Bills come due

 Three things you can take away from yesterday's NFL divisional playoff games, two of them from the Book of Mr. Obvious and the other from the Book of NFL Rules, which seems occasionally as if it were written in ancient Sumerian:

1. The Seattle Seahawks do not need Sam Darnold to be Sammy Baugh for them to roll whoever gets in their way. He could be Sammy Davis Jr. for all it matters.

2. The Buffalo Bills always come due in the playoffs, by which I mean sooner or later Josh Allen turns into a pumpkin while God and the Book of NFL Rules laugh.

And, speaking of "2" ...

3. The greatest philosophical mystery of our times, at least this morning, is either what constitutes a catch or what constitutes an interception. Because the Book of NFL Rules seems profoundly unclear on that.

 I say this not out of any particular fondness for the Buffalo Bills, who sabotaged themselves enough to guarantee their traditional playoff flameout. This time it was 33-30 in overtime to the AFC's top seed -- aka the Denver Broncos, who got to celebrate for about five minutes before learning their gritty young quarterback Bo Nix broke his ankle and will not be playing in the AFC championship next week.

Of course, Josh Allen will not be playing either, mainly on account of Josh Allen. He coughed up the football four times yesterday, most ruinously in the dying seconds of the first half. That's when he took off running when he should have taken a knee, and the football, which he'd secured the way Pete Hegseth secures classified info, flew out of his hand and was recovered by the Broncos.

A few moments later, the Broncos cashed the gift field goal and had the three points that ultimately decided the outcome. Without it, they go to halftime up 17-10 instead of 20-10, and the Bills' field goal to end the second half wins the game 30-27 instead of merely forcing overtime.

Which means the Book of NFL Rules never comes into play.

About halfway through overtime, see, Allen threw a deep ball that Brandin Cooks caught and fell to the ground with, setting up the Bills for a potential game-winning field goal of their own at the Broncos' 20-yard line. But wait!

After Cooks caught the ball and fell to the ground with it, Broncos defensive back Ja'Quan McMillian pried the ball out of Cooks' grasp and began parading around with it. Perhaps he was celebrating the indecipherability of the aforementioned Book, because the officials thumbed through it, declared the play an interception and awarded the football to the Broncos.

"But wasn't Crooks on the ground when he did that?" you might be asking now.

Yes, he was.

"And didn't he have both hands on the football when he hit the ground?" 

Indeed.

"So shouldn't the play have been over before McMillian took the ball away?"

Well ...

You would think so.

But, nah. In the ancient Sumerian, the Book reads, "The ground can't cause a fumble, but it sure as hell can cause an interception." Also, "Let the word go out from the great god Crom that a catch is a catch not when a receiver wraps both hands around the ball and pulls it to his body, but when he 'secures' it or 'completes a football move'. Both are defined by the game officials, who do not read ancient Sumerian and therefore have no idea what they are, either.

"This also applies to pass interference."

Which, of course, was whistled twice on the Broncos' final march to the winning field goal. One might actually have been interference. Or both. Or neither. No one really knows.

In any event, good on the Broncos. And good on either New England or Houston, who won't have to face Bo Nix next week in the AFC championship.

I'm saying it'll be New England. Unless, of course, the ground causes another interception.