That strange rule no one seemed to know about had a major impact on the Week 1 game between the Saints and Lions. And there’s a reason no one knew about it, beyond the fact that it apparently had not been applied in years, if ever.
A very similar play happened during the AFC Championship. But the rulebook’s get-out-of-backward-pass-free card was never mentioned.
It started with 2:59 to go in the first half. The Broncos, leading the Patriots 7-0, had the ball at their own 33, facing third down and four. Denver quarterback Jarrett Stidham (not Drew Brees) got the snap in shotgun formation. Stidham dropped back, apparently looking to set up a screen pass. Patriots linebacker Christian Ellis gave chase.
Stidham started his throwing motion. Before he got rid of the ball, Ellis made contact with Stidham. The pass, which was initially deemed to have gone forward, ultimately was determined to have been a backward pass, recovered by the Patriots.
The main source of the controversy — and the post-game pool report — was the decision to rule the play dead upon recovery, taking New England’s touchdown off the board.
Said referee Alex Kemp after the game: “I initially ruled it as a forward pass, which was incorrect. I proceeded to go through the administration of an intentional grounding foul. The down judge and the umpire came and talked to me and provided more information. The down judge explained that he extended his right arm to signal that he had a backward pass and at that point we determined that New England had picked up the then backward pass. We awarded possession to New England with no advance, because at that point we are not allowed to permit an advance.”
There was no mention during or after the game about the possibility that Ellis’s contact with Stidham after he started his throwing motion meant that any pass thrown was necessarily a forward pass, even if it went backward. That’s the provision that saved the Lions from a defensive scoop and score by the Saints in Week 1.
Now, it’s possible that a frame-by-frame review of the play would have resulted in a ruling that Stidham started his throwing motion, ended it, and got hit by Ellis before starting it again. But it was close enough that the rule no one knew about should have been mentioned, and arguably fully explained, at some point in the process. Because it would have been a forward pass, even if it went backward, if the final ruling was that Ellis had hit Stidham after he began his throwing motion.
And so, instead of the Patriots getting screwed by the ruling on the field of a forward pass, it’s possible the Broncos got screwed by the failure to apply the rule that worked against the Saints on Sunday. But no one knew about it, because no one knew about the bizarre rule that turns a backward pass into a forward pass.
Bottom line? If that rule had been mentioned, discussed, and/or applied in the AFC Championship, 48.6 million football fans would have become aware of it. And it wouldn’t have been nearly as stunning to first learn about this rulebook quirk in Week 1 of the 2026 season.
Lions Clips
It certainly didn’t look like anything was out of the ordinary for Josh Allen during Thursday night’s 41-31 victory over the Lions to open the new Highmark Stadium.
But after the game, Prime Video analyst Richard Sherman revealed Allen had been feeling ill leading up to kickoff.
With Allen and Dion Dawkins next to him on the postgame show, Sherman said that Allen needed an IV and was “shivering in a hot tub.”
Allen sat somewhat stone-faced and did not confirm or deny what Sherman had said.
But Allen’s head coach, Joe Brady, may have also subtly referred to Allen’s pre-kickoff illness.
“You watch how [Allen] plays, and it’s like, how does everyone else not feel like they need to empty it out,” Brady said postgame, via Matt Parrino of nyup.com. “Because he literally gave everything he had out there. He put the team on his back in a lot of those situations.”
Allen finished the contest 20-of-31 passing for 248 yards with three touchdowns. He also rushed for 69 yards with two TDs.
The Bills shredded the Lions on Thursday night for 41 points and 446 yards. After the game, linebacker Jack Campbell addressed Detroit’s defensive performance while fighting back tears on multiple occasions.
Jeff Skversy of Fox 29 posted the video of the locker-room session with the 2023 first-round pick, who signed a four-year, $81 million extension in the offseason.
“It’s on me,” Campbell said. “I gotta be better. And I ain’t got no other thing to do than look in the mirror and be better, so that’s really where it starts. It starts with us.”
