THE BULLETIN • SUNDAY, JANUARY 10, 2021 B3
NFL PLAYOFFS
Bills top Colts for 1st playoff win in 25 years
BY JOHN WAWROW
Associated Press
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. —
Quarterback Josh Allen and
safety Micah Hyde teamed up
to make the Buffalo Bills’ los-
ing past history.
Now do you Bill-ieve?
In a season in which the
Bills busted numerous slumps,
Allen became Buffalo’s first
starter in a quarter-century to
win a playoff game. And Hyde
ensured the Bills wouldn’t en-
dure another second-half col-
lapse as happened last year in
a wild-card loss to Houston, or
last-second touchdown.
With Buffalo the AFC East
champions for the first time
since 1995 and hosting their
first playoff game since ’96,
Allen threw two touchdown
passes and scored another
rushing in leading the Bills to
a 27-24 win over the Indianap-
olis Colts in a wild-card game
Saturday.
Hyde batted down Philip
Rivers’ desperation pass as
time ran out in helping Buffalo
snap an 0-6 postseason skid by
winning its first playoff game
since a 37-22 win over Miami
on Dec. 30, 1995.
The past was very much
present in Allen’s mind when
reflecting on how Buffalo
squandered a 16-0 third-quar-
ter lead in a 22-19 overtime
loss to Houston in his first ca-
reer playoff appearance.
“Obviously we started off a
little slow and we were able to
get into a rhythm late. Made
enough plays to win,” Allen
said. “It’s new territory for my-
self, but it just gives us a chance
to play next week.”
The end of the game was so
stunning, in which the Bills
nearly squandered a 24-10
fourth-quarter lead, safety Jor-
dan Poyer was still having dif-
ficulty trying to put the result
Seahawks
Continued from B1
Two of the others belonged
to Donald. The Rams allowed
just 278 total yards and 11 first
downs.
The victory sent the Rams
into next week’s divisional
playoff round, likely at top-
seeded Green Bay unless Chi-
cago upsets New Orleans.
“We’re excited about com-
peting to go see who we play
next and see if we can keep
this thing rolling,” McVay said.
“But we’ll enjoy this.”
Williams’ third interception
against Wilson after picking
him off twice in Los Ange-
les came as he jumped a wide
receiver screen intended for
Metcalf and returned it un-
touched for a 13-3 lead mid-
way through the second quar-
ter.
Akers added a 5-yard TD
run just before halftime for a
20-10 lead. It proved enough
against a Seattle offense dis-
jointed and confused nearly
from the start.
Wilson had one of his worst
playoff performances. He was
11 of 27 for 174 yards. Wilson
connected with Metcalf on a
Skiing
Continued from B1
First-run leader Loic Meil-
lard could not give Switzerland
its first win since 2008 in its
classic giant slalom. A big error
early in his run left him 1.65
back in third place.
Pinturault’s third straight gi-
ant slalom victory was a 33rd
career win in World Cup races,
matching American great
Bode Miller in ninth place on
the men’s all-time list.
“I’m pretty proud of it,” said
Pinturault, whose ski techni-
cian, Guntram Mathis, used
to work with Miller. “It brings
something really special into
the story.”
The Frenchman seized the
lead in the season-long giant
slalom standings from home
favorite Marco Odermatt, who
placed fourth, 1.67 back.
Pinturault also extended
his lead in the World Cup
overall points race ahead of
Aleksander Aamodt Kilde,
the defending champion. Kil-
de’s results — fifth place, after
fourth on Friday — were im-
pressive for the speed race spe-
Adrian Kraus/AP
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) throws a pass as he is hit
by Indianapolis Colts’ DeForest Buckner (99) in Saturday’s wild-card
game in Orchard Park, New York.
in perspective.
“I haven’t had time to cele-
brate and take it in, but this is
awesome for the Bills organiza-
tion, the city, to be able to play
a home game and get a vic-
tory,” said Poyer, in his fourth
season in Buffalo.
Hyde’s pass defense eased
memories of the Bills giving up
DeAndre Hopkins’ leaping 43-
yard touchdown catch in the
final seconds of a 32-30 loss at
Arizona on Nov. 15. Buffalo
has won seven straight since
for its longest winning streak
since 1990.
And the win came with a
limited number of 6,700 fans
in attendance for the first time
this season.
