The top story Monday is going to be the Ravens. Story one from the Bills divisional round win will likely be the return of Playoff Lamar. You know... the Lamar Jackson that always finds a way to lose. Story two will probably be all the help he got from Ravens teammates. Much of that filed under Andrews, Mark. That doesn't mean the Bills didn't do much to beat the Ravens. Far from it. Buffalo's winning formula just wasn't flashy. First and foremost, the Bills didn't make mistakes. They let Baltimore handle that department for this contest. It's no small skill in the NFL. The Patriots used to be a master at waiting for opponents to beat themselves. The Chiefs currently might the be the NFL's most adept in this category. And those two franchises are cluttered with Vince Lombardi trophies. Staying clean wins a lot of games. Usually, that's the easiest way to get past the flotsam of the NFL. The Jets and Colts and Jaguars. The Bills proved on Sunday it can work in the playoffs, too. This game was also a contest between a team with the third most takeaways and the team with third least giveaways. Fortunately for the Bills, the team with with the third most takeaways won. No doubt the first two turnovers were more Baltimore giving the ball away than the Bills taking it. Jackson and Rashod Bateman got crossed up on a throw that turned into an arm punt to Taylor Rapp. Jackson followed by trying to do too much after a bobbled snap. The likely MVP flat out dropped the ball while changing hands. It turned into a fumble and a short field and a touchdown for the Bills. The third turnover was an all-time great play. At an all-time great moment. The Highmark Stadium crowd was getting pensive. Buffalo's 11-point lead was down to five and Jackson had just completed a throw to Andrews that would have set Baltimore up on the Buffalo side of midfield. Terrel Bernard took care of that with an incredible punch out by reaching across Andrews' body to hammer free the ball. He then covered the loose change to finish the play. I thought when Bernard took over at starting linebacker he had a chance to be another Matt Milano. Their physical profiles were very similar. The question was if Bernard could replicate Milano's playmaking ability. He's had some moments over the last two years. This was a quintessential Milano play. Opportunistic. Game changing. Somehow, finding a way to be around the ball. It's arguably the A-1 reason why the Bills season remains alive. Speaking of Milano, his quick reaction took two points off the board for the Ravens when it looked like they were going to get even in the third quarter. Before that, Dorian Williams got the tackle that triggered a goal line stop in the second quarter after a 41 yard completion to Bateman set Baltimore up at the Buffalo two yard line. That's four more points saved. Jackson might have dropped the ball on his fumble, but Damar Hamlin made sure to press the stress created by a bad snap. Jackson's interception might have been a bad miscommunication, but Rapp still had to make the catch. It was the offense, too. The short field provided by Von Miller's 40 yard jaunt turned into six and not three. Same for the break Buffalo got late in the first half courtesy Tre White's fairly questionable pass interference call. Every team gets breaks. Good teams turn them into touchdowns. Tyler Bass connected on a 51 yard field goal that turned out rather important in a game Buffalo won by two points. A number of ball carriers scratched and clawed for a few extra yards at the end of plays. James Cook, especially. This game was Sean McDermott fantasyland. A Bills win with a variety of players simply doing their 1/11th. There were no stars the Bills needed to lean on. I can only imagine football historians looking back at this game and wondering how on God's Green Earth Buffalo won an NFL quarterfinal with only 147 total yards from Josh Allen. No skill player had more than 67 yards of offense. Khalil Shakir was the only player with more than three receptions. Over and over, the Bills simply did the right thing at the right time. The thing they were supposed to do. They made virtually no mistakes. Allen missed Mack Hollins on the first offensive snap and that was about it. Buffalo had one penalty on a call that most people hated (I was not one of them. I thought the replay everyone saw was not nearly conclusive to determine if Dion Dawkins did or did not hold. The official who made the call had a far better view). That plus three takeaways is how you win a playoff game when you get outgained by 143 yards and allow seven of ten third down conversions. When Buffalo has lost playoff games, it always seemed like the other team got more big plays from their non-quarterbacks. As great as Allen