He said the run defense was the most frustrating part of the performance.
“Just guys not getting off blocks, not doing their job,” Campbell said.
He was asked if something didn’t feel right going into the game.
“No, just — I mean, every time I lace up my cleats, I’m going 100 percent,” Campbell said. “Yeah, put it on me. I played terrible, so I gotta be better, especially for the offense and for all these guys in the locker room.”
Were they doing anything special schematically?
“No,” he said. “Just played bad. . . . I don’t know how to explain it. You just feel like you’re letting your teammates down, honestly. And that’s what it is. I just gotta be better, so.”
The good news for the Lions is they get some extra time before their next game — and the next three before the bye are objectively winnable: Jets, at Panthers, at Cardinals.
If all goes well, they’ll be 4-1 with two weeks to get ready for back-to-back home games against the Packers and Vikings. If they should lose one, or two, of the next three games, there will be plenty of soul searching during the early-season break.
And more questions about whether the Super Bowl window has indeed closed.
Lions head coach Dan Campbell saw a lot that his team needs to improve in Thursday night’s 41-31 loss to the Bills.
“We’ve got a lot of room to grow, and that’s encouraging,” Campbell said. “We’ve just got to clean up a lot of things on defense right now, particularly in the back end. . . . It wasn’t good enough.”
Campbell expressed optimism about the way the Lions can use their extra three days after playing on Thursday night to prepare for Week 3 against the Jets.
“It’s early, we’re in Week 2, we’ve got a long season, and the most important thing is that we get better,” Campbell said. “We just need to get better than we were today in all three phases. We need to play better against the Jets, and I think we will. We can, and we certainly will.”
Campbell credited Bills head coach Joe Brady for having his team ready to play.
“They got after us and we didn’t play good enough and we didn’t coach good enough. That falls on me,” Campbell said. “It certainly needed to be a lot cleaner than that.”
Josh Allen made the first regular-season game in Highmark Stadium memorable for Bills fans.
The quarterback threw three touchdown passes and ran for two in a dominant 41-31 win over the Lions. The Bills improved to 2-0, while the Lions fell to 1-1.
Allen now has four career games with three touchdown passes and two rushing touchdowns. No other player in NFL history has more than two (Kordell Stewart), according to NFL Researcher.
Allen completed 20 of 31 passes for 248 yards and three touchdowns. His scoring tosses went for 43 yards to Josh Palmer, 1 yard to Dawson Knox and 16 yards to Dalton Kincaid. Palmer has two catches for 77 yards and two touchdowns this season, having caught the game-winning touchdown in the win over the Texans on Sunday.
Kincaid caught seven passes for a team-leading 95 yards.
The Bills lost wide receiver DJ Moore to a shoulder injury and a stinger in the first half.
Allen also ran for 69 yards and two touchdowns on 14 carries, topped only by James Cook’s 21 carries for 135 yards. Cook scored the team’s last touchdown on a 1-yard run with 2:50 left to seal it.
The Bills outgained the Lions 446 to 355, were 5-for-5 in the red zone and went 9-of-12 on third down.
Buffalo scored touchdowns on its first four possessions and punted only twice all night.
The Lions, who blew a 21-0 lead to the Saints last week before winning in overtime, fell behind 21-0 and trailed 27-10 at halftime. They twice pulled to within 10 points when the game was still in reach, but Allen and the Bills answered twice.
Detroit’s last touchdown, which pulled it to within 10 again, came with 1:42 left as as Amon-Ra St. Brown scored his second touchdown. The Bills, though, recovered the onside kick.
Lions quarterback Jared Goff was 26-of-38 for 327 yards and four touchdowns after a slow start. Goff reached 40,000 yards in his 153rd game, the sixth-fastest for any quarterback.
St. Brown caught nine passes for 142 yards and two touchdowns, and running back Jahmyr Gibbs had 16 carries for 52 yards and caught six passes for 61 yards and a touchdown.
