Orchard Park, N.Y. (WGR) - With 11:11 left in the fourth quarter of Thursday's preseason finale at Highmark Stadium, the Buffalo Bills trailed the Pittsburgh Steelers, 27-17.
Shane Buechele played the whole game at quarterback for the Bills, and led them down the field to set up Tyler Bass for a 42-yard field goal with 6:17 left.
Buechele then got the ball back and led his team down the field again, aided by a pass interference call on Tamon Lynum that went for 40 yards to the Steelers' 7-yard line. Ian Wheeler ran the ball in a few plays later from two yards out to make it a 27-26 contest with 1:06 left.
Rather than kicking the extra point to potentially see the game end in a 27-27 preseason tie, Bills head coach Joe Brady went for the two-point conversion, and Buechele was under intense pressure but found an open Dante Pettis to give Buffalo a 28-27 win, and a 3-0 preseason record.
"There was a lot out there tonight that wasn't good enough, but we're down by two scores, the guys don't blink," said Brady following Thursday night's win. "Go down, score. Go for two, and we want our defense on the field in a two-minute situation and they didn't blink and made the opportunities. So there was so much to be proud of for those guys and some of those guys might never play football again. I wanted to be sure they did everything they can to play good football."
Buechele ended up going 26-of-38 for 196 yards on the night. He didn't have any touchdowns, but also didn't have any interceptions and completed the two-point conversion to win the game.
Earlier in the week, Brady said both Buechele and Kyle Allen would play, but obviously he changed his mind.
"I wanted them all to start (Josh Allen started against the Carolina Panthers and Kyle Allen started against the Cleveland Browns), but it was kind of the flow of the game," Brady explained. "Shane was the one quarterback that hasn't gotten a lot of preseason time through the years, and with how the game was flowing, I wanted to keep him rolling with it."
Buechele finished the preseason going 37-of-57 (64.9%) for 357 yards. Kyle Allen went 24-of-28 (85.7%) for 236 yards, while Josh Allen went 6-of-8 (75%) for 111 yards. All three quarterbacks had one touchdown and no interceptions thrown.
I don't know what was said on the TV broadcast, but Brady was asked if Josh Allen called any of the plays.
"He called the whole fourth quarter," Brady said kiddingly.
"There was a lot going on in that game, and he's on the head set and I'm communicating with him, and we're talking the whole game. We had some two-minute drills, and some of the situations I'd be asking him what he was thinking there. But we had a lot of moving parts and I said, 'You know what Josh, let me take this.'"
Even though Allen is going into his ninth season, he's still learning, and this experience is very helpful to him.
"It's huge, and we've been together for a while, so you hope that he finishes my sentences or understands once we get to certain areas of the field, what I'm thinking. And there's so much power that you get into a game, you get into a certain situation and the quarterback's already walking into the huddle because we're thinking the same thing and I don't have to, 'I wonder what Josh would want right here,'" Brady said.
"In the two-minute drill, asking him, 'What would be your thoughts right now?' It's been good for him to be on the headsets."
2026 fourth-round pick Skyler Bell is finally healthy, and showed what he can bring to the table for the Bills. He was targeted 10 times and had seven catches for 49 yards, and showed his speed on a 28-yard touchdown run.
The head coach thought the youngster showed his stuff.
"I tried to get him involved, get the ball in his hands and have him go play some football. And it's been a while," Brady said. "You go from not getting a lot of reps to getting one full speed practice to playing a lot of plays, and it wasn't too big for him.
"There's going to be a lot of things he's going to want to clean up, but I called that little sweep to him, and I didn't know if it was a great call, thinking he could barely make it back to the huddle. But once he got the ball in his hands, you could feel the speed and he made the most of it after a great block by Pettis."
Brady named Max Hairston his starting cornerback for the season opposite Christian Benford. Hairston was one of the few starters that played in this game, and there was a method to Brady's madness with a players that has missed the better part of two training camps.
"You talk about the impact of guys playing in preseason games, in terms of what that looks like from a medical standpoint. Some of that is how many games he's played in his career, and I thought it was important for Maxwell coming off a rookie year where he didn't get to play a preseason game, missed some time last year, and I thought it was just good for him to be able to come out, go through it, get a feel of the environment."
Brady said this weekend is not fun for him, because he has to cut the roster down to 53 players by 6 p.m. on Sunday. He often talks about the work these players put in, and he hates destroying some of their dreams. However, he understands it's part of the job.
With the preseason over, now the team gets back to work with the sole focus on Sept. 13 against the Houston Texans.
