JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Thanks to the intrusive cameras of HBO’s Hard Knocks, we all saw Tre’Davious White last summer at St. John Fisher University, running that out-of-the-way hill on the Pittsford campus.
It was admirable and impressive to watch him grind and push himself to the limit, but at the time, it was fair to question whether all the extra work he was putting in after practice to get himself ready for his mulligan season with the Buffalo Bills was really going to matter given the two serious leg injuries that had derailed his career.
There was some hard evidence from his performance for both the Rams and Ravens in 2024, his one year away from the Bills, that indicated his days, at least as a starter and meaningful member of the defense, were behind him.
But the Bills didn’t think White was done, and most importantly, neither did White, and Sunday afternoon in Jacksonville, there could not have been a more fitting end to Buffalo’s thrilling 27-24 AFC wildcard victory over the Jaguars than White getting his hands on a Trevor Lawrence pass and deflecting it right into the waiting arms of Cole Bishop for the game-saving interception with 54 seconds left to play.
In the same stadium where White, then a rookie in 2017, played in his first postseason game for the Bills and lost to the Jaguars, nearly a decade later the 30-year-old cornerback was one of Buffalo’s best players as he finished with three pass breakups, none bigger than the last.
The Bills had just taken the lead on Josh Allen’s touchdown plunge, and the Jaguars took possession after the kickoff at their own 23 thanks to excellent kickoff coverage by Javon Solomon. Lawrence tried to fit a throw into Jakobi Meyers, but White was right there to get his hand in and Bishop was in the right place at the right time which sent the thousands of Bills fans at EverBank Stadium into an uproar.
“We was in man-to-man, and I was just able to get sticky on the guy (Jakobi Meyers), and I just felt he was leaning on me a little bit, and typically when a receiver does that, they’re about to break,” White explained. “I just trusted in my technique and once I broke, the ball was in the air and I just put my hand out and tipped it.”
With Jacksonville out of timeouts, that effectively ended the game and gave the Bills their first road playoff victory under Sean McDermott, the man who made White the very first player drafted in his tenure at a time before Brandon Beane became general manager.
“When he came back (signed as a free agent in the offseason), he still wasn’t really Tre because he was working through two major injuries, and yet in Tre’s fashion, there’s nobody that works harder, and he’s gotten himself back now to where he’s playing really good football,” McDermott said. “Credit to him and the work that he’s put in and our medical team as well. Just overall, he’s just as good as there is in terms of his determination, his heart, and his resilient nature.”
The White/Bishop play capped a frenetic fourth quarter that saw the Bills and Jaguars combined for four touchdowns that each resulted in a lead change, the last of which came when Josh Allen tush-pushed his way into the end zone with 1:04 remaining to cap a 66-yard game-winning drive.
“It was awesome,” Allen said of White’s play. “A guy that’s been under a lot of scrutiny throughout the last couple years, to get him back in a Bills uniform and making plays for us when we need it the most, that’s Tre.”
Allen was, as usual, heroic, playing through several injuries, but Buffalo’s much-maligned defense, which has been gradually improving as the season has gone on, made several big plays that kept the Jaguars at bay.
Shaq Thompson had an early interception that set up Matt Prater’s first field goal in the first quarter, and Thompson also stopped Lawrence short on a fourth-and-2 play at the Bills’ 9 that took at least three, and maybe seven points off the board.
White had two breakups on a third-quarter Jacksonville possession including one on third down which made the Jaguars settle for a field goal to get within 13-10.
Elsewhere, even without safety Jordan Poyer who left in the second quarter with a hamstring injury, the defense contained Lawrence who entered the game on a heater. He completed just 18 of 30 for 207 yards and while he did have three TDs, he also had two interceptions.
“It means a lot for him to be in that room,” said cornerback Christian Benford of White, who four years earlier was a wide-eyed rookie who benefited greatly from White’s mentorship. “It’s pretty cool, too, that he’s overcome what he’s overcome. Those were two serious injuries. I’m happy for him. I’m so glad that God gave him the grace and the miracle to play at the level that he’s playing at right now.”