Allen finished 26 of 35 for
324 yards with a 5-yard touch-
down to Dawson Knox and
a 35-yarder to Stefon Diggs,
which led to the fans chanting
“MVP! MVP!” to celebrate the
first Buffalo player to lead the
NFL in catches and yards re-
ceiving.
The Colts (11-6) ended a
season in which they won 11
games for the first time since
2014, and reached the playoffs
for the second time in three
years under Frank Reich.
Rivers finished 27 of 46 for
309 yards and had his career
playoff record drop to 5-7 in
completing his first — and po-
tentially last — season with the
Colts as he ponders retirement.
The game wasn’t decided
until the final play, when Riv-
ers faced fourth-and-11 from
Buffalo’s 47. Rivers heaved a
deep pass for T.Y. Hilton, who
was surrounded by defend-
ers in the right side of the end
zone. Hyde broke through,
leaping up and batting the ball
to the ground.
Rookie kicker Tyler Bass ac-
counted for the decisive points
by hitting a 54-yard field goal
to put Buffalo up 27-16 with
8:08 remaining.
The Colts responded with
a seven-play, 75-play drive
capped by a 9-yard touch-
down pass to Pascal. After Bass
upped Buffalo’s lead to 27-
16, the Colts scored less than
two-minutes later. Rivers hit
a wide-open Jack Doyle for a
27-yard touchdown and Doyle
caught a 2-point conversion.
The Bills, however, didn’t
make it easy. with Allen nearly
losing a fumble at midfield
pair of TDs: 51 yards in the
first half off a broken play, and
a 12-yard TD with 2:28 left to
make the score more respect-
able.
Seattle never played with
the lead and was 2 of 14 on
third downs. Its first home
playoff game in four years
was a dud without its rau-
cous home crowd, and the
Seahawks saw their 10-game
home playoff win streak
snapped.
Their last home playoff loss
came in January 2005 to the
St. Louis Rams.
“I told these guys I have no
place in my brain for this out-
come,” Seattle coach Pete Car-
roll said. “We were planning
on winning and moving on.”
The Rams pulled off the
upset without a healthy quar-
terback for more then three
quarters. John Wolford started
for the second straight week
but injured his neck when
he dived headfirst in the first
quarter and was hit in the hel-
met by Jamal Adams’ shoul-
der. Wolford was taken to a
hospital as a precaution, but
McVay said he was in the
locker room celebrating after
the victory.
“I think it was really just a
stinger. He definitely seemed
good,” McVay said.
Goff took over less than
two weeks after undergoing
surgery on his right thumb;
he was injured in the Week 16
loss to Seattle. Goff didn’t do
anything spectacular but also
avoided major mistakes.
Goff was 9 of 19 for 155
yards. He capped the victory
with a 15-yard touchdown
pass to Robert Woods with
4:46 left after Seattle’s D.J.
Reed fumbled a punt.
Akers, the Rams’ rookie ball
carrier, was outstanding after
not playing two weeks ago.
Akers had the best rushing
day by a Rams running back
since Marshall Faulk went for
159 against Philadelphia in
January 2002.
The Rams finished with 164
yards rushing.
“He’s made of the right
junk. His heart, his passion
for the game is special,” Rams
left tackle Andrew Whitworth
said. “Anytime you see in this
league that you can run the
football in the playoffs, it’s
about more than just all the
fantasy things you see in the
regular season. It’s going to be
cialist.
Pinturault’s wire-to-wire
win on Friday had also been
by more than a second, though
he noted the light was more
challenging on Saturday. At
Adelboden, the slope darkens
quickly after the sunshine slips
behind the mountains around
2 p.m. when the leaders start
their second run.
Earlier Saturday, American
racer Tommy Ford, of Bend,
was airlifted by helicopter to
hospital after crashing hard
near the finish line.
The United States team later
said Ford’s “head and neck in-
juries are minor and resolving
nicely. He has a knee injury
that is undergoing further eval-
uation.”
Racing was paused for 30
minutes in the morning while
Ford, one of the top-ranked
skiers who wore bib No. 4, was
treated. Zubcic and Pinturault
were the next starters.
“It’s really hard when you’re
on the start and you know that
somebody on the field is in-
jured,” Pinturault said. “We are
all close, all friends.”
The Adelboden giant sla-
when sacked for a 23-yard
loss by Denico Autry on first
down from the Indianapolis
37. Offensive lineman Daryl
Williams, however, recovered,
forcing the Bills to punt with
2:30 remaining.
