There are a lot of us who remember where we were on the evening of Jan. 23, and that includes Von Miller. He just so happened to be on a cross-country flight from Tampa back to Los Angeles, after he and the Rams scored a thrilling 30–27 win over the defending champion Buccaneers to advance to the NFC title game.
Like everyone else, he was following a game that would, somehow, top the one he had just finished.
“I saw the beginning of it,” Miller said, from a raucous visitors’ locker room at Arrowhead Stadium on Sunday night. “It looked like they had won. And when we landed, they’d lost.”
The feed for Bills-Chiefs, Miller explained to me, cut out on the plane, and so he missed the sequence of nonstop haymakers Josh Allen and Patrick Mahomes threw at each other at the end of the AFC divisional playoff game. He didn’t see Allen’s apparent dagger touchdown throw to Gabriel Davis, Kansas City’s 13-second answer, and then Mahomes and his offense slicing through a gassed Buffalo defense to notch the knockout blow in overtime.
Upon landing at LAX, Miller got the final score. Little did he know, at the time, that he’d have the weight of avenging it on his shoulders nine months later.
Though that’s really not how Miller saw Sunday at all; in his view, that epic loss was never his cross to bear.
“I wasn’t here, man. Ignorance is bliss,” he says, laughing. “I can only tell you about what we were doing this week. We came into this game, we had peace and we took it at one play at a time. We knew it was gonna be a 60-minute fight—if not a 70-minute fight—and we just prepared for whatever.”
‘Whatever,’ in this case, was a game that had every bit the feel of the heavyweight title fight last January’s game was, with every snap feeling meaningful for everyone watching. ‘Whatever,’ on Sunday, was the two young quarterbacks again showing why the football-watching world spent the last nine months talking about their winter gunfight and what the encore might hold. Most of all, though, ‘whatever’ was this one ending in a different way.
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And it was more than just a different result that the Bills got, a 24–20 win over the Chiefs at Arrowhead. It was also how this one ended—with, of all things, a defensive stand fueled by a guy brought to Buffalo to make sure history didn’t repeat itself.
When the Bills needed a stop, down three with fewer than seven minutes left in the game, Miller gave them a sack of Patrick Mahomes. When the Bills needed to close Kansas City out, it was Miller flushing Mahomes from the pocket and forcing a rushed throw that was picked off by fifth-year corner Taron Johnson. When the offense needed the defense, this time—unlike last year—the defense answered the bell. Which is why Miller is where he is now in the first place.
He’s here to be the final piece for a champion, as he was in L.A. last year. And while no trophies were raised last night, the most hyped game of the regular season brought on a vivid illustration of how he fits into the complicated puzzle of bringing a title to Buffalo.
We’re officially one-third of the way through the NFL year (no more quarter poles in a 17-game, 18-week season!), and Week 6 brought no shortage of story lines for us to dig through. We’ll cover all of those in this week’s MMQB …
• In Three Deep, we’ll look at the two reborn New York teams and the perplexing Colts.
• In Ten Takeaways, we’ll get to the Bengals’ Bayou heroes, the intriguing Falcons and more.
• In Six from Saturday, we’ll look at the draft stock of Hendon Hooker, the face of Tennessee’s resurgence.
But we’re starting where the spotlight was this weekend, in Kansas City.
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There were lots of big moments Sunday at Arrowhead. Allen was in on plenty of them, and we’re going to get to those, I promise.
But without the two plays that Miller gives the Bills, there’s a good chance we’re having a different conversation this morning. And that he gave them those plays really brings to life the approach Buffalo is taking with the future Hall of Famer, and why they signed him to a deal that ties the team to him at $52.5 million over the next three years, even though he’s 33 years old.
All of it is part and parcel to what sold Miller on the Bills in the first place, as he considered his options after last year’s Super Bowl run with the Rams. His interest in Buffalo was largely based on Allen’s presence and the Bills’ place as a contender. In time, though, it got a whole lot deeper than just that.
“It was nothing on the outside,” Miller says. “You get to love Buffalo once you get here, but from not being here, from the outside looking in, it was just all football, man. [GM] Brandon Beane, I didn’t feel like he was selling me a dream. I felt like he was telling me the truth. Coach [Sean] McDermott, he sat down and looked me in my eye, and I felt like he was telling me the truth, along with Coach [Eric] Washington and Coach [Leslie] Frazier.
“I didn’t feel like it was a recruiting pitch. I felt like this was genuinely where I needed to be, and it just feels good to make a decision and to have success like this.”