Here are some of my observations:
The mother of all tush pushes
Allen took a beating from the hard-hitting Jaguars defense which sent him into the medical tent on two occasions, once with a knee injury that was clearly bothering him in the locker room. He took enough of a pounding that McDermott acknowledged his gimpy status, an indication that Allen is probably going to be hobbled in the divisional round.
“When your quarterback’s that type of warrior, that type of competitor, it’s just, like I said, from a leadership standpoint, it just goes through the whole team,” McDermott said. “We’ve got to get him as healthy as we can, though, for next week, and it’s not something we take lightly.”
Given Allen’s physical status, it was pretty remarkable what he was able to do on the winning drive with the season hanging in the balance. He completed all five of his pass attempts including a massive 36-yarder down the seam to Brandin Cooks that set up the winning touchdown, but also, he converted a third-and-1 with a tush push, then a fourth-and-1 that wound up moving the ball from the 11 to the 1, and finally, a tush push to get the ball across the goal line.
The guy is superhuman, that’s all there is to it. He finished 28 of 35 for 273 yards, ran 11 times for 33 yards, produced three touchdowns and did not commit a turnover.
On the fourth-and-1 play from the 11, Allen made the necessary yard, then kept churning his legs and several offensive linemen kept surging him forward and before you knew it, he was inside the 1. There probably haven’t been too many 10-yard tush pushes since that play came into vogue.
It was actually a good thing that he was finally stopped because it forced the Jaguars to use their final timeout. Allen scored on the next snap, and while it used up only six more seconds, losing that timeout felt big at the time, though in the end it didn’t even matter because the Jaguars never even mounted a threat as Bishop’s pick came on the first play after the kickoff.
With Cook shuttered, Shakir, Cooks came up big
One of the concerns about Buffalo’s offense was, what if a team finds a way to contain James Cook? Do the Bills have enough playmakers on offense to overcome that?
Well, the answer Sunday was yes.
“You’ve got to be a two-dimensional offense. You guys know we talk about that quite a bit,” McDermott said. “We’ve got to be able to pivot if the run game isn’t working. I thought Joe (Brady) did a really good job in that regard at times. We made the plays we needed to make when we needed to make them, and that’s really the story behind it.”
The Jaguars No. 1-ranked defense lived up to that billing as the Bills rushed for a season-low 79 yards with Cook, the league rushing camp, managing just 46 on 15 carries, a paltry 3.1 average.
However, Allen was able to complete passes to nine different players totaling 273 yards, and Shakir and Cooks were the key targets. Shakir caught 12 and though they went for only 82 yards, there were several key plays that resulted in first downs, or at least got the Bills within tush push range.
Cooks made perhaps the biggest catch of all, the 36-yarder that moved the ball to the Jaguars 20 at the two-minute warning. It was sweet redemption for Cooks because late in the second quarter, he failed to secure a 26-yard reception and that cost the Bills a chance to score.
“We put in something this week and we ran it there on the last drive with B-Cooks running down to the post,” Allen said. “Saw a look and we executed it.”
Allen said the key to the winning drive is that the Bills were in complete command of what they were doing.
“Yeah, it felt good to know we had all three timeouts. We had enough time on the clock to run our offense, so there was no panic, no rush,” he said.
What’s a game without injuries?
How would the Bills know, because it never happens.
Losing Poyer was a blow because it meant rookie Jordan Hancock had to play safety, and at first watch, he appeared to struggle. Poyer has been such a steadying influence this season after he replaced Taylor Rapp, but his nagging hamstring bit him again, and he’s probably unlikely to play next week.
Wide receiver Gabe Davis went down with a knee injury and was in a brace after the game. With Joshua Palmer having just gone on injured reserve, the Bills are in a real bind. They were down to four healthy receivers in the game, and next week, they may need to get Curtis Samuel or Mecole Hardman into the lineup because Davis looks to be done, too.
Sal Maiorana has covered the Buffalo Bills for more than four decades including 36 years as the full-time beat writer/columnist for the D&C. He has written numerous books about the history of the team, and he is also co-host of the BLEAV in Bills podcast/YouTube show. He can be reached at maiorana@gannett.com, and you can follow him on X @salmaiorana and on Bluesky @salmaiorana.bsky.social.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: 3 things that stood out in Bills’ gutsy playoff win against Jaguars
Reporting by Sal Maiorana, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle / Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
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