KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Josh Allen exited the visiting team’s media room at Arrowhead Stadium following his obligatory postgame news conference. He walked down the narrow hallway to the visitor’s locker room.
Allen normally has a pep in his step when he’s going from place to place. At that moment, Allen took one slow step after another. He didn’t make eye contact with anyone, sporting a ghostly look as he approached his destination.
He knew what he was walking into. He knew the grieving had already begun. The death of a season that they weren’t ready to let go of — at least not yet. This one, a soul-sucking 32-29 loss to the Chiefs, one game shy of the Super Bowl, to add to the growing catalog of excruciating playoff exits.
As reporters entered the Bills’ locker room a few minutes after Allen, there was no hiding the somber mood. No one uttered a word amongst the 60-plus players sitting in there and all the staff members on top of it. Some faced outward from their locker toward the center. Others stared straight ahead at their lockers.
This was not the time for talking. The loudest conversation was the one the falling shower water had with the floor as it crashed into the bathroom tiles.
And there sat Allen, slumped in his locker stall. Still in full uniform. Grass stains on both sides of his shoulder pads. In many crushing losses, Allen will aimlessly scroll on his phone as an immediate coping mechanism. He began that routine but quickly cast the phone aside.
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