ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Déjà vu struck at the right time on Saturday for the Buffalo Bills, who didn't "escape" the first round of the playoffs as much as just kind of refresh their memories. After you spend weeks blowing out everybody, sometimes you forget that it isn't always that easy. The Indianapolis Colts did the Bills the favor of reminding them without beating them, and that could be bad news for the rest of the AFC playoff field.
See, the Bills have lost just one of their past 11 games, and the one was on the miracle, game-ending "Hail Murray" catch by DeAndre Hopkins at the Arizona Cardinals in Week 10. Teams learn lessons from losses, and before Saturday's wild-card playoff game, I asked Bills tackle Dion Dawkins what his team had learned from that defeat.
"That not every game has to be close," Dawkins said. "We can keep our foot on the gas pedal and keep going. We felt like, if we'd have just done a couple of things better in that game, there wouldn't have been an option for a last-second Hail Mary."
The Bills lived that mantra: Not every game has to be close. Over their final six games of the regular season, they won every game by an average of 19.8 points. Week after week, they kept scoring and kept opponents from thinking they had a chance.
So when Philip Rivers and the Colts lined up at the Buffalo 47-yard line, trailing by three points with four seconds to go on Saturday, Bills safety Micah Hyde planted his heels on the goal line and had one thought:
"No way this happens again."
Hyde got a running start at Rivers' Hail Mary attempt, leapt in the air and swatted the ball to the ground with two hands. Game over. Bills advance, 27-24.
"The DB in me wanted to catch it and run and get some yards," Hyde said. "But we've stressed since the AZ game just knocking it down."
Yeah, right call there. The lessons of Arizona, obscured by the deluge of routs and blowouts the Bills had delivered since, bubbled up when they needed it. Again, Saturday's ending didn't qualify as an escape for Buffalo, because the Colts were highly unlikely to complete that pass. But the Colts had plenty of chances to make this game theirs, and Buffalo weathered every one.
"This is the playoffs. This is what it's going to be, and it's going to come down to the wire every time," Bills wide receiver Cole Beasley said. "We're going to try to blow people out, because that's what we do, but it's not going to be like that every time."
How hard were the Colts kicking themselves after this one? They had 472 yards, no turnovers, just two penalties and the game's only two sacks. They held the ball for 34:17 of the game's 60 minutes. They were 9-for-17 converting third downs, while Buffalo -- which converted a league-best 49.7% of its third downs in the regular season -- was 2-for-9.
The Colts had first-and-goal from the 4-yard line with a 10-7 lead and 3:15 to go in the first half, and not only did they fail to score, they gave up a 96-yard touchdown drive in the final 1:46 before halftime. Indianapolis' first drive of the second half covered 60 yards in 14 plays and took 7:33 off the clock, and at the end of it, the Colts missed a 33-yard field goal. They got a monumental break in the game's final minute when Indianapolis wideout Zach Pascal appeared to fumble the ball after a 17-yard catch on fourth-and-10, but the replay review failed to overturn the call that he was down before he fumbled. That kept the final drive alive and gave Indy that chance at the Hail Mary.
The Colts had a ton of chances to win this game, and the Bills know it.
"We didn't play our best game of the year, and that's in part because the Colts are a really good team," Bills coach Sean McDermott said. "They gave us fits today."
But what the Colts didn't do was win the game, and that fact obviously isn't lost on the Bills, either.
Buffalo won't know until Sunday night who its next opponent will be. But as the AFC's No. 2 seed, the Bills know they get at least one more home game. And unless New York state officials tell them they can't, the Bills expect they'll be able to have 6,700 or so fans in the stands for the second week in a row as they continue the most fun football season western New York has had in a quarter of a century.
Buffalo has won games all kinds of different ways this season. Bleeding the clock with the run game late. Dazzling throws and catches by Josh Allen and Stefon Diggs. The Bills beat the New York Jets 18-10 in a game in which they scored only field goals and no touchdowns. Buffalo scored 56 points in Week 17 against a Miami Dolphins team that needed to win to get into the playoffs.
The Bills are flat-out dangerous, no matter how close they came to losing on Saturday. The Colts could be sitting there in a couple of weeks watching the Super Bowl and thinking to themselves, "We should have beaten those guys." If Buffalo just played its stinker and got away with it, the rest of the AFC playoff field might suffer the consequences.
"Everybody's happy but more so hungry, and we think we can play better football," Diggs said. "So, not thinking about too much right now other than trying to be better."
It's a goal that could help the Bills reach their ultimate goal -- the one where they're wiping red-and-blue confetti out of their eyes in Tampa, Florida, at Super Bowl LV four weeks from now. Because for the past couple of months, no team has been better than the Bills.