Eagles hang on to beat Bills 13-12 when Josh Allen misses an open Khalil Shakir on 2-point try

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — As Jalen Carter and his Philadelphia teammates celebrated in the end zone after making one last crucial stop, Buffalo’s Josh Allen removed his helmet and yelled out in frustration.

In a game decided by a 2-point conversion attempt, Allen came up short — a foot wide, actually — when he sailed his pass out of the reach of Khalil Shakir in the back of the end zone with 5 seconds remaining. That was the difference as the Eagles beat the Bills 13-12 on Sunday in a late-season matchup of Super Bowl contenders.

“Winning’s hard in this league, and I’m always going to enjoy a win,” Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said after his team nearly squandered a 13-0 fourth-quarter lead.

“If you come out of this and you’re just thinking about all the negative things that happened, then it’s just a miserable existence,” Sirianni added.

The NFC East champion Eagles (11-5) are assured of at least the conference’s No. 3 seed in the playoffs. They improved to 7-3 in one-score games and became the NFL's first team since the Patriots in 1987 to win multiple games in which they failed to complete a pass in the second half.

Buffalo (11-5), which clinched a playoff berth last week, dropped to the No. 7 seed in the AFC. New England won its first AFC East title since 2019 with the Bills’ loss.

Allen had a far different take on the outcome than Sirianni.

“Yeah, it means a lot. We can learn a lot from this experience,” Allen said, looking ahead to the playoffs in two weeks. “I’d rather have won and learn from that too, but again, I got to make a play.”

After being shut out for nearly 55 minutes, Allen rallied the Bills by rushing for two touchdowns in the final 5:11. His second TD came on a 1-yard tush push on fourth-and-goal — one play after a replay review determined that tight end Dawson Knox’s elbow came down just short of the goal line.

Rather than playing for overtime, coach Sean McDermott opted to go for 2. Allen dropped back and was being pressured by linebacker Jalyx Hunt when he let loose a pass that sailed wide of Shakir. The Bills then tried an onside kick that Goedert recovered.

“Yeah I just missed. Rolling left, got to get him a better ball,” Allen said.

Dallas Goedert caught a 1-yard touchdown pass and Jake Elliott accounted for the rest of Philadelphia's offense by hitting field goals of 28 and 47 yards.

Hunt had two of Philadelphia’s four sacks and a team-leading three quarterback hits.

And Carter made a major contribution in his return after missing three games with injuries to both shoulders. Carter got his hand up to block Michael Badgley’s extra-point attempt after Allen’s 2-yard touchdown run with 5:11 left.

“Just a big-time player who makes big plays,” Sirianni said of Carter, who also had a sack. “Relentless in everything that he does. Relentless effort.”

The Eagles needed their defense to preserve the win after their offense evaporated in the second half. Not including its game-closing kneel-down, Philadelphia combined for one first down and 17 yards of offense on five second-half possessions — all ending with punts.

“It’s a big-time win,” Hurts said. “Hell of a performance by the defense and how they played and how they were able to find a way to gut that out and make plays when we needed it the most.”

Hurts went 0 for 7 in the second half and finished 13 of 27 for 110 yards with a touchdown. Goedert’s TD was his team-leading 11th of the season and set the single-season team record for tight ends — one more than Pete Retzlaff had in 1965.

Allen went 16 of 25 for 172 yards in the second half and finished 23 of 35 for 262 yards. With his two rushing scores, the 29-year-old Allen increased his career total to 301 (passing, rushing, receiving) and became the first player to reach 300 before turning 30.

Allen, who was limited in practice this week with a sore right foot, got X-rays after the game. McDermott said the tests were negative, and Allen said he felt good and the foot injury had zero impact on his performance.

What hurt was coming one completion short.

“It just comes down to us executing, making one more play than they did. And obviously we saw that we didn’t make that last play,” Allen said, before correcting himself. “I didn’t make that last play.”

Eagles: LB Nakobe Dean (hamstring) did not play.

Bills: LB Terrel Bernard did not return after hurting his calf in the first half. ... Defensive tackles DaQuan Jones (calf) and Jordan Phillips (ankle) and safety Jordan Poyer (hamstring) did not play. TE Dalton Kincaid missed his fourth of seven games with a nagging knee injury.

Eagles: Host Washington next weekend.

Bills: Host the New York Jets next weekend.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/nfl

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni reacts after the Eagles blocked an extra point attempt during the second half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Philadelphia Eagles' Saquon Barkley, left, is tackled by Buffalo Bills' Cam Lewis, center, and Cole Bishop during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Philadelphia Eagles' Jalen Hurts, right, scrambles past Buffalo Bills' Greg Rousseau during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Philadelphia Eagles' Saquon Barkley, left, is tackled by Buffalo Bills' Cam Lewis, center, and Cole Bishop during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Buffalo Bills' Josh Allen (17) is sacked by Philadelphia Eagles' Jalyx Hunt (58) during the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

Philadelphia Eagles' Dallas Goedert (88) and Fred Johnson (74) celebrate after a touchdown during the first half of an NFL football game against the Buffalo Bills, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)

Buffalo Bills' Josh Allen (17) scores a touchdown during the second half of an NFL football game against the Philadelphia Eagles, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in Buffalo, N.Y. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar)

EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. (AP) — Drake Maye and the New England Patriots took care of things on their end to become AFC East champions.

