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The second weekend of the NFL playoffs started out just as wild as the wild-card round last week. Quarterbacks Josh Allen and Bo Nix went back and forth in an epic battle that spilled into overtime in Denver.
In the end, the Broncos pulled out a 33-30 win over the Bills to earn a berth in the AFC Championship Game for the first time since 2016. Unfortunately for Denver, Nix broke a bone in his ankle in the waning plays and is out for the rest of the playoffs. Backup Jarrett Stidham will start next week.
Here are my takeaways:
1. After a thrilling high, crushing news
The news after Saturday’s overtime win for the Broncos couldn’t have been more cruel: Bo Nix, who threw for three touchdowns in leading Denver to its first playoff win in 10 years, fractured a bone in his ankle late in the game and will miss the rest of the postseason.
So the joy of hosting the AFC Championship Game next week is mitigated by the harsh reality that Denver will have to start a quarterback who hasn’t thrown a pass all season. Jarrett Stidham, the Broncos’ top backup, played just four offensive snaps in 2025, handing off three times and taking a knee at the end of a lopsided October win over Dallas.
The Broncos have won with their defense all season, but they’ll have to lean even more so on that side of the ball. Stidham is 29 and finishing his seventh NFL season, but he’s barely played at all. He’s 1-3 in four career starts with the Raiders and Broncos, and his last pass attempt was in 2023. He has eight touchdown passes in seven years, matched by eight interceptions.
He’ll have a week to prepare, to get first-team reps and set himself up for a difficult challenge, whether he’s facing Houston and perhaps the NFL’s top defense, or the second-seeded Patriots, with a top-five defense of their own.
2. How to lose a game in 10 seconds
The end of the first half couldn’t have gone much worse for Buffalo. In the final minute, the Bills had managed a 10-10 tie on the road, were getting the ball to open the second half and had the Broncos in a third-and-10 situation. But they gave up a conversion and then, worse, a 29-yard touchdown with 22 seconds left in the half.
They weren’t done, as Josh Allen lost a fumble on an open-field scramble with two seconds left, giving the Broncos a chance to steal another three points on a Wil Lutz field goal as time expired. Instead of 10-10, Buffalo trailed 20-10, digging a hole to make things harder in the second half under already difficult circumstances.
3. Turnovers nearly impossible to overcome
The Bills beat the Jaguars last week in part because they avoided turnovers against a defense that was among the NFL’s best at forcing takeaways.
No such luck on Saturday.
The Bills had five turnovers, including four by Allen, all the more incredible considering that the Broncos forced a total of 14 takeaways in the entire regular season. Only three NFL teams forced fewer.
That put Buffalo at minus-4 in takeaway margin, a nearly insurmountable statistic in the NFL playoffs. Entering Saturday, teams that were minus-3 or worse were 1-15 in playoff games in the past decade, the lone exception being the Jaguars’ 31-30 win over the Chargers in the 2022 playoffs.
It’s even crazier for road teams in the playoffs. All time, road teams were 1-85 when minus-3 or worse, the lone win coming from the Oakland Raiders in a 37-31 overtime win over the Colts on Christmas Eve 1977.
4. Joe Brady helped his chances at becoming a head coach
While dozens of out-of-work and out-of-the-playoffs coaches are busy interviewing for openings, Bills offensive coordinator Joe Brady helped his own cause with Saturday’s offensive showing.
It’s easy to say you could coach well if Josh Allen was your quarterback, but there was more than that to the Buffalo offense on the road Saturday. Denver came in with the NFL’s No. 2 run defense, giving up just 91 yards per game, and the Bills ran James Cook with confidence. The NFL’s leading rusher rumbled for 117 yards on 24 carries, and adding in Allen’s carries, they were over 180 yards as a team.
The chess match between Brady’s offense and Vance Joseph’s vaunted Broncos defense was something to see Saturday, and for Buffalo to nearly overcome its turnover issues and find a way to score consistently is a testament to Brady and his playcalling.
5. Denver could have used J.K. Dobbins here
This game is seen as a duel of quarterbacks, but Buffalo had such a strong run complement with Cook moving the chains, and Denver didn’t have that.
With veteran back J.K. Dobbins sidelined with a foot injury, the Broncos didn’t have any consistent running game. Nix was their leading rusher with 29 yards, with Jaleel McLaughlin and RJ Harvey combining for just 41 yards on 10 carries.
That could be a real problem next week for Denver, especially with Nix out.
Greg Auman is an NFL Reporter for FOX Sports. He previously spent a decade covering the Buccaneers for the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.
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