Denver Broncos quarterback Bo Nix suffered a broken bone in his right ankle late in the Broncos’ 33-30 overtime win against the Buffalo Bills on Saturday, ending his season.
Broncos manager Sean Payton announced after the game that Knicks suffered the injury just three plays before Denver kicked the winning field goal. Jarrett Stidham will start for Denver, the AFC’s top seed, in next Sunday’s conference championship game.
The shocking news comes after the Knicks became the first QB other than Patrick Mahomes or Joe Burrow to beat Josh Allen in the postseason this decade.
The Broncos won after a back-and-forth battle in the fourth quarter and overtime.
After two scoreless drives to start overtime, the Knicks led Denver with a 75-yard shortstop for the winning score, aided by two pass interference penalties against the Bills. Allen put Buffalo in field goal position in the final minutes of regulation to force overtime, but his interception in OT set up the Broncos’ winning field goal — his fourth turnover of the day.
“It’s very difficult. I feel like I let my teammates down tonight,” Allen said after the game, wiping away tears.
He added: “It’s been a long season. I’m disappointed in the way it ended. This will stay with me for a long time.”
For the Knicks, Saturday’s victory marked a victory in only their second career postseason start.
A year after he threw for just 144 yards in a 31-7 loss to the Bills in the wild-card round, the Knicks threw for 279 yards and three scores in the win.
His most impressive drive of the game came in the fourth quarter. Trailing 27-23, the Knicks led an eight-play, 73-yard drive that ended with a 26-yard touchdown pass to give Denver a 30-27 lead with less than a minute left.
Nix was active in the final period as well, with two defensive pass interference penalties on his attempt to throw the ball deep giving Buffalo two, one for 17 yards and one for 30 yards, keeping the Broncos inside the 10-yard line.
“He was great when we needed him,” Broncos head coach Sean Payton said after the game.
For Allen, the loss was the latest in a series of disastrous losses for a franchise that has become synonymous with postseason heartbreak. After losing four straight Super Bowls in the 1990s, Buffalo has now failed to return to the championship round in seven straight seasons during Allen’s tenure.
Including Saturday, four of the Bills’ last five playoff losses have been by one score, including two in overtime. The difference in points between these four losses is just 15 points.
Allen’s performance was up and down, as all of Buffalo’s drives ended in either a score or a turnover. Allen completed 25-of-39 for 283 yards and three touchdowns, and ran 12 times for 66 yards. However, he also threw two interceptions and lost two fumbles. The four turnovers came at especially inopportune moments, including a reckless coughing-up just before halftime that gave Denver three points.
“You can’t do that by just trying to be aggressive,” Allen said of the play.
Allen’s final interception came in overtime, when a Bills field goal would have ended the game.
Heading into this postseason, Allen’s playoff losses were largely at the hands of one of the conference’s best quarterbacks. But with Mahomes, Burrow and two-time MVP Lamar Jackson all absent from the playoff field, Buffalo appeared to have the best path to its first Super Bowl appearance since the 1993 season.
Instead, Allen, who had won six straight postseason games without a turnover, gave up the ball four times and ultimately lost to the Knicks.
“You don’t win with five turnovers,” Allen said. “I had two fumbles and threw two picks. You don’t deserve to win a football game when you shoot yourself in the foot like that.”
“Last year I obviously wasn’t ready, but today I was ready,” Payton said.
