Bills vs. Ravens: Tyler Bass records first career game-winning kick

Oct 3, 2022 - 1:31 AM

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In a game that saw the Buffalo Bills fight their way back from a 20-3 deficit, kicker Tyler Bass was given the opportunity to kick his first game-winning field goal, and, as expected, he delivered.

Bass’s kick lifted Buffalo over the home team Baltimore Ravens and completed a comeback win that gave Buffalo their largest comeback victory since September 2011, when they beat the New England Patriots 34-31 after starting the game by giving up 21 straight points.

Bass, who is in his third NFL season, is no stranger to scoring as the Bills have one of the league’s highest-scoring offenses.

In 37 regular-season games—all of them since he joined Buffalo after being drafted in 2020—Bass has been successful on 85.1% of his field goal attempts, including being 20 for 25 on kicks over 40 yards.

But to beat the Ravens, Bass only needed to connect on what was essentially an extra-point attempt—four yards less, actually. With a 1st & GOAL from the one, quarterback Josh Allen took a knee twice as the Bills ran the clock down to the final three seconds, leaving just enough time for Bass to come in for a 21-yard field goal attempt.

While there’s no such thing as a sure thing, Bass’s final kick of the day was as close as you can get to certain. Bass has been perfect inside the 30 (26 for 26) in his career, although he did miss two extra-point attempts during his rookie season.

Bass’s 21-yard field goal as time expired in their Week 4 game earned the Bills their first win on the final play of a game since 2018—a year and a half before Bass was drafted. That game, on October 7, 2018 saw then-Bills kicker Stephen Hauschka kick a 46-yard field goal as Buffalo defeated the Tennessee Titans, 13-12. Sunday’s victory was also Buffalo’s first road win on the last play of the game since the Bills defeated the Chicago Bears 23-20 on a Dan Carpenter field goal during the 2014 season.

In addition to recording his first career-winning kick, Bass moved up the Bills’ all-time scoring list on Sunday.

His 11 points in Buffalo’s win over the Ravens moved him passed Hauschka (303) to ninth on the team’s all-time list with 310 total points. Bass’s 8+ points-a-game average is higher than that of Buffalo’s all-time scoring leader Steve Christie, (7+ points per game) who finished his career with 1,011 points in a Bills uniform.

While there are surely a lot more points to come in Bass’s career, and all of Buffalo is hoping he is in a Bills uniform when they do come, today there were only three that mattered: the ones that ended the game, giving the Bills a much-needed emotional win.