The Best of One Bills Drive: Dec. 14, 2014

(Greg D. Tranter and Budd Bailey have written a book about the history of the football stadium in Orchard Park called "One Bills Drive." It has been published by Reedy Press (https://reedypress.com/shop/one-bills-drive-the-buffalo-bills-greatest-home-games/). The books covers the top 50 games played in the stadium's history from 1973 until January 2025. However, there are several other games that qualified as thrilling - but they couldn't crack the top 50. Those contests deserve to be remembered too, so we'll offer them in this space a couple of times per week during the season.)

Score by Quarters:

                                  1          2         3         4        Final

Green Bay (10-4)         3           7          0          3           13

Buffalo (8-6)               7           3          6          5           21

Scoring Summary:

Quarter – Team – Play

1 – Packers – Crosby 45-yard field goal

1 – Bills – Thigpen 75-yard punt return (Carpenter kick)

2 – Packers – Lacy 1-yard run (Crosby kick)

2 – Bills – Carpenter 27-yard field goal

3 – Bills – Carpenter 51-yard field goal

3 – Bills - Carpenter 35-yard field goal

4 – Bills – Carpenter 48-yard field goal

4 – Packers – Crosby 34-yard field goal

4 – Bills – Lacy tackled in end zone by Robey for safety

Recap: Entering the game, the Bills had some faint hopes of reaching the playoffs for the first time since the 1999 season. While that certainly was an incentive for the team to play hard, they also had a chance to show they could play with one of the best teams in the NFL that season. Green Bay not only was in the midst of a battle for first place in the NFC North with Detroit, but it also had hopes of grabbing the No. 1 seed in the conference playoffs. The Packers had Aaron Rodgers at quarterback, and he was around the height of his powers as his team led the league in scoring at that point of the season.

As the scoring summary shows, it was an odd game. How often does a team score exactly 21 points in a victory without the offense scoring a touchdown?

After giving up a field goal early in the first quarter, the Bills received a pleasant surprise when Marcus Thigpen ran a punt back 75 yards for a touchdown. Thigpen, a wide receiver had scored a couple of touchdowns on returns in 2012 for Miami, but this was his only score as a member of the Bills (parts of the 2014 and 2015 seasons).

"I knew we needed a spark,” Thigpen said after the game. “Once he kicked the ball, it fell kind of short and I saw our guys have some great blocks, I saw a big hole on the left side of the field. I just took it and ran for it."

While the Packers regained the lead on Eddie Lacy’s short run, the Bills came back like water dripping on a stone. They moved into field goal range four times in their 11 possessions, and Dan Carpenter converted on all four opportunities. That gave the Bills a 19-10 lead by the fourth quarter. Even so, the Packers kicked a fourth-quarter field goal to make it a one-possession game, and they had the ball deep in their own territory with about two minutes left.

Was Rodgers capable of a miracle finish? Bills defensive tackle Kyle Williams didn’t think so. "I can tell you, I've never been as confident going out there for that final series," he said to The Buffalo News. "They have no timeouts and they have to throw the ball. You can't run it, not enough time on the clock, and with our players up front, I like that matchup."

Not on this day. Mario Williams – who had blocked a field goal earlier in the day - stripped the ball away from Rodgers in his own end zone. Lacy recovered the fumble, but Nickell Robey brought Lacy down for a safety. The Bills ran out the clock for the win.

"Obviously, they played at a very high level,” Bills coach Doug Marrone said after what might have been his biggest win as the leader of the team. “We were able to go in and, early on, we took away some of the stop-nines they were trying to run and get them to the second read. I knew earlier in the week that we were going to play some coverage, two-man and things like that. They hurt us on some of the runs early on because we had to stop them with seven in the box. They did a good job of cutting us off, but overall guys stepped up."

Even better, the playoffs were still relevant for the Bills. “We’re going to come out every Sunday and we’re going to fight for four quarters,” defensive end Jerry Hughes said to The Buffalo News. “We’re going to try to win these last couple of ballgames and then just see where the chips lie after that.”

Noteworthy: Quarterback Kyle Orton was 14 for 27 passing for 158 yards. … Sammy Watkins broke Lee Evans’ team rookie records for yards receiving in a season; he had grabbed the rookie reception record from Evans in the team’s previous game. … Rodgers had a passer rating of 34.3 after only completing 17 of 42 passes for 185 yards and two interceptions – both by Bacarri Rambo, who had the game of his NFL career.

Legacy: The good feelings for the Bills came to an end a week later. They lost to the Oakland Raiders, who eventually finished 3-13 for the season. The Bills missed the playoffs again, but they did finish 9-7 to be above the .500 mark for a season for the first time since 2004.

Some thought that Marrone had wrapped up the chance to return to the team and coach for a third season. However, Marrone opted to use an opt-out clause in the contract when Terry Pegula replaced Ralph Wilson as the team’s owner. It may have been a negotiating tactic, but if so it didn’t work. The Bills let him walk away and hired Rex Ryan. Marrone landed in Jacksonville for four years, leaving after a disastrous 1-15 season in 2020.