‘That’s what they paid me for’: Ed Oliver’s critical sack seals win for Buffalo Bills

INGLEWOOD, Calif. – The way Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Ed Oliver explains it, it was just a simple matter of listening to his coach.

“I just remember Coach (Sean) McDermott said, ‘Hey, a sack would win the game,’” Oliver said. “I said, ‘OK!’ ”

And Oliver went out there and did it.

Oliver’s 9-yard sack essentially sealed the Bills’ 24-22 victory over the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday in SoFi Stadium.

After a back-and-forth game, the Bills led by two with 23 seconds remaining. The Chargers would get one more chance, but they were out of timeouts.

On first-and-10, Oliver took Chargers backup quarterback Easton Stick to the ground.

It helped that Oliver had beaten Chargers right guard Jamaree Salyer earlier in the game.

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“I had already hit the dude with a move earlier, and there was a penalty,” Oliver said. “So, I said, ‘I’m going to keep that in my repertoire for (when) I really need it.’ I just pulled it back out, the same thing. And he fell for it again.”

From there, Oliver basically knew he was home.

“I just said, ‘All right,’ ” Oliver said. “Went with it, quarterback tried to climb the pocket, I was already on him. It is what it is. Took him down, so that ran time off the clock. … I already knew once I got the sack that it was over.”

Oliver had two sacks in the game, his first coming with 8:44 remaining and the Bills holding a 21-16 lead.

With Poona Ford and Leonard Floyd also making an impact, Oliver brought Stick down for a loss of seven yards, turning a first-and-15 into a second-and-22.

“I thought I was in on that sack, too,” Floyd said. “But they gave it to Ed, man. I guess they watched film back. Shout out to Ed, man. He’s one of them ones for sure.”

The Bills tallied five sacks on the night. They did so at a point in the season when defensive tackles Jordan Phillips and DaQuan Jones are both on injured reserve. Floyd said Oliver’s first sack was a culmination of the work of a few pass rushers, and it came at an important time.

“We were just all-out effort – just nonstop, relentless effort to get to the quarterback,” Floyd said. “It was a great play for us, we needed it.”

The Chargers settled for a field goal three plays later.

With Oliver’s second sack, he reached 8.5 sacks this season, and hit a $500,000 incentive once he passed eight sacks.

It is great news for the Bills, but also for the Oliver family.

“Hit the incentive right before Christmas,” Oliver said. “I told my family if I hit it, it’s going to be a nice Christmas. So, now I gotta go buy more Christmas gifts, to make sure everybody’s taken care of. … They’re going to come after Christmas, but just know, it is what it is.”

The always and refreshingly candid Oliver didn’t hide how he was feeling after the game, even if the predominating feeling was, perhaps, a bit unexpected.

“It’s kind of hard for me to be excited right now, because I’m so tired,” Oliver said. He then asked what time it was in Buffalo (11:19 p.m. at the time of his question), and said he couldn’t wait to sleep on the plane.

If his tiredness took over shortly after the game ended, Oliver was still animated right after the critical sack.

“Yeah, he was lit,” defensive end Greg Rousseau said. “He was lit.”

Middle linebacker Terrel Bernard echoed that.

“Yeah, he was pretty loud,” Bernard said. “We’re trying to get back into into the mode to win the game, so everything was moving kind of fast. But, yeah, you could definitely feel his energy.”

And when the game ended, Oliver galloped to the Chargers’ logo at midfield to celebrate.

Oliver’s play also hit on something the Bills have looked for in a big-picture sense.

“We talked about having closers, and, specifically, those guys up front in situations like that,” Bernard said, “Coming through and making plays where it shuts down the whole drive, and basically ends the game right there. So, yeah, it was huge.”

In June, Oliver signed a four-year, $67 million contract extension with the Bills. He said at the time that he wanted to outplay his contract, and Bills coach Sean McDermott has seen Oliver use the extension as deeper motivation.

“He’s taken it – and these are my words – but he’s taken like, ‘Hey, I’m going to show you how grateful I am for it, and I’m going to play up to that level,’” McDermott said. “And that just really says a lot about who he is as a person and how much pride he takes in his work and the job he does.”

Oliver heard the criticism of his contract, and he used that to fuel him. Proving his doubters wrong is just icing on his incentive-laden cake. A statement sack reminded him of why the Bills extended him.

“That’s what they paid me for,” Oliver said. “Everybody, you know, when I got paid, they had a certain opinion. And I had my opinion by my own self, and I’m the type of guy who walks around with a chip on my shoulder 24/7. … I just keep on trucking.”

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott talks about the Bills’ victory over the Los Angeles Chargers.

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