NFL
For Josh Allen, Being Part of ‘the Greatest Game’ Doesn’t Ease the Pain of the Coin Toss
Mike Thomas spent 23 years on staff and 16 years as the sports editor at The Herald News in Fall River, Mass., before joining Sportscasting in 2020. Mike has a deep knowledge of and passion for the NFL and NBA, and he excels at interviewing sports celebrities to find out their Super Bowl picks. A New England Newspaper and Press Association award-winning columnist and an avid sports memorabilia collector, Mike enjoys keeping up with all the sports news and the works of former Sports Illustrated columnist Rick Reilly. You can find more of Mike's work on Muck Rack.
Get to know Mike Thomas betterPublished27 Jun 2022
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen was as good as calling coin flips as he was playing in the thrilling playoff game against the Kansas City Chiefs last year. Then it happened.
He guessed wrong on the coin toss as the teams headed for overtime. Allen and the Bills never saw the ball as Patrick Mahomes directed a quick scoring drive that propelled the Chiefs into the AFC Championship Game. The loss still stings Allen, but he recently admitted losing the coin toss hurt more.
Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills never got a chance in overtime
The Bills vs. Chiefs conference semifinals game last year capped a wild weekend of NFL action. The three other games ended with last-second field goals. Mahomes and Allen made sure their game was every bit as exciting.
The two young gunslingers battled back and forth all game before things heated up in the final minutes. With 1:54 left in regulation, Gabriel Davis caught the third of his four touchdown passes to give the Bills a short-lived 29-26 lead.
Mahomes then hit speedy wideout Tyreek Hill with a 64-yard scoring strike 52 seconds later as the Chiefs regained the lead. The Allen-to-Davis connection struck again with 13 seconds left to put Buffalo ahead 36-33.
Thirteen seconds was enough time for Mahomes to get Harrison Butker into field-goal range. Butker booted the game-tying field goal, sending the game into overtime.
Allen and the Bills never touched the ball again.
Allen admits the loss to the Chiefs still stings
During an episode on Bussin’ With the Boys, Allen talked about how that loss to the Chiefs still lingers. He said people still tell him how great that game was, but it’s never any consolation.
“People still come up to me and talk about it. That’s the game people talk about,” Allen said on the podcast. “To be a part of it is great, but to be on the losing end of it is not so great.
“It doesn’t make me feel any better when someone comes up and says, ‘That was the greatest game I’ve ever seen.’ It’s like, we lost.”
Allen spoke about how he was “jinxed” during the pregame interview when it came to calling the coin toss. He was told he had been 9-0 in calling the coin flip heading into the game.
“In our production meeting, it was jinxed, and I was 0-for-2 in that game,” Allen said. “They brought up that stat, you’re 9-0. I go 0-2 on coin tosses that game. I switched it up, I went heads first, and then I went tails at the end, and it was obviously flip-flopped.”
Allen said he never had a plan during his 9-0 coin-toss streak.
“I was just going up to teammates and be like heads or tails, and do whatever they say,” he said.
Asked what hurt most — losing the game or the coin toss — Allen was quick to answer.
“The coin toss,” he said.
Allen knew that last team to touch the ball in that game was going to win.
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