The New York Giants lost 14-9 to the Buffalo Bills on Sunday night following a controversial call on the final play of the game. Giants quarterback Tyrod Taylor – starting in place of the injured Daniel Jones threw the ball towards the endzone hoping for a game-winning touchdown as the clock expired, only for the ball to slip through the outstretched hands of tight end Darren Waller.
Replays showed Bills defender Taron Johnson grabbing Waller’s jersey as he leapt to make the catch. Slow-mo footage also appeared to show Johnson preventing Waller from lifting his left arm to grab the ball. Had officials thrown a flag for pass interference, the Giants would have received yet another shot from the one-yard line, after Buffalo had already been called for defensive pass interference on the previous play.
‘There was contact, but I’m not somebody that’s going to get into what a call should have been or telling officials how to do their job because there’s a way for me to make that play there and it wasn’t made, so that’s what I focus on,’ Waller said.
Across social media, however, fans and pundits were less forgiving of the decision. ‘Pretty clearly a penalty on Taron Johnson on the final play:,’ said one, who posted a zoomed in clip of the jersey grab. What was anticipated to be a Bills blowout turned into a ground-it-out, yard-by-yard, chippy and occasionally sloppy thriller that wasn’t decided until the final play, and on an untimed down.
Josh Allen patiently oversaw two lengthy second-half scoring drives, capped by a 15-yard touchdown pass to Quinton Morris with 3:58 remaining, as the Bills came from behind to win.
The game featured a scare in the second quarter when Buffalo running back Damien Harris was loaded into an ambulance on the field and taken to the hospital for testing after sustaining a neck injury. Harris flashed a thumbs-up sign with his left hand as he was being loaded into the ambulance. The Bills said the fifth-year player had movement in his extremities.
The Bills (4-2) hung on, but barely, in outing they overcame being shut out in the first half of a game for the first time since a mean-nothing 2019 season finale. The Giants (1-5) lost their fourth straight in a game they ended each half with a drive stalling at Buffalo’s one-yard line.