The truth was centered on a plan to get the most out of Miller. With promising, highly drafted young edge rushers Greg Rousseau, Boogie Basham and A.J. Epenesa on board, the Bills could afford to spell Miller plenty. The goal was not necessarily to make him earn his keep with every snap, but more so to make every snap he plays really count.
“They do a great job of keeping me fresh,” Miller says. “I didn’t get vet days until I went to L.A. last year, so to come here and get vet days and to barely practice during the week and just focus on rehab and recovery, getting ready for the game, they do a great job of taking care of me. And on game day, I’m fresh and ready to go. I don’t feel like they’re trying to use me up here. They want to get the best out of me. Even during the game, they limit my snaps.
“So whenever you’re out there, you got a lot of stamina. You’re not fatigued, because they do a great job of keeping you fresh during the week and in the game.”
And the Bills have been diligent in sticking to the more-is-less approach, even if the outsized financial investment would suggest the team would want a guy like Miller out there more than he has been.
Indeed, in Denver, the mileage really never stopped piling up. In 2018, the final season of his 20s, Miller played 78% of the Broncos’ defensive snaps. In ’19, after he turned 30, he played 84%. Injury cost him the ’20 season, and he came back last year to play 76% of the snaps for Denver through the season’s first seven games, then 79% of the Rams’ defensive snaps over their final eight games.
This year, as promised, has been a different story altogether. Miller was at 56% play-time going into Sunday’s game, only going more than 62% once (in the sauna game, a loss in Miami, a game in which the Bills’ defense was on the field for only 43 snaps).
So if it’s looked, at points, like Miller is rushing like he was shot out of a cannon, that very well might be why. Buffalo, for its part, sold Miller on this approach in large part because it didn’t have a need to force him out there as a full-time player. The upshot of the plan was on clear display when it mattered most against the Chiefs.
Miller had already played plenty well when Chris Jones tracked down, and (some would say illegally) tripped Allen to force a Bills punt with 7:51 left. Leading 20–17 game, Kansas City was firmly in position to close out its newfound rival.
But Miller wasn’t brought to Buffalo to merely show well. He was brought to Buffalo to show up in moments like these. After Mahomes checked the ball down to Travis Kelce for three yards on first down, and Jerick McKinnon ground out a yard on second down, third-and-6 brought the chance to do just that—and Miller responded emphatically, turnstiling Chiefs right tackle Andrew Wylie to get Mahomes, forcing the Chiefs’ offense off the field.
The play was a result of, most certainly, Miller’s legendary get-off. But it also incorporated his know-how, polish and experience as a rusher.
“He’d been reaching and grabbing me on the inside of my shoulder pads, so I knew he was gonna try to reach in and grab,” Miller says. “And my mind, it felt like, since he was gonna reach and grab, I could dip and do the ghost move around the corner. It worked, because he’s trying to reach and grab. If he would’ve punched, maybe I would’ve approached that differently. But I just felt like he was just trying to reach and grab, so I just went all speed.”
The Chiefs punted, and from there the Bills’ offense (again, we’ll get to that) wound up covering 76 yards in 12 plays to stake Miller and the defense to a 24–20 lead with a little more than a minute left. That set up Miller for another one of those moments he came to Buffalo for.
After an aborted first snap of Kansas City’s drive—a hurried Mahomes misfire to Mecole Hardman was negated by a defensive holding call that gave the Chiefs first-and-10 at their own 30—that moment came for Miller and the whole defense.
Miller lauds, first, the call from Bills defensive coordinator Frazier, who sent just three rushers, but had playmaking linebacker Matt Milano, another star of the afternoon, spying Mahomes at the snap. At that point, Miller saw room to take advantage of Wylie inside, and beat him so suddenly that his help, right guard Trey Smith, couldn’t get over to him fast enough.
“I had a spot on the outside and I just had to get inside,” Miller says. “So I kinda slow-played it at the beginning and just fell inside. … It played out perfectly. Coach Frazier called it out perfectly.”
Miller flushed Mahomes to the quarterback’s right. When he broke the pocket, Milano stepped on the gas and got close enough to force Mahomes to drop his arm slot, which took just enough off the location and velocity of the ball to allow for Johnson to break in front of Chiefs rookie receiver Skyy Moore to pick it off, finishing the Chiefs.
“He’s incredible, man,” Miller says of Johnson. “It wasn’t a surprise, because he makes plays all the time like that in practice and games. He just came out of nowhere. He was prepared for his moment, whenever his moment presented itself.
“And not only him, Kaiir Elam—he’s been doing everything he could possibly do too, man. To have the interception on the first drive [against] the Chiefs, man, and give us the ball back without them getting a field goal, that was a huge play for a rookie as well . . . Great team defense.”