Bills outside linebacker Greg Rousseau, who had two sacks and two forced fumbles in the season-opening win over the Texans on Sunday, had two sacks and a forced fumble against the Lions.
Josh Allen is a touchdown machine.
For the 10th time in his career, he has scored two or more rushing touchdowns and two or more passing touchdowns in the same game. His latest score came on the ground from two yards out, extending Buffalo’s lead over the Lions to 34-17.
Allen holds the record by a wide margin. In second place on the all-time two-and-two list is Hall of Famer Steve Young. He did it four times.
For the season, Allen has already accounted for nine touchdowns.
Barring a collapse, the Bills will move to 2-0 on the year, with a proper christening of their new stadium.
Bills wide receiver DJ Moore will not return tonight.
With extra time until their next game, the Bills will have to hope 10 days is long enough for Moore to heal.
Moore was injured with 2:56 remaining in the first half when he dove in the end zone for a pass from Josh Allen. The pass was incomplete, and Moore landed on his shoulder before Lions cornerback Rock Ya-Sin landed on top of him.
Moore is out with a shoulder injury and a stinger.
The Bills lead the Lions 34-17 after Josh Allen’s 2-yard touchdown run with 1:07 remaining in the third quarter. Allen has run for two touchdowns and thrown three others.
The Lions aren’t dead yet.
Detroit opened the second half with an 11-play, 74-yard touchdown drive, and now trail the Bills 27-17. The Lions were down 21-0 before Jared Goff hit Jahmyr Gibbs for an 11-yard touchdown. Jake Bates kicked a 31-yard field goal on the last play of the first half, and Goff found Amon-Ra St. Brown for a 2-yard touchdown with 9:29 left in the third quarter.
Goff is 18-of-24 for 198 yards and two touchdowns. He has thrown a touchdown in 25 consecutive games.
St. Brown has six catches for 70 yards and a touchdown.
The Bills have christened their new stadium with champagne and caviar on the field.
Josh Allen threw three touchdowns in the first half and ran for another, and the Bills are in the locker room at halftime with a 27-10 lead.
Almost everything went right for the Bills in the first half other than Tyler Bass missing an extra point, punting on their fourth possession and injuries to wide receivers DJ Moore and Keon Coleman. Moore is in the X-ray room being examined for a shoulder injury and a stinger, and Coleman returned after getting his right ankle taped on the sideline.
The Bills have outgained the Lions 299 to 155, scoring touchdowns on their first four possessions on drives of 85, 79, 57 and 68 yards.
Allen is 12-of-19 for 164 yards with three touchdowns on throws of 43 yards to Josh Palmer, 1 yard to Dawson Knox and 16 yards to Dalton Kincaid, The quarterback also has four carries for 40 yards and a touchdown.
James Cook already has 100 yards, rushing for 101 on 11 carries. Kincaid has five catches for 65 yards.
Jared Goff kept his streak of consecutive games with a touchdown alive with an 11-yard touchdown pass to running back Jahmyr Gibbs. It was the 25th game in a row Goff has thrown a TD pass. But it came with the Lions down 21-0.
Goff is 11-of-16 for 128 yards and a touchdown. He’s been sacked three times, including twice by Greg Rousseau, who is off to a great start this season. Gibbs has rushed for 47 yards on eight carries and has caught four passes for 40 yards.
Bills wide receiver DJ Moore was injured while diving for a Josh Allen pass in the end zone.
Moore is in the X-ray room for further evaluation after coming down hard on his left shoulder and then having Lions cornerback Rock Ya-Sin land on top of him.
The Bills list Moore as questionable to return with a shoulder injury and a possible stinger, according to Prime sideline reporter Kaylee Hartung.
The Bills scored on the next play, as Josh Allen connected with tight end Dalton Kincaid for a 16-yard touchdown. Tyler Bass missed the extra point wide left. The Bills lead 27-7 with 2:52 remaining in the second quarter.
