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."
McDermott said that he didn't understand why McMillian was awarded the ball instead of Cooks, as the receiver appeared, in his view, to have possession while forced down by the cornerback.
"It's hard for me to understand why it was ruled the way it was ruled," McDermott continued. "In my eyes, it was [a catch by Cooks], yes. In my eyes, it was. But even if it wasn't, OK. Let's just say that, and I'm being objective. Even if it wasn't, the players are owed, to me, 'Hey, let's stop it. Let's slow it down.' Let's put the head referee and give him a chance to look at the monitor just to make sure. Just to make sure."
McMillian disagreed.
"I don't really think he had complete control going down," the Broncos CB said of Cooks. "We were both fighting for the ball... I just made a play and basically took it out of his hands and came up with it."
Referee Carl Cheffers said in a pool report obtained by NFL Network's Cameron Wolfe that Cooks did not "complete the process of a catch."
"He was going to the ground as part of the process of the catch and he lost possession of the ball when he hit the ground," Cheffers said. "The defender gained possession of it at that point. The defender is the one that completed the process of the catch, so the defender was awarded the ball."
Cheffers added that the interception was confirmed by the NFL's replay process.
On the ensuing drive, Bo Nix led the Broncos down the field, benefitting from a number of Bills penalties, to get into field goal range for Lutz's game-winning kick.
Buffalo's Divisional Round defeat was its eighth postseason loss under McDermott. In the head coach's nine seasons at the helm, the Bills have made the playoffs eight times but never reached the Super Bowl.
The frustration, brought about by another postseason departure and the controversial finish, bubbled up for McDermott.
"I'm standing up for Buffalo, dammit. I'm standing up for us," the Bills coach said. "What went on, that is not how it should go down in my estimation. These guys spend three hours out there playing football, pouring their guts out to not even say, 'Hey, let's just slow this thing down.' That's why I'm bothered."
The Broncos will host the winner of Sunday's Texans-Patriots matchup in next week's AFC title game. McDermott and the Bills, meanwhile, will head into the offseason, ruing a game (and a ball) that got away.
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