And that’s part of the idea here, too. It’s not just having Miller in Buffalo to make these plays. It’s having him rub off on other guys, the way he did with Aaron Donald and the Rams.
Allen has already come a long way. There was the run to the AFC title game in 2020. Surviving a rough stretch last year, with the wild wind game against the Patriots at the center of that. Stepping up as a leader at halftime in Tampa Bay, with the team getting blown out, then leading a furious comeback. And everything that happened in Kansas City, too.
So maybe he needs what Miller brings from an intangibles standpoint less so than some of the younger Bills do. Still, having the confidence of a legendary defensive star can’t hurt, and Allen most certainly has that from his new teammate.
“Josh is a creature,” Miller says, glowingly. “He’s a creature, man. He’s a huge reason why I came here.”
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It took a bit on Sunday, but we got to see that as part of this one, too. Really, it started with a third-and-13 from the Bills’ 1, with Buffalo down 7–3 and playing uneven on offense. There was 1:18 left in the half, and plenty of coaches would play it safe in that spot. McDermott went the other way with it, empowering Allen and play-caller Ken Dorsey to squeeze what they could out of the spot.
Allen paid the bet off with an 18-yard strike down the middle of the field to another burgeoning Buffalo star, Gabe Davis—and from there, it was on. Three yards to Dawson Knox, 30 to Stefon Diggs down the left side of the field, 14 to rookie Khalil Shakir. And then, a 34-yard dime of a go ball down the right sideline to Davis for a touchdown.
The Bills had covered 99 yards in five plays, in less than a minute, and the offense was untracked. And a similarly impressive drive came between Miller’s big plays, covering 76 yards on 12 plays, and included three strikes to Diggs, a 16-yard run from Allen himself during which Allen (metaphorically) broke corner L’Jarius Sneed’s ankles, then full-on hurdled safety Justin Reid, and a 14-yard bullet to Knox on a comeback for the touchdown.
Asked which play from Allen was his favorite after the game, Miller quickly answers, “I liked the hurdle at the end of the game. Yeah, the hurdle at the end of the game for sure.”
And what that play (and the rest of them) really showed, again, is that all that we’ve been seeing from Allen is very real, and here to stay, if anyone is still doubting it at all. But the other part of it is pretty important, too: He now has more help than he ever has, if you look at all the guys who were part of his big night.
That, of course, goes for the loaded-for-bear offense. It goes for the defense, too. Which is why, from Miller’s view, the fact that his unit finished what Allen set up for them was so important. There was no 13 seconds this time around. And if there was any chance the ghosts of that game would emerge, it was when the defense allowed the Chiefs to set up a 62-yard field goal right before the half with, yup, just 12 seconds of possession.
From that point forward, thanks to Miller and the rest of the guys on that side of the ball, Mahomes and the Chiefs would score just 10 points.
“It means everything,” Miller says. “To go deep into the playoffs and win a Super Bowl, you need a great quarterback, you need great offense and you need solid defense, man. We’re coming together right at the right time.”
Asked what’s next for the Bills, Miller could’ve delivered a one-game-at-a-time cliché. He didn’t.
“We’re gonna celebrate tonight. We’re gonna make the plane do backflips,” he says with a laugh. “Then, we’re gonna debrief and watch film tomorrow and get ready for this bye week. We got a tough Green Bay Packers team, whenever we get back.”
And here’s the interesting part: Miller claimed right after the game that even if the afternoon had gone the other way Sunday, he’d have been O.K. He didn’t want to lose, of course. But he’s been in enough big games, as a Bronco, a Ram and now a Bill, to know how to manage himself through the peaks and valleys of an NFL season.
His agreement with himself, then, is to do all he can every week to play well and win, and find enough satisfaction in that, to where the scoreboard doesn’t ruin it for him. His message to his team during the last week was similar—“Just do it all week, and you’ll have success on game day. So when we go out there, whether we win or we don’t, we’re at peace because we know we did everything that we can. Everything else is up to the football gods.”
Miller, ultimately, thought the Bills found that peace.
“It was nice. Nobody was tensed up,” he says. “We’d been here before several times, for big games like this. Year 12, man, I’ve just been in this moment before—Super Bowls, the big playoff games. I’m at peace in games like this. I do everything I possibly can do during the week to have success from a rehab standpoint, from a mental standpoint, from a sleep standpoint. I do everything that I can do to have success.
“And whenever I come into the game, I’m at peace.”
Safe to say the Bills are, too. With their investment in Miller. With their performance Sunday. And with where it looks like they’re headed over the next four months.
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