And they didn't even need four quarters.

Maye threw a career-high five touchdown passes before getting the rest of the game off in the third quarter, New England scored a TD on its first six drives and the Patriots finished the regular season undefeated on the road by dominating the New York Jets 42-10 on Sunday.

“It comes down to unfinished business,” Maye said. “You want to go 8-0 on the road. That would be something we thought would be pretty cool. In this league, it’s hard to win on the road and we accomplished that today.”

A few hours later, the Patriots (13-3) won the AFC East title for the first time since 2019 when Buffalo, which took the last five division crowns, lost 13-12 to Philadelphia.

Shortly after that game went final, the Patriots posted a photo on their social media pages of the players and coaches wearing AFC East champions hats and blue T-shirts that said: “2025 AFC East Champions. Been There, Won That.”

“Winning the division, we’ve got to win out to win the division,” Maye said. “That was our mindset. If that means the No. 1 seed is at play, that’s what we’re trying to do.”

Maye was 19 of 21 for 256 yards and a 157.0 quarterback rating with TD tosses to Rhamondre Stevenson — who also had a touchdown run — Austin Hooper, Stefon Diggs, Hunter Henry and Efton Chism III before being lifted by coach Mike Vrabel for Joshua Dobbs with 5:31 left in the third quarter.

Maye joined Tom Brady (11 times) and Drew Bledsoe (twice) as the only New England quarterbacks to reach 4,000 yards passing in a season.

“They don’t give me a vote,” Vrabel said of the league MVP buzz around Maye, “but there is nobody else we want as our quarterback.”

Dobbs' first drive ended the Patriots' touchdown run, with New England settling for a field goal on its seventh possession — but Andy Borregales clanked the 41-yard attempt off the right upright.

It didn't matter much by then, though, as the Patriots cruised to their eighth 13-win season in team history.

In a road game that looked and sounded more like a Patriots home game with all the red, white and blue-clad fans who made the trek down to MetLife Stadium, New England finished with no regular-season road losses for the third time in franchise history. Only San Francisco (1984, 1989 and 1990) has also gone undefeated on the road in three seasons since 1970.

“Coming in here and going 8-0 on the road, that’s a big thing for us as a young team,” cornerback Christian Gonzalez said.

Meanwhile, it was another embarrassing showing in the home finale for the lowly Jets (3-13), who have lost four in a row and have two straight seasons with multiple losing streaks of at least four games. New York became the fifth team in NFL history to lose four straight by 23 or more points in one season, and the first since the 1972 Patriots.

“Highly, highly disappointed in the way that we came out,” coach Aaron Glenn said. “Today was probably the one time I feel like our effort wasn’t as good as I want it to be.”

Undrafted rookie quarterback Brady Cook made his third consecutive start and went 19 of 33 for 152 yards and an interception.

Breece Hall had 111 yards rushing, including a 59-yard TD run early in the fourth quarter, to give him his first 1,000-yard season.

Maye and the Patriots sliced through the Jets' porous defense on their opening drive, capping it with a 2-yard TD catch by Hooper.

After a three-and-out by the Jets, New England again got into the end zone when Stevenson ran it in after a questionable pass interference call on Brandon Stephens in the end zone put the ball on the 1.

The Patriots took advantage of an interception by Jaylinn Hawkins and scored on their third straight possession, this time on Maye's 22-yard TD pass to Stevenson to make it 21-0.

New England made it 4 for 4 on TD drives on their next possession with Maye hitting Diggs on a screen on fourth down for a 3-yard touchdown.

After a roughing-the-passer call on third down kept the Patriots' next drive alive, Maye found a wide-open Henry for a 13-yard score.

New England stayed perfect on TD drives on the first possession of the second half with Maye finding a diving Chism for a 10-yard score that made it 42-3.

The Jets tried to find a spark with two fake punts on the same drive to open the second half.

On fourth-and-2 from the Jets 43, punter Austin McNamara took the snap and tossed a 3-yard pass to Malachi Moore for a first down.

Four plays later on fourth-and-6 from the 50, McNamara again lined up to punt but Isaiah Davis took the direct snap and was immediately dropped for a 3-yard loss and a turnover on downs.

Patriots: FB Jack Westover injured an ankle in the fourth quarter.

Jets: Hall left in the fourth quarter with a knee injury, but said he was OK after the game. ... CB Qwan'tez Stiggers injured a knee in the second half. ... Davis was evaluated for a concussion in the fourth quarter. ... LG John Simpson hurt a knee in the fourth quarter.

Patriots: Host Miami next weekend.

Jets: Finish the season on the road in Buffalo next weekend.

—

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

New York Jets quarterback Brady Cook (4) dives for a fumble against the New England Patriots during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin)

New England Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson (38) celebrates a touchdown against the New York Jets with teammate Kyle Williams (18) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin)

New England Patriots tight end Hunter Henry scores a touchdown against the New York Jets during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin)

New England Patriots wide receiver Stefon Diggs (8) celebrates after a touchdown against the New York Jets with teammate Demario Douglas (3) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin)

New England Patriots tight end Hunter Henry, left, celebrates after a touchdown against the New York Jets with teammate Drake Maye (10) during the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 28, 2025, in East Rutherford, N.J. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin)