In overtime of the divisional playoff game in Denver, Bills wide receiver Brandin Cooks had a catch in his hands at the Broncos’ 20-yard line that would have put Buffalo in range for the game-winning field goal and sent the Bills to the AFC Championship Game. But Denver’s Ja’Quan McMillian ripped the ball out of Cooks’ arms for an interception, and the Broncos kicked a game-winning field goal of their own on the next possession.
Cooks still can’t believe it.
“For a week straight, I was watching it over and over,” Cooks told Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com. “But I knew, as a father, that I had to put it away. If I’d have kept watching, it would have put me in some type of mood that my wife and my kids didn’t deserve.”
The NFL has confirmed that the official’s call of an interception was correct, but Cooks thinks he had possession and was down before McMillian got the ball from him.
“I will continue to process it until I get back on the field,” Cooks said, “but I think the biggest thing I can say is that I still feel like it was a catch. After it happened, seeing some of the so-called controversial calls that were called a catch, I just had to turn the playoffs off because I’m like, ‘Yo, what is going on?’ For me, the way that my mind operates is, ‘OK, what can I do about it?’ And what I can do about it is get back on the field, continue to work on being the best that I can be and making sure next time it’s a catch-and-run for a touchdown and leave it in no one else’s hands.”
If Cooks had completed the catch, the Bills would have spent the next week preparing to face the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, not firing head coach Sean McDermott. The Bills might have gone to the Super Bowl, and Josh Allen certainly would have given the Patriots’ defense a tougher test than Broncos backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham gave New England in the AFC Championship. And Broncos quarterback Bo Nix would have gone into the offseason healthy rather than spending the offseason rehabbing the broken ankle that he suffered just before the Broncos’ game-winning field goal.
These are thoughts Cooks has often.
“It doesn’t keep me up or give me unhealthy flashbacks,” Cooks said. “But from a competitive nature, I still think about not winning the Super Bowl as if it happened yesterday.”
Bills Clips
Marcellus Wiley, as they say, is having a moment. And not the good kind.
The former NFL defensive end and ESPN/Fox personality was arrested over the weekend for domestic battery. On Monday, his wife made very strong allegations against him in divorce paperwork and in a request for a restraining order.
Wiley has posted on social media clear, loud denials as to the alleged battery, and as to the claims made by his wife in court filings.
Wiley has yet to deny this one: TMZ reported on Wednesday that Preferred Bank sued Wiley in December 2025 for failing to satisfy a $500,000 loan.
Per TMZ, Wiley and his company, Dat Dude Entertainment, borrowed the money in May 2023, promising to pay it back after one year. The bank, per TMZ, claims it didn’t receive the money or the associated interest. Wiley allegedly received multiple extensions until December 2025, when the bank then filed suit.
As of this posting, Wiley has not addressed the TMZ report.
Wiley spent 10 years in the NFL, playing for the Chargers, Bills, Cowboys, and Jaguars.
The Bills announced that there will be seven open practice dates at this summer’s training camp last month and they added a couple more to the schedule on Wednesday.
Neither of the practices will be taking place at St. John Fisher University, however. They will both be held at the team’s new stadium ahead of its first season as the home field in Buffalo.
The Bills will take the field at the new Highmark Stadium for the first time for their Return of the Blue & Red practice on Saturday, August 8. It will be held at 7 p.m. ET.
The other practice at the stadium will take place on August 18 at 8:30 a.m. ET. That will come three days after the Bills host the Panthers for their first preseason game in the new building. The first regular season game at home will be on Thursday night against the Lions in Week 2.
Bills quarterback Josh Allen hopes to be Team USA’s quarterback in flag football in the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
“Being a U.S. Olympic gold medalist is a dream that I’ve always had,” Allen told NBC, “and I’ve never had the chance to accomplish it.”
Allen said that if he’s given the opportunity to quarterback the American team when flag football makes its Olympic debut, he’ll gladly accept.
“I would sign up tomorrow to be on the team,” Allen said. “I’ve always dreamed of competing for my country and being able to wear my own gold medal, but we’ll see how it works.”
However, it’s unclear who will be on that team in two years. When the flag football players easily beat the NFL players at the Fanatics Flag Football Classic in March, it raised questions about whether NFL players will be able to adjust to a different style of football.
“I don’t know if they’d want me,” Allen said. “I don’t know the ins-and-outs really of flag football. I watched that deal, maybe a couple months ago, and it was a much different game than I thought it would be. But I do think that if there is a potential space, I would love to do it.”
The Broncos’ playoff overtime win against the Bills could have gone very differently, if a play Broncos coach Sean Payton called had actually been run.
Payton said after the game that he called a fake punt on fourth-and-11 in overtime, only to have the players change it at the line of scrimmage and run a normal punt.
A lengthy ESPN article about Payton details how he spent hours studying fake punts and found one he liked that the Raiders once ran. The Broncos adopted that Raiders play in their own special teams playbook and referred to as Rutgers Special because the ball would have gone to the upback, Michael Burton, who played at Rutgers.
The Broncos never actually ran Rutgers Special in the divisional playoffs against the Bills, but Payton confirmed after the game that he told his punt team to run it at the end of the first possession of overtime, on fourth-and-11 at their own 38-yard line. If the Broncos had failed, the Bills would have taken over only needing a field goal to win the game, and already being in range for a long field goal. It was a massive risk Payton was taking by making that call, but Payton has called risky special teams plays in big situations before, most famously the surprise onside kick he called as head coach of the Saints in their Super Bowl XLIV win over the Colts.
It’s not clear what the Broncos’ players saw at the line of scrimmage that made them call the fake off and punt the ball instead. But Payton described a fake as “Worth the risk” when the alternative was punting the ball to Josh Allen, and Payton added, “We had the right look.”
