Josh Allen's tush pushers carry Bills to playoff win: 'Closest-to-God experience'
O'Cyrus Torrence picked up his quarterback and took off.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Goosebumps appeared on Spencer Brown’s neck, and the hair rose on his arms as he replayed the moment in his mind when, with victory in the balance, the Buffalo Bills chose violence.
“I’ve been a part of big games and big moments,” Brown said, “and it’s just a surreal, euphoric, closest-to-God experience you can have out there.”
The Jacksonville Jaguars led by four points with 70 seconds left Sunday in EverBank Stadium. The Bills were 11 yards away from the end zone, but it was fourth down, and they still needed a yard to keep their season alive. They lined up in tight formation, a wall of hulking humanity, for Josh Allen to run a quarterback sneak commonly called the tush push.
Allen, banged up from a long, bruising campaign, had been injured three different ways in the game. His 10 teammates got into their stances and braced for critical impact.
“Your heart starts pounding,” Bills fullback Reggie Gilliam said. “You just know ‘This is going to be an ass-kicking.’ It goes one way or another. It can’t be a stalemate.
“It’s carnage. That first surge is going to be met with a wall. It’s the second surge where you find out who’s the tougher team.”
Allen took the direct snap from Connor McGovern and plowed forth. He got through the initial wall for the first down, but the Jaguars couldn’t put him on the grass.
Then came the second surge.
Next thing Allen knew, his feet were off the ground. Right guard O’Cyrus Torrence had picked him up like a toddler and chugged toward the goal line. Two Jaguars defenders went for a ride. Gilliam’s main job is to push Allen from behind, but with the franchise quarterback enveloped in the leviathan’s arms, Gilliam shoved Torrence instead. Tight end Dawson Knox joined the schmozzle that was slowing down but just wouldn’t stop.
“You don’t really know what’s going on,” Allen said. “My feet are kind of off the ground, and you really can’t do anything. In that moment, I’m just holding on to the football as tight as I can.”
Brown at the snap ended up almost on his knees in the backfield with tailback James Cook the lone player behind him, but the right tackle didn’t go down. He sprinted to their aid, bowling Allen, Knox, Gilliam and a couple of helpless Jaguars into the end zone for what was called the winning touchdown.
Replay reversed the call, putting the ball on the 1-yard line, but the damage had been done. Allen scored the winning touchdown one play later to defeat the NFL’s hottest team 27-24 and advance to the divisional playoff round next weekend.
“The touchdown was the second-best part of that drive, but they just let us in,” Brown said. “I think Cybo, picking Josh up and walking him like a grown-ass adult for 10 yards and then the party arrives to take him over the top, was the play.
“I broke into a smile during the play when I saw Cybo just walking him. I yelled ‘Let’s f—— go!’”

Josh Allen (17) came into the game with one injury and racked up several more before the day was over. (Mike Carlson / Getty Images)
Buffalo won its first road playoff game in 33 years thanks to a play coach Sean McDermott doesn’t particularly like. McDermott, a member of the NFL’s competition committee, has explained his preference to eliminate the tush push for safety and officiating reasons.
The aesthetic also leaves many football fans cold, but it makes the Bills’ offensive linemen drool.
“You’re fighting with your boys,” Brown said. “Legit clawing and fighting for one yard, it brings a team together.”
Buffalo also wants the ball in Allen’s hands, and as much as the Bills also want him upright and healthy, there might’ve been no tomorrow. Jacksonville led three times, twice in the fourth quarter. Trevor Lawrence spotted running back Travis Etienne for a 14-yard touchdown reception to go ahead 24-20 with 4:03 remaining.
Allen is no stranger to game-winning drives, but he was already recovering from a foot injury. He got pulverized some more in Jacksonville.
“You’re going to have to kill him to take him off the field,” McGovern said.
In the first quarter, Allen was checked for a concussion after Jacksonville defensive ends Travon Walker and Josh Hines-Allen landed on his head at the end of a run.
Allen then hurt his throwing hand in the second quarter. His follow-through on a pass whapped the back of Torrence’s helmet. The ball reached Keon Coleman perfectly fine for a 36-yard catch-and-run to the Jaguars’ 8-yard line, though. Three plays later, Allen scored on a 2-yard, non-tush push run, but while being stood up on the goal line, Allen’s left knee buckled backward. He went down in a heap.
“I actually saw both clips, and I don’t know how,” Brown said of Allen emerging nonchalantly from the blue medical tent twice in the first half. “I saw Travon Walker landed right on his face. I thought he broke his jaw. And then, on the quarterback run, I was going down, and I caught a glimpse, and his whole knee was hyperextended.
“I watched both of those, and him walking out there without a limp and running bootlegs and all this stuff, he’s a guy you want to play with.”
The reigning MVP’s importance was underscored by Jacksonville effectively mitigating Cook, the NFL’s rushing champ. Cook took 15 carries for 46 yards. No other Bills ran except for him and Allen. Third-down back Ty Johnson was sidelined by an ankle injury.
Allen completed 28 of his 35 passes for 273 yards and a touchdown to tight end Dalton Kincaid in the fourth quarter. The winning, tush-push sequence was set up by a 36-yard strike to Brandin Cooks, who had three receptions for 58 yards. Khalil Shakir had the busiest game of his career, catching all 12 targets for 82 yards.
Thankfully for Buffalo, Allen was sacked just once and hit only two other times while throwing.
He endured enough abuse in other ways.
“It trickles down from him in terms of the team’s toughness,” McDermott said. “When your quarterback’s that type of warrior, that type of competitor, from a leadership standpoint, it just goes through the whole team.”
It trickles — like blood from a maniacal prizefighter’s mouth.
The Bills seem to like the taste.