“It doesn’t matter how it
looks,” Allen said. “It’s the play-
offs. It’s win or go home and
we got it done.”
The turning point came
when the Colts, up 10-7, were
unable to score on four snaps
inside Buffalo’s 4. Rivers’ pass
for Michael Pittman glanced
off the diving receiver’s finger-
tips on fourth down.
Buffalo responded with a
10-play, 96-yard drive capped
by Allen’s 5-yard keeper with
14 seconds left in the half.
A Colts miscue also helped
extend the drive. Facing
fourth-and-3 from the Colts
26, Allen drew defensive end
Kemoko Turay offside with a
second left on the play clock.
“All around, it felt like we
just kept shooting ourselves in
the foot,” defensive end DeFor-
est Buckner said. “We just let it
slip between our fingers.”
Mr. Everything
With his 5-yard TD run and
TD completion to Knox, Allen
became the fifth player since
at least 1940 to score a touch-
down rushing, passing and re-
ceiving in his playoff career. Al-
len scored on a 16-yard catch
from John Brown in a 22-19
OT loss at Houston a year ago.
Allen joined Nick Foles,
Kordell Stewart, Freeman Mc-
Neil and Julian Edelman.
Up next
Colts: Season is over after
losing in the wild-card round
for the first time since 2012.
Bills: They advance to the
divisional round for the first
time since the 1995 playoffs.
about imposing your will on
another team.”
Injuries
Donald left in the third
quarter with a rib injury. Af-
ter going in and out of the
locker room a couple of times
he was a spectator most of
the second half. WR Cooper
Kupp limped off grabbing at
his right knee in the closing
minutes.
Wolford was 3 of 6 passing
for 29 yards and had one run
for 2 yards before getting hurt.
Seattle safety Jamal Adams
said he played with a torn la-
brum in his left shoulder suf-
fered last week against San
Francisco.
Up next
Rams: Will play at Green
Bay next week if the New Or-
leans Saints defeat the Chi-
cago Bears on Sunday. Other-
wise they will visit Tampa Bay,
which defeated Washington
31-23 just before The Bulle-
tin’s deadline.
Seahawks: Will head into
an offseason filled with ques-
tions after winning the divi-
sion but experiencing another
early playoff exit.
Marco Tacca/AP
Alexis Pinturault speeds down the course during a World Cup giant sla-
lom in Adelboden, Switzerland, on Saturday. Pinturault won the event.
lom typically draws a noisy
crowd of 25,000. There were
no paying spectators on Sat-
urday during the coronavirus
pandemic though racers were
cheered on by people watching
from neighboring slopes and
chalets.
The three-race meeting con-
cludes on Sunday with a slalom
where Pinturault and Zubcic
will start their fourth race in
five days, after competing in
Croatia earlier.
Also Saturday:
Goggia dominant in down-
hill victory: ST. ANTON,
Austria — Olympic champion
Sofia Goggia’s high-risk skiing
was rewarded with a dominat-
ing win in a World Cup down-
hill .
Goggia was fast and nearly
flawless in the sunshine on
the rarely raced Karl Schranz
course to be 0.96 seconds
faster than Tamara Tippler of
Austria.
“I didn’t expect I could have
won here today with this gap,”
Courtesy Amanda Conde
The Fuentes sisters of Warm Springs, recipients of the Every Kid Sports
Pass, both enjoy playing basketball.
Kid
Continued from B1
The nonprofit also was se-
lected by T-Mobile to help ad-
minister its Little League Call
Up Grant, which will provide
funds for 20,000 kids to play
baseball and softball. Every
Kid Sports was also named
as a “Champion” by the As-
pen Institute and the National
Youth Sports Strategy Council
in 2019 for removing cost as a
barrier to sports participation
and for encouraging kids to
play multiple sports.
Every Kids Sports’ associa-
tion with the Little League Call
Up Grant stems from discus-
sions the nonprofit had with
Major League Baseball about
supporting Every Kid Sports,
according to Hummel.
“Little League was struggling
with how to implement (the
Call Up Grant) and reach the
kids,” Hummel says. “So they
reached out to us and this is
our second year. Last year we
helped about 5,400 kids. And
T-Mobile gave $2 million to
help 20,000 kids total.”
