Drop haunts Ravens as Bills advance
In the NFC, Barkley and the Eagles hold off late Rams charge.
If Jackie Smith, the great tight end of the 1960s and ‘70s, saw Mark Andrews sitting on the turf near the end of Buffalo’s 27-25 win over Baltimore, we imagine him thinking, “I feel ya, brother.”
Smith spent the first 14 years in the NFL with the St. Louis Cardinals, before playing his final season, in 1978, with the Dallas Cowboys, who were defending their championship in Super Bowl XIII against Pittsburgh. In the third quarter of that game, Smith dropped a wide open TD pass that helped pave the way for a Steelers 35-31 win.
“Aw, bless his heart,” Cowboys radio announcer Verne Lundquist said of Smith at the time, “he’s got to be the sickest man in America.”
Such is the cruelty of sports. Even though, in 1994, the NFL Hall of Fame acknowledged Smith’s sustained excellence, his legacy for most fans is that one moment of wrenching failure.
Today, Andrews is the man who will be forever connected to Smith’s infamy. The usually sure-handed three-time Pro Bowler dropped a game-tying two-point conversion with 1:33 left, which secured the Divisional Round win for the Bills. If Andrews is the sickest man in America today, he’ll learn, as Smith did, that it’s a malady for which is time is the only cure.
Andrews’ play will also be linked to another, more recent, instance of Baltimore playoff misfortune. Lee Evans’ drop in the 2011 AFC title game now has company for the worst playoff moment in franchise history. Let the debate begin.
Buffalo fans are not ones to look this gift horse in the mouth, for they know too well how a dropped pass can dash playoff dreams: A perfectly thrown Jim Kelly pass bounced off the hands of Bills running back Ronnie Harmon at the end of a 34-30 Divisional Round loss to Cleveland in 1989.
This version of the Bills advance to the AFC title game to take on playoff rival Kansas City, three years removed from their 42-36 overtime epic won by the Chiefs, also at Arrowhead. The two-time defending champs took care of Houston on Saturday, 23-14.
Meanwhile, the Ravens finish another promising, at times dominant season, in postseason disappointment.
In the NFC, the Philadelphia Eagles, behind the electrifying Saquon Barkley, fought off a late surge by the Los Angeles Rams to win, 28-22. They make their second title game appearance in three years and will host the remarkable Jayden Daniels and the Washington Commanders.
Both of Sunday’s games were played in less-than-ideal conditions. And the weather did impact the games to some extent, as the lost footing, fumbles and dropped passes attest. We certainly feel an impulse to blame Andrews’ drop on his backpedaling on a slippery surface trying to catch a slicker-than-usual football.
Andrews did not speak to the media after the game, but we expect he would forgo making excuses. After the loss, his teammates and head coach had the tight end’s back. Said John Harbaugh, with jaw-set succinctness: “We wouldn’t be here without Mark Andrews.”
For Ravens fans, with that failed two-point conversion stuck on repeat, Harbaugh’s comment cuts both ways.
Let us take a closer look at these two tense Divisional Round games.
Philadelphia Eagles 28, Los Angeles Rams 22
Philadelphia is the one place you don’t be when you and your Eagles teammates blow a 13 -point lead in the final minutes of a playoff game.
But it damned near happened on Sunday. And do you think Philly fans once let Santa Claus have it?
Nick Sirianni’s squad held off a furious late fourth-quarter rally by the visiting Rams to win a 28-22 snow-glazed thriller. The Eagles move on to the NFL Championship Game, their second in the last three years, and next Sunday host the Washington Commanders, who upended the No. 1 seed Lions, 45-31, in Detroit.
Philadelphia seemed to have this game under lock and key late in the fourth quarter when star back Saquon Barkley bolted off the left side of his offensive line and raced 70 yards for a touchdown. The score made it 28-15, with just over four and a half minutes left.
The Rams then went no-huddle, which triggered questions as to why the heretofore struggling L.A. offense did not do so earlier. Up 13 points, Philadelphia played looser on defense, and the sped-up Rams attack capitalized. A Stafford pass to tight end Tyler Higbee capped off a 70-yard drive in under two minutes, and suddenly, the Rams were within six points, on the north side of the two-minute warning, with a full complement of timeouts.
Then, to the immense discomfort of the home crowd, the Rams defense forced a three-and-out, and an in-rhythm Stafford promptly drove the offense from its 18-yard line into the Philly red zone. Los Angeles stood at the precipice of one of the greatest, most jolting comebacks in playoff history.
But the Eagles’ defense rose up. Tackle Jalen Carter sacked Stafford on third down, and a Stafford pass on fourth down sailed out of bounds incomplete.
The Eagles advance to the NFC title game, a showdown with NFC East-rival Washington, by the skin of their beak.
Despite the 50 points scored by the two teams, the two offenses lurched along most of the afternoon. The cold and snow made the A number of players on both defenses had impact games: for Philadelphia, Carter got another sack earlier in the game and forced a Kryen Williams fumble that set up a Philly field goal; cornerback Darius Slay Jr. knocked away three passes; linebacker Oren Burks, who caused the opening kickoff fumble last week against Green Bay, was in on six tackles and tipped a Stafford pass.