As it turned out, Allen threw an interception on the possession after the punt, and the Broncos drove into field goal range and kicked the game-winner to advance to the AFC Championship Game. We’ll never know what might have happened if the players had run the fake punt that Payton wanted.
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
In the wake of Saturday’s arrest of former NFL defensive end Marcellus Wiley, his wife has pursued two separate legal avenues.
Via TMZ, Annemarie Wiley (who appeared on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills) has filed for divorce, and she has submitted a request for a restraining order that would require Wiley to remain at least 100 yards away from her.
She claims that she has been subjected to a “continuing and escalating pattern of physical violence, sexual abuse, verbal and emotional abuse, financial control and intimidation.”
While she makes the general claim that, “[b]ecause of the trauma associated with many of these events, there are gaps in my memory, as I have blocked out much of what Marcellus has done to me,” specific allegations include (per TMZ) that he punched her in the face in 2014, threw a Coke bottle at her head in 2012 when she was nine months pregnant, and allegedly raped her while she was intoxicated in 2012.
More recently, he allegedly struck her in the face with his shoes in 2025. She also contends that, in January 2026, he dragged her out of bed, berated her and hit her on the head, and “then raped me, telling me that I was his property and that I had to do what he said.” She claims he raped her again that same day, and that he raped her another time two days later.
She seeks custody of their three children and exclusive use of their home in Los Angeles.
On Monday, Marcellus Wiley issued a broad denial of “these allegations” without mentioning any specific claim.
Wiley played 10 years in the NFL for the Chargers, Bills Cowboys, and Jaguars. After retiring, he worked for ESPN and Fox.
Former NFL defensive end and ESPN/Fox employee Marcellus Wiley has addressed the allegation of domestic battery that resulted in his arrest on July 4.
Wiley posted a statement on Twitter denying the accusation.
“I completely and unequivocally deny these allegations, and I’m certain the truth will prevail,” Wiley said. “As you know, I’m usually the first to break down the truth and separate facts from fiction. But because this is now a legal matter — and because my greatest responsibility is protecting my babies, who have already been impacted — I have to handle this differently. When I can speak freely, I absolutely will. Until then, thank you for your patience, your prayers, and for continuing to stand with me.”
Wiley’s wife claims that, on July 3, he “used one finger to sternly and intentionally poke her in the cheek.” She also claimed he threatened to kill her.
Wiley denied the allegation when interviewed by deputies. He was released from custody on $1,000 cash bond on Sunday night.
A second-round pick of the Bills in 1997, Wiley spent a decade in the NFL. He played for the Bills, Chargers, Cowboys, and Jaguars.
Bills wide receiver Keon Coleman believes he’s facing a “make or break” 2026 season and his preparation for it has included work with former Bills star Stevie Johnson.
Johnson reached out to Coleman after the end of a disappointing 2025 season for the 2024 second-round pick. Coleman was benched at points for disciplinary reasons and his failure to blossom was singled out by team owner Terry Pegula at a press conference that followed Sean McDermott’s firing.
Johnson told One Bills Drive that Coleman has been “the opposite” of what he expected before meeting him and called the wideout “a masterful student” who is working on understanding how to carry himself professionally as well as how to give quarterback Josh Allen exactly what he needs on a weekly basis.
“He can be the best,” Johnson said. “He can be considered one of the best because he has every tool. He’s got the height, he’s got the size, he’s got the speed. He’s got it so much to the point where people kind of overlook it now. They’ve seen all of the great traits. They just want to see it always on Sunday. And that’s pretty much what we worked on. How to make it show on Sunday.”
Johnson said that Coleman being a strong student gives him confidence that he will “put all of his tools together each week and make it happen” and added that the wideout showed he’s “mature” by refraining from any angry responses to criticism last year. The Bills have expressed similar confidence in Coleman and the team’s offense would welcome that bet paying off.
On Sunday morning, TMZ reported that former NFL defensive end and ESPN and Fox employee Marcellus Wiley was arrested on July 4 for alleged domestic battery.
Per the Public Information Office of the Orange County (Florida) Corrections Department, Wiley was released from custody at 8:43 p.m. ET on Sunday, after posting a cash bond of $1,000.
PFT has obtained the Arrest Affidavit, which reveals that deputies responded to the World Marriott in Orlando on July 4 at 4:47 p.m. ET.
The alleged victim is Wiley’s wife. She asked deputies to “remove her husband from their shared hotel room due to her being afraid of him.” She said that Wiley “told [her] he was going to kill her and [she] was afraid of his behavior.”
Asked to elaborate, she said “on the previous morning Marcellus had put his hands on her,” by using “one finger to sternly and intentionally poke her in the cheek,” and that their seven-year-old daughter witnessed the incident. (Their daughter told deputies she did not see Marcellus touch her mother but did hear them arguing.)
The deputy who prepared the affidavit noticed no “visible injuries” and Wiley’s wife did not request medical attention.
Wiley’s wife said that Wiley “had an unreported history of violence toward her and she was planning to divorce him when they returned home to California.”
When interviewed by deputies, Wiley denied any physical altercation with his wife. He said he believes she made the report “due to her intention to divorce him.”
The deputies concluded that Wiley “did intentionally touch [his wife] against her will,” and that probable cause exists to charge [Wiley] with battery (domestic violence).”
The law regarding criminal battery is very broad. Florida law, like the law of many states, provides that "[t]he offense of battery occurs when a person . . . [a]ctually and intentionally touches or strikes another person against the will of the other.”
Wiley spent 10 years in the NFL, playing for the Bills, Chargers, Cowboys, and Jaguars. He worked for ESPN through 2018, and he then worked at Fox Sports until 2022.
