Buffalo Rumblings
The 2025 Buffalo Bills season has been written, but the book is incomplete. Before we cast our full attention toward the 2026 season, let’s take one last glance back over our shoulder for our annual look at the Plays That Defined the prior campaign.
For any newcomers, first and foremost; Welcome! When it comes to the “rules” of this exercise, we’re not voting for our favorite highlight necessarily, but the one that best captures the essence of the game. Put differently, if you had to choose just one play to show someone to explain as much of the contest as possible, which would you choose?
Buffalo had just taken down the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in a thrilling shootout at home, then traveled Southwest to face the 5 – 5 Houston Texans. The Bills should have clearly been the better team and walked away with a victory. As you’ll see below, they had their chances.
The Bills never adjusted to the one dominant component of the Texans; their pass rush. Twelve quarterback hits, eight of which were sacks. Seventy yards lost due. That contributed to three turnovers. The Buffalo defense did enough for a win, holding Houston to 23 points, and a lone field goal in the second half. The Bills had six drives after halftime and only managed three of their own points.
There’s nothing like a bit of hope to make a loss all the more heartbreaking. Buffalo started off strong with a touchdown just over a minute into the game. In the approximately 59 more minutes left in the game, the offense wouldn’t score another one. Making this even more symbolic of the game is two more facts. The run game was terrific, averaging six yards per carry. Also, the extra point was missed, see below.
About two minutes before the half, the Bills would be getting the ball back down by four points. Rather than leave it up to an offense that had started to sputter, Ray Davis made a great decision to run it back for 97 yards and a touchdown on his kickoff return. I selected this play for another bit of hope to contrast the inevitable crash, but also as this was a short-lived rush despite it being a very long run. The defense did well most of the game but allowed a quick touchdown before the half to put them back down by four again.
With so many sacks to pick from, this one got my vote as the most absurd though if you disagree, just know there were plenty of quality candidates to pick from. This one also featured Will Anderson, who had 2.5 of them personally in this game.
What a great play! It’s easy to forget that there were bright spots from the Bills, just...