is, when he faces Pat Mahomes or Joe Burrow, that greatness is negated by an equally great QB on the other side. This game was billed as the same thing. The top two MVP candidates head to head. They did end up, more or less, negating each other. Their numbers were just laughably less than expected. Winning plays needed to come from other sources. Bernard made one. Milano made one. The Bills also got a good game from what I think has become the second best weapon on the team. Buffalo's offensive line turned into another pretty stellar performance. For the second straight week, the Bills gave a really good run defense their new season high for rush yards allowed. Allen took one sack for one yard. There were pressures, but they were mostly blitz related. I said last week the Bills offense was going to be very dangerous in this postseason so long as the offensive line played this competently. They came within a couple yards of another 30-point performance. They outplayed another really good offensive line. They remain the best supporting asset for Allen (with Cook a close second). According to Jordan Phillips, the Bills watched a hype video before the game of all the media sources who questioned whether they were big enough to go head to head with the monsters Baltimore had on both lines. It wasn't disrespect. It was fact. The Ravens were significantly heavier than the Bills on the line of scrimmage. Buffalo's run D showed up ready for bear. Henry had three yards on his first four carries. Eventually, Baltimore's size and smarts in the run game wore the Bills down. The Ravens finished with 176 yards rushing. The only team who ran for more against Buffalo this year was... the Ravens back in week four. By the time Baltimore figured out their run issues, Buffalo had already taken control. The margins are incredibly small in the playoffs. That hype video might have buoyed the Bills run D to success on only a couple of drives, but a couple of drives that got the Bills in front early might have been the difference. The Bills weren't perfect. They did get beat. Against a ridiculously talented Ravens offense, that's going to happen. Things like seven of ten on third down are not excusable against any offense, but the Bills did enough. After one week to crow in the face of us media who wondered about the Buffalo third down defense, it's a problem that cropped up again. There were too many egregiously wide open receivers available to Jackson in this game. The secondary has been far too friendly allowing time and space the last few weeks and now it might have to go without Rapp, who left this win with a hip injury. Passes to wide receivers are nearly an endangered species in Buffalo. Keon Coleman had one catch. Mack Hollins had one. Curtis Samuel had two for all of nine yards (but with one pretty good third down conversion). Amari Cooper had one really ugly target. It's fair to wonder why the Bills bothered trading for him. I didn't think Joe Brady had much of a good game. The third down screen to Dawson Knox in the third quarter was a brutal choice. Not only does it take the ball out of Allen's hands as the game creeping back towards tight, Knox is not high on the list of targets you can expect to make five gotta have it yards on a screen pass. I also did not like the misdirection run for Allen on third and goal before the final field goal. Allen was a monster most of the night running the ball. Put some linemen in front of him and let him run some QB power. Don't rely on read-option trickery to clear the way. McDermott's decision to kick that field goal was its own topic of discussion. I would have gone for the TD and the throat. I prefer taking as many chances as possible to get the win. Scoring a touchdown wins the game. It would have finished Baltimore. Even if the Bills failed, there's still a chance to win the game by stopping the ensuing Ravens drive. Kicking a three only makes it more difficult for the Ravens to come back. It's not a finisher. That field goal did prove vital when Andrews later dropped a tying two point conversion. The result was good even if the process might not have been all that optimal. Doesn't mean McDermott's choice was wrong. I do understand that three yards is quite long to risk a fourth down try. Going up by eight does have more impact than a kick to go up seven. The bottom line is that the decision worked. It worked in large part because Baltimore could not keep up with the Bills. They could not execute at Buffalo's level. They could not match mistake free play after play. Andrews drop and Jackson's failure will be the story Monday. Maybe Tuesday. The Bills won't care. Their story continues next Sunday in the AFC Championship. With a fourth playoff shot at the hated Chiefs.