Josh Allen, James Cook Lead Bills Past Vikings 23–6 on Monday Night

MINNEAPOLIS

For a half, Minnesota's defense played well enough to steal a Monday night. Then the second half arrived, the Vikings' offense never did, and Buffalo walked out of U.S. Bank Stadium with a 23–6 win that moved the Bills to 7–1 and handed Minnesota its second straight loss. The final numbers on the home side are the story: six points, all of them off Will Reichard's leg in the first half, and a backup quarterback who finished with 81 passing yards.

The first half was a rock fight, and the receipts are almost funny. At the two-minute warning the score was 3–3 and the two offenses had combined for 116 total yards. Minnesota had 26 yards deep into the second quarter, had gone 0-for-4 on third down, and had watched Carson Wentz lose a fumble on a Greg Rousseau strip. Tyler Bass's 39-yard field goal late in the first quarter was, for a long stretch, the entire scoring column — and then the game produced the one play everybody in the building will remember.

The pick that told the story

Allen drove Buffalo into the red zone in the first quarter and threw the ball to the wrong team. Byron Murphy Jr. undercut the throw in the end zone, came down with it in front of DJ Moore, and returned it 55 yards — a takeaway that kept a scoreless offense in a game it had no business being in. Allen finished 21 of 34 for 234 yards with one touchdown and that interception; the pick is the one throw from his night that will live on the highlight shows, and it belonged to the losing team.

Minnesota's defense kept cashing the checks the offense wrote. Reichard answered from 43 yards to tie it 3–3, and after Allen found Keleki Latu for a 25-yard touchdown in the final minute of the half, Reichard hit again from 53 yards at the gun. Halftime: Buffalo 10, Minnesota 6, and a building that had booed its own offense was suddenly allowed to believe. Wentz, starting for the injured Kyler Murray, had already thrown one interception by then. He threw a second after the break, and the belief ran out.

The second half was all Buffalo, and it was a grind rather than a burst. Bass made it 13–6 from 25 yards in the third quarter. James Cook, who carried 31 times for 107 yards, scored from five yards out early in the fourth. Bass closed the scoring with a 52-yarder, his third field goal of the night, with 4:40 left. Thirteen unanswered points after halftime, and Minnesota never scored again — not in the third quarter, not in the fourth, not once Wentz's night had curdled into 8-of-25 for 81 yards and two interceptions in front of 66,955 people.

Watch the highlights

The NFL's official reel from Monday night at U.S. Bank Stadium — all three Bass field goals, the Latu touchdown just before halftime, and the Cook score that put it away.

So the Vikings fall to 6–2 with a quarterback question they did not need. Murray's hamstring kept him out, Wentz could not move the offense against a good defense, and the defense that produced the night's defining play got nothing back for it. Buffalo, meanwhile, is 7–1 with the best record in the AFC, and its most memorable mistake still ended in a 17-point win. That is usually how you tell which team is which in November.

Full box score and play-by-play: Game Center — Bills at Vikings · More NFL: the NFL hub