The lowest point of the Buffalo Bills season was perhaps back in Week 10, when a last second Hail Mary by the Arizona Cardinals handed the Bills a 32-30 loss heading into the bye. Buffalo came out of that game with a 7-3 record.

In fact, that was the last time the Bills have lost a game… period.

While the play, then coined the ‘Hail Murray’ was plastered all over the Internet and television nationwide, only adding to the heartache of Bills fans. The Buffalo locker room too the positives out of it as the team took that moment and grew from it.

Fast forward to the first round of the playoffs and the Bills were faced with an eerily similar situation. Only this time it ended with a victory.

Following the game, Bills left tackle Dion Dawkins, said he was “less stressed” this time around because of how often he sees Buffalo’s defense working on that play in practice.

“Micah (Hyde) went up there and tomahawked the thing like he was a starter on a volleyball team,” Dawkins added.

Tomahawk indeed:

In a piece published this week in The Players Tribune, Dawkins touched on how that low moment against Arizona propelled the Bills down the path they are on now:

We saw Arizona celebrating on the field, after the Hail Mary. And it was just something about it, man. It was the way they were running around, hooting and hollering, like they’d won the damn Super Bowl. It was something about that. I think for whatever reason, that just struck this chord with us. Not because we were annoyed with them or anything. They won, they can celebrate how they want. Nah. It was more like: We looked at them. And then we looked at us. And I think we just had this moment of, Alright — hold up. If they’re fired up like they won the Super Bowl….. why aren’t we upset like we lost the Super Bowl?

And I think that’s when it hit us. It hit us that things are different now.

It hit us that this team, our team, these Buffalo Bills — we’ve moved on to a different place. Like, with all due respect to the Cardinals: I think they’re in a similar spot now to where we were these last few seasons. Just trying to claw and make the playoffs with an up-and-coming roster. Whereas, for us? It’s not like that now. We’re taking the long view. Every game isn’t the Super Bowl for our team.

The Super Bowl is the Super Bowl for our team.

But Dawkins really has no say in what happens at the end of such plays. NFL teams have gotten creative on Hail Mary passes, sometimes using a wide receiver or tight end to defend them. No left tackles have done so just yet.

In their recouping of allowing catches on deep, lasr-second plays, the Bills changed… nothing.  Bills safety Micah Hyde, who was directly involved in the Hail Mary against Arizona, wasn’t shy about having another shot this time around.

“I love that I was able to do that again,” Hyde said. “It was a big play obviously. The game sealing play. As soon as I saw, you know, four seconds left, they had to go for the end zone, I just backed up in the end zone and said, ‘There ain’t no way this is happening again.’ I got a running start to go up there and get it. Looking back on it, I wish I would’ve done it in AZ, but hey, you win some, you lose some and when you lose, you learn along the way.”

Evidently the weight of the last-second loss by the Bills was felt by head coach Sean McDermott, too. The bench boss was seen pointing to the sky for a prolonged period of time after the game ended:

“Looked like it was well executed by our defense,” McDermott said via video conference. “I liked the look in their eye when they took the field for that last drive.” While we will never know what would have happened had the Bills knocked the ball down in Arizona, we do know that going 13-3 and winning in the playoffs is a whole lot better than going 14-2 and losing. Perhaps as Dawkins and Hyde both said, that moment needed to happen. Ity allowed the Bills to learn from it and get to where they are now… which is heading to the divisional round after getting their first playoff victory since 1995.