For the Rams, much was made of rookie Jared Verse’s bulletin board comments about Eagles fans, and his in-game exchanges with these borderline hooligans seem to inspire him. The 2024 first-round pick notched two sacks. As a unit, the Rams followed up a nine-sack effort with six more today, including a safety of Jalen Hurts in the third that seemed to tip momentum to L.A.
Hurts suffered a leg injury late in the third quarter and was a sitting duck the rest of the way, including when sacked for the safety by Rams lineman Neville Gallimore. But it was Hurts who hit the first home run of the day, keeping the ball on a read-option and racing 44 yards for a TD on the Eagles’ opening drive.
Philadelphia’s other home runs were hit, of course, by the modern NFL’s answer to Babe Ruth. In Philadelphia’s late November win over the Rams, you may recall that Barkley became the first NFL player to run for two touchdowns of 70 or more yards. Sunday, he exploded for TD runs of 62 yards and the fourth-quarter 78-yard burst that seemed to put the game on ice.
On the day, Barkley rushed for 205 yards, breaking Philadelphia’s all-time playoff record of 196 yards set by Hall of Famer Steve Van Buren in the 1949 NFL Championship Game (remember that one?). As a team, the Eagles rushed for a franchise playoff record 285 yards and, with Hurts and Barkley’s early TD runs, became the first team since the 1970 merger to have two TD runs of 40-plus yards in the first quarter of a playoff game.
The Rams acquitted themselves well, not just in rallying on the road in tough conditions, but in overcoming injuries and a 1-4 start to make the playoffs. L.A.’s young defense seems poised to be a force in the NFC West for the next several years.
The Eagles get ready for Jayden Daniels, but concern today is about Hurts’ knee. Though Vic Fangio’s Eagles played stifling defense at times against Stafford and the Rams, Washington offensive coordinator Kliff Kingsbury certainly had to notice the Eagles’ fallibility to an up-tempo offense. Jayden Daniels running a no-huddle could be a lot of fun to watch.
Buffalo Bills 27, Baltimore 25
We will avoid going over familiar terrain vis-à-vis the Andrews drop. Suffice it to say, the Ravens had a number of opportunities in the loss that, had they capitalized on them, would have made the two-point-conversion drama unnecessary.
In snowy, cold conditions, the Ravens committed three turnovers and five penalties, while Buffalo played an error-free game. Two of Baltimore’s giveaways were the fault of Lamar Jackson, who, if not for his terrific clutch play on the Ravens’ final drive, would have come under fire for another sketchy playoff outing.
Things started off dandy for Jackson and Baltimore, as the Ravens took the opening drive 70 yards on seven plays for a touchdown. A 39-yard catch by tight end Isaiah Likely was a key moment, and it offset a play that augured the mistakes to come, when Jackson slightly underthrew a wide open Derrick Henry in the flat.
Buffalo answered with a 70-yard drive of its own, and the shootout some predicted, many were hoping for, seemed to be taking shape.
Jackson’s first turnover, a poorly thrown deep ball intercepted by safety Taylor Rapp, did not hurt the Ravens as Buffalo failed to capitalize. His second turnover proved costly.
Driving into Bills territory, Jackson bobbled the snap then fumbled the slick football on a hit by a blitzing Damar Hamlin — ball security was clearly not on Jackson’s mind in the first half. Buffalo’s Von Miller returned the fumble 39 yards, and Josh Allen punched it in four plays later to give the Bills a 14-7 lead.
A 42-yard reception by Baltimore’s Rashod Bateman put the NFL’s red-zone offense at the 2-yard line. But a Greg Rousseau sack of Jackson forced a short Justin Tucker field goal. The Bills finished off the first half with a nine-play touchdown drive, sparked by a big pass interference call on third down, which placed the ball at the Ravens’ 12. Allen again did the honors on the ground with a four-yard TD.
A second Tucker field goal cut the Buffalo lead to 21-13 in the third quarter, and the Ravens defense forced two Buffalo punts. Following the second, Jackson led an 80-yard drive in just seven plays, as the Ravens’ punishing offense began asserting itself. Derrick Henry, who rushed for 82 yards on the day, scored from five yards out, but Jackson could not connect with Isaiah Likely on the game-tying two point conversion, keeping the score 21-19.
It would be Baltimore’s least memorable two-point failure of the day.
The Bills’ extended their advantage early in the fourth when kicker Tyler Bass banged through a 51-yard field goal. Baltimore seemed to be on the move again when, with just under nine minutes left, Andrews had a 16-yard catch but fumbled on a hit by Terrel Bernard. (We guess that is the silver lining for Andrews; no one today is discussing this key turnover.)
Buffalo took advantage and over five minutes off the clock. Bass, exorcising the demons from missing a game-winning kick in last year’s playoffs, made a 21-yard field goal.
The score was 27-19. A single possession game with three minutes and change remaining.
Jackson responded, as you would expect a two-time league MVP to do, driving the Ravens the length of the field. With a chance to overcome his earlier miscues, he hit a sliding Likely in the end zone from 24 yards out. Then, on the ensuing two-pointer, he found Andrews running open towards the front pylon.
The pass was on target. All that remained was for Andrews to catch the ball.