Hummel says that due to
the pandemic, “youth sports
are being decimated. Thou-
sands of small youth sports or-
ganizations have closed their
doors. We just see that without
some intervention and with-
out somebody coming to help,
those organizations will never
be able to open their doors
again and youth sports will be
forever changed.”
Hummel hopes that Every
Kid Sports can kickstart the
registration process, which
could help many of those
smaller organizations open
their doors.
“We’ve gotten a lot of re-
sponse from corporate spon-
sors and other organizations
that our model makes a lot of
sense,” she says. “That’s what’s
driving the push to take it na-
tional. And that’s always been
our mission when we first
started the nonprofit.”
While many winter youth
sports programs have been
canceled or postponed due to
the pandemic, many baseball
and softball leagues have con-
tinued, and some programs
have found new ways to get
kids outside.
“Obviously a lot of those
youth sports programs are not
happening right now, so we
have slowed down in the num-
ber of grants we’ve been giving
said Goggia, whose ninth ca-
reer World Cup win was her
sixth in the marquee discipline
of downhill.
Breezy Johnson landed her
third straight third-place fin-
ish in downhills this season,
1.04 back, after the American
clocked the fastest speed of
more than 122 kph (76 mph).
“I watched Sofia’s run and
I think that it was incredible,”
Johnson said. “She skied with a
lot of courage.”
Goggia has finished ahead
of Johnson in each downhill so
far, and the Italian now has two
wins and a second place to lead
the season-long standings.
Switzerland’s Corinne Suter,
the only downhill racer to beat
Goggia this season, tied for
sixth Saturday with two-time
world champion Ilka Stuhec.
Goggia rose to third in the
overall World Cup standings
led by Petra Vlhova, whose
12th place was her best down-
hill result this season.
Johnson’s latest third place
extended the United States
team’s standout record at St.
Anton.
The two previous World
“There’s so much more need
now. And even families that
used to be able to cover their
kids playing sports are in
trouble now. It’s been wide-
ranging, the amount of
impact COVID has had on
families. If you can’t get food
on the table, you’re not going
to be registering your child
to play sports.”
— Natalie Hummel, executive
director of Every Kid Sports
out,” Hummel says. “But there’s
a lot of research that there
wasn’t any outbreaks associ-
ated with baseball and softball,
that’s why we’re seeing a lot of
people registering with that
(Call Up Grant) program.
“And there are a lot of inno-
vative programs where families
are getting outside, mountain
biking and things like that.”
Every Kid Sports offers
grants for youth all the way
up to age 18. Most sports pro-
grams require fees, from rec-
reation programs for elemen-
tary school children, to middle
school and high school sports.
The nonprofit helps with fees
for these sports, but not for
club sports or travel teams
which are often year-round.
Hummel says part of the goal
is to encourage athletes to play
multiple sports and not spe-
cialize at too young of an age.
“We believe kids get as much
or more benefit from playing
recreational sports, and going
from sport to sport, versus the
year-round sport,” she says. “So
much of the current thinking
of parents is that they need to
get their kids into these com-
petitive programs. But the re-
search is overwhelming that
those programs are actually
more damaging to kids than
beneficial. It’s not really un-
til they’re 16, 17, 18 that they
should be specializing in a
sport.”
The average grant amount
from Every Kid Sports is about
$100 for one kid in one sport,
Hummel adds.
“Right now we have plenty
of funding,” she says. “And
there’s more families than ever
that need help.”
e e
Reporter: 541-383-0318, mmorical@
bendbulletin.com
Cup downhills raced at the
Austrian resort in the past 20
years were won by Lindsey
Vonn in 2007 and Alice Mck-
ennis in 2013.
Mikaela Shiffrin did not race
Saturday as she focuses on her
specialist events of slalom and
giant slalom this season. The
American, a three-time over-
all champion, should return
Tuesday in the night slalom at
Flachau, Austria.
The U.S. team included Lau-
renne Ross in her first race in
almost two years. Ross placed
39th, starting soon after boy-
friend Tommy Ford was air-
lifted to a hospital in Swit-
zerland after crashing in the
World Cup men’s giant slalom
at Adelboden.
Juliana Suter of Switzerland
was taken away on a stretcher
after crashing through the fin-
ish line in 31st place.
Though no paying specta-
tors were allowed at the finish
during the coronavirus pan-
demic, there were cheers for
the racers from recreational
skiers on adjoining slopes.
A super-G race is scheduled
Sunday.