Technically, the on-field call was a shortened version of a play called Mesh Follow or Mesh Traffic. This iteration featured a wide receiver, Khalil Shakir, lined up as a running back and a second running back flying into the flat. There were wide receivers and tight ends bunched up at the line of scrimmage, with one wide receiver trailing to the left to follow Shakir to a sideline, running a similar route, and two wide receivers from the right sprinting in the opposite direction.

The call for Josh Allen’s game-winning 26-yard touchdown run was brilliant because, for me, it noted the one thing that opponents of the Kansas City Chiefs failed to realize time and time again. They have one of the smartest defenses in the world and are one of the best tackle-in-space teams in the NFL. All the legal traffic created by these conflicting routes peeled off valuable Chiefs defenders one after another, pulling them into assignments that took their eyes off the quarterback. It prevented any of them from reading the play, reacting and making a move on the ball. Allen took home the fourth-and-2 play, giving the Buffalo Bills a 30-21 lead. That was the final score.

Leo Chenal inherited Dawson Knox. Justin Reid inherited Shakir. Drue Tranquill chased Amari Cooper. Nick Bolton was attracted to Mack Hollins, who was split wide early on. All of the Chiefs defensemen are so good and fundamentally sound that they didn’t slip up or give Allen clear windows into which to throw a football.

The problem, of course, is that controlling all this traffic mobilized Kansas City’s defenders and created a plot of land so large that a $3,000-a-month condominium complex could be built on it. And by the time all the Kansas City defenders turned around and realized the quarterback had escaped the pocket, they had to decide how willing they were to perform the on-field equivalent of diving for a running horse.

It is of course larger than Mesh Flow. This is about Bills coach Sean McDermott making the wholesale decision not to bow down to Patrick Mahomes and melt into human pudding like almost everyone else has done (including McDermott, like himself) when choosing between guaranteed points and taking it all out of hand get from Mahomes. . After a 10-play, 83-yard drive that took 6:03 and was capped by another great call that carved open space in Kansas City’s secondary, McDermott was on the Kansas City 26-yard line with about 2:30 left to play. When the Chiefs called their first timeout, they seemed to be trying to lure McDermott into some kind of baseless conservatism.

Kansas City thrives when opponents are in this nerve-wracking position of endless calculations. Time and distance. He tries to remember all the ways Andy Reid can think of something that will cause a problem, but he knows full well that his memory goes back to the 1939 Cotton Bowl. Praying that his players won’t lay an errant hand on a wide receiver from the Chiefs fearing the penalty flag being drawn.

And so McDermott simply chose not to deal with it at all.

We tend to make bigger deals than necessary at special times in an NFL season. And while the Bills can never completely outlast Kansas City until they blow past the Chiefs en route to a Super Bowl victory, Sunday’s victory was one in which a sometimes embattled head coach can show his players that you can develop. a coolness under pressure. Where an offensive coordinator can find the right play call, which builds confidence in the next one. In which an MVP candidate can start running away with the damn thing, literally and figuratively (not to mention some of the cooler side moments during the game-closing touchdown run, like OT Dion Dawkins coming right back out of the injury tent and bodying Mike Danna, or O’Cyrus Torrence single-handedly handling the game-ruining Chris Jones).

So far, Buffalo’s season has been defined in part by the ineptitude elsewhere in the AFC East. The New York Jets owner and team have found new ways to cheapen the franchise. The Miami Dolphins have been ravaged by injuries and have been unable to land a backup quarterback for their injury-plagued starter. But just like Buffalo’s 47-17 punishment of the New England Patriots in the wild-card round after the 2021 season seemed to signal the start of something big, and so did Sunday’s win that broke Kansas City’s undefeated season. We learned about the outer limits of Kansas City’s ability to craft victories from cloth. We also learned about the outer limits of Buffalo’s potential this season, as they sit at 9-2.

This is what matters. McDermott made the call to unlock that potential rather than the call to turn into a human pretzel and pray. The Bills won’t forget it and for once the Chiefs will try not to remember what it feels like.