The Broncos are headed to the AFC Championship Game after a back-to-back win over the Bills on Saturday, a Wil Lutz field goal in Denver’s second overtime game.
But before the Broncos drove down the field to knock Buffalo out of the postseason, they had a controversial turnover.
On 3rd-and-11 from the Bills’ 36-yard line, Josh Allen lofted a deep ball downfield to Brandin Cooks. The veteran wide receiver, shadowed by cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian, appeared to have the pass when he fell to the ground near Denver’s 20-yard line. But after Cooks and McMillian rolled their hands on the ball, a Broncos defender came forward with the ball. The officials ruled that McMillian picked up a fumble and Denver would have the ball at its own 20-yard line with 7:46 left in overtime.
As Denver walked to the line of scrimmage, ready to take over and start the next drive, Bills coach Sean McDermott called a timeout and urged the officials to take more time to review the play.
“Obviously, I don’t have the power to score, right? McDermott told reporters after the game. “We’re in overtime, so the flag is not an option to throw it down. So I called a timeout to try to slow the process down because it seemed like the process wasn’t slowing down. There was a fairly rapid development of the review, if there was a review, and so I called a timeout to try to slow it down.
“I think it would be logical and reasonable that the ref would go over and want to go and check it out. Just to make sure everybody from here on the field to there is on the same page. It’s too big a play, in my opinion, too big a play in a play that decided the game, possibly too, for it not even to slow it down, which I wasn’t going to do, but I had to do it to make sure I understood what was going on and that they looked at it.”