lny6lLl70S
— Buffalo Bills (@BuffaloBills) January 20, 2025
Criticism was like fuel – Epenesa
Running back Henry pulverised the Bills in their Week 4 meeting, running for 199 yards as Baltimore won 35-10 but there was no repeat this time.
“We have a lot of pride in ourselves, what we do here as a defense,” defensive end AJ Epenesa said.
“Just speaking as a defense, we were told all week how they were going to do this, how they going to do that, and that just, I’d like to say, fuelled us a little bit. We started this game a little hotter than we have in the past, and that’s something we’ve been emphasizing, and now we need to do that in the second half, start the second half hot and do those kind of things. But to come in with that fire and to kind of start the way we did, I think is good.”
We love each other – Allen
If Epenesa was key to the defense, the offense was led, as always, by quarterback Josh Allen, who rushed for two touchdowns.
Allen said: “What a complete win. All year, this team has heard we’ve got no talent, we’re too small, we can’t stop the run, we’re not good enough to compete. We’ve just put our head down and worked hard. I’m so proud of our defense. I’m so proud of our offense and special teams.
“We don’t listen to the outside noise, but everyone was saying this and that about us and that we didn’t have enough talent, weren’t good enough to be in these positions and, our guys just continue to work hard and we’re internally driven.
“We love each other, and I think you saw how much we played for each other there.”
