The Philadelphia Eagles narrowly edged the Buffalo Bills on Sunday, 23-20, to improve their chances at the postseason and all but crush Buffalo's. A 41-yard pass play to tight end Zach Ertz set the Eagles up for a field goal that gave them a lead with less than four minutes remaining, and the Bills weren't able to respond. But Buffalo contends that the Eagles never should have been able to get in field goal position in the first place and benefited from an illegal pick play.
Bills contend illegal pick play set up Eagles for game-winning field goal
Eagles wide receiver Josh Huff freed up a huge play for Zach Ertz when he collided with Bills safety Corey Graham.
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While Rex Ryan tried to stay diplomatic about the performance of the officials and refused to talk about the play during his press conference on Monday, after the game he said he thought the play looked illegal.
“You always have your vantage point,” Ryan said. “Our vantage point on the sideline looked like the guys clearly picked our guy, but obviously we weren’t there on the sideline where it happened. They bring one guy in and all he does is block. You’re always going to have calls you disagree with.”
On the play in question, Eagles wide receiver Josh Huff collided with Bills safety Corey Graham freeing up Ertz to make the catch and begin running up the sideline.
While Ryan wouldn't explicitly say that the officials made the incorrect call, Bills defensive coordinator Dennis Thurman was seen telling officials they are a "disgrace to the league." Running back Boobie Dixon also didn't have much problem saying the play was called incorrectly, via Matthew Fairburn of Syracuse.com:
“C’mon, man,” Bills running back Boobie Dixon said. “We all know what’s going on. You never see players run into each other like that on the field. That just don’t accidentally happen, but it’s cool. It sucks we got outplayed.”
Ertz said after the game that it was the collision that freed him up, but didn't say that it was an illegal collision. At his press conference on Monday, Chip Kelly said that Huff intended to run a slant route and was Sam Bradford's first option, but contact with Leodis McKelvin diverted him into the contact with Graham and Bradford threw to Ertz in the flat instead.
The Bills outgained the Eagles 412 yards to 348 and also dominated the time of possession by more than 10 minutes. However, Buffalo was called for 15 penalties compared with just five for the Eagles, which Ryan said was ultimately the reason for the loss.
After dropping the game, the Bills are two games behind the Kansas City Chiefs, New York Jets and Pittsburgh Steelers for the two wild card spots in the AFC, making the postseason a long shot. The Philadelphia Eagles improved to 6-7 and stayed in a tie with Washington for the NFC East lead.
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