ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (AP) — Josh Allen got his much-needed rest while still extending his starting streak to 135 consecutive games with an opening-play handoff. James Cook got his NFL rushing title, becoming Buffalo’s first player to do so since O.J. Simpson in 1976.
And the Bills produced a fitting send-off, playing what’s likely their final game at the 53-year-old Highmark Stadium on Sunday before moving into their new digs across the street next season.
Now comes the hard part: the playoffs.
Whatever warm feelings the Bills got by having fans serenade them off the field following a 35-8 thumping of the Jets must be put aside with sixth-seeded Buffalo (12-5) traveling to play AFC South champion Jacksonville (13-4) in the wild-card round on Sunday.
The outing presents a new challenge for Allen and the Bills in opening the playoffs on the road for the first time since 2019. That’s when Allen, in his second NFL season, made his playoff debut in a 22-19 overtime loss at Houston.
Though much has changed since for a player and team that would go on to win five straight AFC East titles, several familiar questions remain.
For all of Allen’s remarkable exploits, the NFL's reigning MVP is still missing one major career checkmark — a Super Bowl appearance.
The same goes for coach Sean McDermott.
In his ninth season at the helm, McDermott deserves plenty of credit for transforming the franchise into a perennial contender. After going 17 seasons without a playoff berth, Buffalo finally broke through in McDermott’s first year, ending with a 10-3 loss in the 2017 wild-card round at Jacksonville.
And yet McDermott carries the stigma of a coach who can lead his team only so far — a criticism mentor Andy Reid faced in Philadelphia before finally winning three times in Kansas City.
In the Bills’ favor is an AFC field that doesn’t include familiar nemesis Kansas City, which has eliminated Buffalo in four of the previous five playoffs. Joe Burrow and the Bengals, who eliminated the Bills three years ago, are out, too.
Buffalo has held its own in going 3-3 against this year’s playoff teams, with the three losses decided by a combined eight points, including a 23-19 loss at Houston in November.
At issue is having to hit the road, where the Bills are 0-5 in the postseason under McDermott. Including two Super Bowl appearances, Buffalo has lost its last 10 playoff outings outside of Orchard Park, New York, since a 29-10 win at Miami in the 1992 AFC championship game.
More daunting is the prospect of having to win three straight road playoff games to reach the Super Bowl. Only five teams have done so, beginning with New England in 1985 and ending with Tampa Bay in 2020.
Buffalo’s only hope at playing one more home game features the long-shot scenario of the Bills hosting the seventh-seeded Los Angeles Chargers in the AFC championship game.
McDermott doesn’t need to be reminded of what’s at stake; he previously addressed the team’s playoff shortcomings in August.
“We take a lot of pride in what we’ve done here. And nobody has more internal drive and internal expectations than I do or we do. And very confident in who we are,” McDermott said. “There’s one thing that remains. We know what that is. But you can’t get there tomorrow.”
Some four months and 12 regular-season wins later, tomorrow has arrived.
A James Cook-led running attack in which the fourth-year player led the NFL with 1,621 yards. Buffalo’s 2,713 yards rushing this season are the third most in team history, and best since 2,974 in 1975.
A shaky run defense. Though Buffalo limited its past two opponents to a combined 151 yards rushing, the team still allowed 2,315 yards overall, the most since 2012. The 24 touchdowns rushing scored against Buffalo are the second most in team history.
RB Ray Davis. The second-year backup had a career-best 151 yards rushing and a TD catch while filling in for Cook, playing in front of a line featuring four backups.
WR Josh Palmer. The prized offseason free agent fails to play up to expectations, managing just one catch on three targets for 1 yard while on the field for 63 of Buffalo’s 72 offensive snaps.
McDermott listed rookie CB Maxwell Hairston (ankle) as week to week and said he's unlikely to play this weekend. K Matt Prater was listed as day to day after aggravating a quadricep injury to his kicking leg. McDermott said the Bills will bring in kickers for tryouts as a precaution in case Prater can't play.
6,000 — With 6,397 yards of offense, the Bills topped 6,000 for a sixth consecutive season and seventh time overall.
The Bills are 0-2 against Jacksonville in the playoffs, including a 30-27 loss in the 1996 wild-card round in what was Buffalo Hall of Fame quarterback Jim Kelly’s final game.
This story has been corrected to reflect the Bills losing five straight playoff road games under McDermott and 10 straight road games overall.
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Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) hands off to running back James Cook III (4) in the first half of an NFL football game between the Bills and the New York Jets Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen (17) congratulates wide receiver Joshua Palmer (5) after the Bills scored a touchdown against the New York Jets in the second half of an NFL football game Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026, in Orchard Park, N.Y. (AP Photo/Adrian Kraus)
Denmark and Greenland are seeking a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the Trump administration doubled down on its intention to take over the strategic Arctic island, a Danish territory.
