When Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen’s deep throw floated towards wide receiver Brandin Cooks in overtime, an entire stadium held its breath. Buffalo looked positioned for a game-winning field goal. But Denver Broncos defensive end Ja’Quan McMillian came up with the ball.

That controversial interception was painful enough. But what makes it sting even harder is that the NFL has officially decided it won’t be doing anything about that play.

NFL executive vice president of football operations Troy Vincent acknowledged this week that the league identified five plays out of 171 from the 2025 regular season that it would want to revisit, including a play during the Baltimore Ravens – Pittsburgh Steelers clash, and another one involving the New York Jets.

“Of that 171 that occurred during [the] regular season, there were five after we kind of took a step back and breathed,” Vincent said. “four of them [were] in the 1 o’clock window. Just volume and you go, ‘Ah, if we had to do that one again, just looking at it.”

Unfortunately, the Bills-Broncos overtime interception wasn’t one of them. Not only did that call end Josh Allen’s season, it told the Bills Mafia the league doesn’t believe officials got the call wrong, even as the footage suggested otherwise.

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Denver’s 33-30 win in the AFC Divisional Round turned on that single moment. Officials ruled Cooks never completed the catch process before losing possession to McMillian. Moreover, overtime rules prohibited Buffalo from challenging the play.

Meanwhile, Bills head coach Sean McDermott (who rarely calls out officials) made it crystal clear that he wasn’t okay with the officials’ decision.

“That play is not even close.” McDermott had said after that loss. “That’s a catch all the way. I sat in my locker, and I looked at it probably 20 times, and nobody can convince me that that ball is not caught and in possession of Buffalo. I just have no idea how the NFL handled it, in particular, the way that they did. I think the players and the fans deserve an explanation.”

McDermott’s frustration was about the process. That’s why he doubled down on his take and delivered a sharp verdict on the league.

“I’m speaking up because I feel strongly that that was a catch,” McDermott added. “I can’t agree with their assessment of a change of possession or whatever the statement was. We’re not going to sit here and take it. I’m pissed off about it.”

For Josh Allen, though, that interception hit differently. Visibly in tears, voice breaking, he pointed the finger at himself at his press conference: one of football’s best quarterbacks broken by a call he couldn’t even challenge.

“It’s extremely difficult,” Allen said about the loss. “I feel like I let my teammates down tonight.”

Now, the Bills can’t appeal the result, but the controversy adds fuel to an already reform-heavy offseason. The NFL isn’t solving its officiating problems retroactively, it is building new guardrails going forward.

The NFL’s possible new guidelines

The league has been quite busy this offseason, looking over everything that could improve the game beyond its current standards. The boldest proposal is one that allows replay officials to throw flags for non-football penalties. This would limit player scuffles, unnecessary roughness and unsportsmanlike conduct to a large degree.

“You don’t want to just be expanding the Pandora’s box,” Troy Vincent said. “But we believe that things like the non-football act, you can really, really restrict what that is. That’s something that we believe that potentially there’s a little bit of tweaking in the language, that may be the first step.”

Meanwhile, the tush push debate is going nowhere. Last year, many speculated that the quarterback sneak play, which the Philadelphia Eagles have mastered over the years, would be banned.

But that attempt fell two votes short of the required 24. Now, Vincent has noted that no team has proposed the tush push ban this year and “that deadline has passed.” So the Eagles’ signature play survives another spring.

Player safety is quietly front and center, too. The NFL is studying shoulder pad requirements after a significant rise in shoulder injuries in seasons past.

The players had switched to smaller shoulder pads for more speed and fewer chances of being grabbed, but the injuries kept mounting. Now, NFL EVP Jeff Miller has signaled potential equipment mandates on the way.

“We know that shoulder pads in their coverage are not what they were 10 or 15 years ago,” Miller said in an interview. “Players and equipment managers tailor them. And is that presenting injury risk with less coverage?… It may be something we’re going to spend more time on… I think that there are equipment elements to this which need to be addressed.”

Together, these changes reveal a league willing to adapt in real time. They will modernize their replay system, study equipment, and defend the tush push from another attempted ban.

But all these changes come as little consolation for the Bills. The league won’t review the one call that sent Josh Allen home in tears. For Buffalo, that’s the only replay that truly matters, and hurts the most.