One-Stat Recap: Bills beat Patriots in emotional game

It was a long week leading up to the Buffalo Bills’ regular-season finale against the New England Patriots, but we didn’t have to wait long for some fireworks in the game. The Bills and returner Nyheim Hines started the game off with a bang, returning the opening kickoff 96 yards for a touchdown. It was, as play-by-play veteran Jim Nantz put it, “storybook.”

And then Hines did it again. On his first kickoff return of the second half, he outdid himself and returned the kickoff 101 yards for his second touchdown of the day. Hines was the first player to have two kickoff return touchdowns in a game since Leon Washington took two to the house for the Seattle Seahawks in 2010. Only 11 players since 1950 have had multiple kickoff return touchdowns in a single game.

Fourteen teams since 1940 have had multiple kickoff return touchdowns (a few with multiple returners), and only the 1952 Chicago Bears lost that game. The closest a modern team has come to losing despite two or more return touchdowns is when the 2002 Bills took the New York Jets to overtime and then lost, when Chad Morton took the overtime-opening kickoff back for his second kickoff return touchdown of the day. Thankfully, the Bills were on the opposite side of this divisional game.