Bills' defense fueled by naysayers in win vs. Jackson, Ravens - ESPN

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The Buffalo Bills were well aware of the outside noise.

There were question marks and discussions being held online and on TV leading up to the Bills' divisional round game against the Baltimore Ravens on Sunday concerning how this defense would perform against quarterback Lamar Jackson, running back Derrick Henry and the rest of the Ravens' offense.

The Bills' defensive players used that to help fuel their performance. While the Ravens' offense was able to get in a second-half groove, the Bills, helped by some Ravens miscues, were able to do enough to secure a 27-25 win to advance to the AFC Championship Game against the Kansas City Chiefs. This will be the team's second AFC championship appearance in the past 30 seasons.

«Our guys heard it all — they heard it all week long. We're not big enough, we're not strong enough. Not talented enough. Whatever it is, they heard it,» coach Sean McDermott said. «I don't do the social media things, but I think most of those guys do. And look, we did, I think, in the first half a pretty darn good job. Second half, [Henry] got rolling a little bit. And he's going to pop some runs, I mean, when he gets that momentum, he's hard to stop. So, but even there, we could have done some things better, and I think fundamentally, so when we just look at this game, it came down to fundamentalism in football. And we talked a lot about that.»

The Bills held Henry to 84 rushing yards compared to 199 yards in the Ravens' 35-10 Week 4 win, with the availability of linebackers Terrel Bernard and Matt Milano and nickel cornerback Taron Johnson important for this unit after all three missed the first meeting. The Ravens' offense rushed for 176 yards on 20 carries, and the Ravens did