Tensions escalated after the White House said Tuesday that the “U.S. military is always an option." President Donald Trump has argued that the U.S. needs to control the world’s largest island to ensure its own security in the face of rising threats from China and Russia in the Arctic.
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned earlier this week that a U.S. takeover would amount to the end of NATO.
“The Nordics do not lightly make statements like this,” Maria Martisiute, a defense analyst at the European Policy Centre think tank, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “But it is Trump, whose very bombastic language bordering on direct threats and intimidation, is threatening the fact to another ally by saying ‘I will control or annex the territory.’”
The leaders of France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom joined Frederiksen in a statement Tuesday reaffirming that the mineral-rich island “belongs to its people.”
Their statement defended the sovereignty of Greenland, which is a self-governing territory of Denmark and part of NATO.
The U.S. military action in Venezuela last weekend has heightened fears across Europe, and Trump and his advisers in recent days have reiterated a desire to take over the island, which guards the Arctic and North Atlantic approaches to North America.
“It’s so strategic right now,” Trump told reporters Sunday.
Danish Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen and his Greenland counterpart, Vivian Motzfeldt, have requested a meeting with Rubio in the near future, according to a statement posted Tuesday to Greenland's government website.
Previous requests for a sit-down were not successful, the statement said.
Thomas Crosbie, an associate professor of military operations at the Royal Danish Defense College, said an American takeover would not improve upon Washington's current security strategy.
“The United States will gain no advantage if its flag is flying in Nuuk versus the Greenlandic flag,” he told the AP. “There’s no benefits to them because they already enjoy all of the advantages they want. If there’s any specific security access that they want to improve American security, they’ll be given it as a matter of course, as a trusted ally. So this has nothing to do with improving national security for the United States.”
Denmark’s parliament approved a bill last June to allow U.S. military bases on Danish soil. It widened a previous military agreement, made in 2023 with the Biden administration, where U.S. troops had broad access to Danish airbases in the Scandinavian country.
Rasmussen, in a response to lawmakers’ questions, wrote over the summer that Denmark would be able to terminate the agreement if the U.S. tries to annex all or part of Greenland.
But in the event of a military action, the U.S. Department of Defense currently operates the remote Pituffik Space Base, in northwestern Greenland, and the troops there could be mobilized.
Crosbie said he believes the U.S. would not seek to hurt the local population or engage with Danish troops.
“They don’t need to bring any firepower. They don’t to bring anybody.” Crosbie said Wednesday. “They could just direct the military personnel currently there to drive to the center of Nuuk and just say, ‘This is America now,’ right? And that would lead to the same response as if they flew in 500 or 1,000 people.”
The danger in an American annexation, he said, lies in the “erosion of the rule of law globally and to the perception that there are any norms protecting anybody on the planet.”
He added: “The impact is changing the map. The impact I don’t think would be storming the parliament.”
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said he spoke by phone Tuesday with Rubio, who dismissed the idea of a Venezuela-style operation in Greenland.
“In the United States, there is massive support for the country belonging to NATO – a membership that, from one day to the next, would be compromised by … any form of aggressiveness toward another member of NATO,” Barrot told France Inter radio on Wednesday.
Asked if he has a plan in case Trump does claim Greenland, Barrot said he would not engage in “fiction diplomacy.”
While most Republicans have supported Trump’s statement, Senators Jeanne Shaheen and Thom Tillis, the Democratic and Republican co-chairs of the bipartisan Senate NATO Observer Group, have criticized Trump’s rhetoric.
“When Denmark and Greenland make it clear that Greenland is not for sale, the United States must honor its treaty obligations and respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Denmark,” their statement on Tuesday said. “Any suggestion that our nation would subject a fellow NATO ally to coercion or external pressure undermines the very principles of self-determination that our Alliance exists to defend.”
Geir Moulson in Berlin and Mark Carlson in Brussels contributed to this report.
FILE - Danish military forces participate in an exercise with hundreds of troops from several European NATO members in the Arctic Ocean in Nuuk, Greenland, Sept. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
FILE - A plane carrying Donald Trump Jr. lands in Nuuk, Greenland, Jan. 7, 2025. (Emil Stach/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, file)
FILE - United States Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller reacts on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein), File)
CORRECT THE ORDER OF SPEAKERS, FILE - Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, right, and Greenland's Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen, left, speak on April 27, 2025, in Marienborg, Denmark. (Mads Claus Rasmussen/Ritzau Scanpix via AP, File)
