Bills' shot at happiness prevents first Christmas fairytale

Drama 28 seconds before the end

2023 December 24 . 10:10 AM

2 min read

Bills quarterback Josh Allen (left) kept his team on track..aussiedlerbote.de

Bills' shot at happiness prevents first Christmas fairytale

Just seconds before the end of the game against the Los Angeles Chargers, the Buffalo Bills secure an important success in the NFL - and prevent a real Christmas miracle. Bills quarterback Josh Allen sets an NFL record. The Steelers are closing in on the Bengals.

In the USA, they like to talk about the "Christmas miracle". This year, the first one almost happened just before Christmas Eve, as the Buffalo Bills, who are still hoping to win their AFC East, trailed for a long time against the already eliminated Los Angeles Chargers. The team from California had fired coach Brandon Staley in frustration nine days ago due to a miserable performance this season and installed Giff Smith as interim coach: An extremely surprising move, as the 55-year-old had never coached an NFL team before, not even as an offensive or defensive coach, but most recently only the outside linebackers.

However, the Bills have now prevented Smith and the Chargers' Christmas fairytale and have recorded an important victory in the race for a play-off spot in the NFL despite a poor performance. On Saturday (local time), the team led by quarterback Josh Allen won narrowly 24-22 (14-10) at the Chargers after many mistakes and claimed their ninth win in their 15th game of the season. The Bills want to reach the finals of the American Football League for the fifth season in a row.

Allen also impressed on the way there. The 27-year-old playmaker threw a 57-yard touchdown pass to Gabe Davis and ran into the end zone twice himself. Allen has scored a total of 40 touchdowns this season - the first player in NFL history to do so in four consecutive seasons.

Steelers surprise Bengals

Things got dramatic shortly before the end - and it was Buffalo's kicker Tyler Bass and not Josh Allen who became the match winner. With 28 seconds left in the game, Bass kicked a 29-yard field goal to make the final score 24:22. Before that, Chargers kicker Cameron Dicker had made three of his five field goals in the fourth quarter to bring Los Angeles back into the game.

The Pittsburgh Steelers also kept their minimal playoff chances alive with a 34-11 (24-0) home win over the Cincinnati Bengals to draw level with the Bengals in the AFC North with a record of eight wins and seven losses.

Mason Rudolph, actually only the Steelers' third quarterback behind the injured Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky, started an NFL game for the first time in more than two years and impressed with two touchdown passes and a total of 290 yards thrown.