The Philadelphia Eagles held on to beat the Buffalo Bills 13-12 on December 28, 2025, after Bills quarterback Josh Allen missed wide receiver Khalil Shakir in the end zone on a two-point conversion attempt with five seconds left in the fourth quarter, as NFL.com confirmed, sealing the victory for Philadelphia.
With just five seconds remaining and the Bills trailing by one, Allen rolled out looking for Shakir in the back of the end zone.
According to Bills.com, Allen sought out Shakir on the two-point try, but the pass was too far from Shakir’s reach to give Buffalo the lead. The one-point margin that made the conversion necessary had itself been manufactured by a pivotal special-teams play earlier in the fourth quarter — a detail that made the final seconds all the more unforgiving.
The Eagles had led 13-0 heading into the fourth quarter, looking every bit like a team in complete control. Allen then engineered a remarkable comeback, rushing for two touchdowns to drag Buffalo back from the brink — cutting the deficit to 13-6 with 5:51 remaining after his first score, before punching in a second to set up the decisive two-point try.
Allen took full accountability in his postgame press conference. Per 13WHAM, he said: “Yeah, I just missed. Rolling left, I’ve got to get him a better ball.” He later added, “It just comes down to us executing, making one more play than they did. And obviously you saw that we didn’t make that last play” — then corrected himself: “I didn’t make that last play.”
Allen’s Fourth-Quarter Rally — and the Miss That Ended It
After the final whistle, Allen kept returning to the play that decided the Buffalo Bills’ 13-12 loss to the Philadelphia Eagles, according to 13WHAM — refusing to let on how sore his body was after being sacked five times and hit numerous others throughout the game.
Allen’s stat line told the story of a quarterback who did enough to win and then didn’t: 23-of-35 passing for 262 yards, with two rushing touchdowns that gave Buffalo its only points of the night, per the Eagles’ official game recap and Bleacher Report.
The pass to Shakir — a foot wide, per ESPN — was the final act of a performance that had been both brilliant and costly. Allen’s missed throw sealed Philadelphia’s win and left the Bills one point short of a result that would have kept them in contention in the AFC East late-season race.
Allen’s Night: 262 Yards, Two Scores, and One Miss That Decided Everything
After the loss, Allen kept returning to the play that decided the game. Per 13WHAM, he refused to deflect — even as reporters asked whether his body had held up after he was sacked five times and hit numerous others throughout the afternoon.
Allen finished 23-of-35 for 262 yards, per the Eagles’ official recap, while rushing for two touchdowns that gave Buffalo its only points of the night. The comeback was real — and so was the pressure he absorbed to make it happen.
Early in the game, OLB Jaelan Phillips strip-sacked Allen, and linebacker Jihaad Campbell recovered the fumble in Buffalo territory, per the Eagles’ recap — a turnover that led directly to Philadelphia’s first touchdown and set the tone for the deficit Allen spent the fourth quarter erasing.
Despite 262 passing yards and two rushing touchdowns, the final miss remained the deciding play. As Allen told 13WHAM: “It just comes down to us executing… I didn’t make that last play.”
Philadelphia’s Defense Delivers the Decisive Swings
While Jalen Hurts and the Eagles’ offense sputtered through the second half, Philadelphia’s defense delivered when it mattered most.
Defensive end Jalyx Hunt was a constant disruptor. Per the Eagles’ official recap, Hunt took down Allen for a 19-yard loss on a critical possession, kicking the Bills out of field goal range — his second sack of the game, giving him a team-high 6.5 on the season.
The single most consequential play of the game, however, came from defensive tackle Jalen Carter, who blocked the extra point attempt following Allen’s first rushing touchdown, per the Eagles’ recap — keeping it a seven-point game at 13-6 rather than a six-point deficit.
That one blocked kick — worth a single point — proved to be the difference between a Bills win and a Bills loss.
Per the Eagles’ official recap, Carter did not disappoint in his return to the field: he had a monster sack of Allen and then blocked the extra point in the fourth quarter that “proved to be pivotal as the Bills needed a two-point conversion for the win.”
Carter’s ability to collapse the pocket and disrupt special teams operations in the same game underscored why the Eagles’ defensive front remains one of the most dangerous units in the NFC. His sack of Allen for a 9-yard loss and the blocked kick were the two sequences that swung the game’s margin from manageable to decisive.
Holding Buffalo to 12 total points was a collective defensive achievement. Phillips’ early strip-sack set up Philadelphia’s first score; Carter’s blocked kick preserved the seven-point cushion that ultimately forced the two-point try; and the Eagles’ defense made the final stop in the end zone to secure the 13-12 win.
