Sean McDermott heard the sentence he desperately didn’t want to hear.

“New York has confirmed (the call).”

After the most pivotal play in the Broncos’ 33-30 overtime win on Saturday — JaQuan McMillian’s heroic interception — McDermott called a timeout. He didn’t want to, but he felt like he had to. 

After McMillian stole the ball away from Bills wide receiver Brandin Cooks on what would’ve been a game-changing play for Buffalo with the ball set up well inside the range of a potential game-winning field goal, McDermott thought everyone inside Mile High was moving on a little too quickly.

“I called a timeout to try and get the process to slow down because it seemed like the process was not slowing down,” McDermott said postgame. “It was a rather rapid unfolding of the review, if there was a review. It would seem logical to me… that the head official would walk over and they’d want to take a look at it, just to make sure that everybody from here, who’s in the stadium, to there (the replay center in New York) are on the same page. That’s too big of a play, in my estimation, to not even slow it down.”

McDermott believes it was a catch and that Cooks was down by contact.

“In my eyes, it was,” McDermott said.

So does Cooks.

“I feel that way, but at the end of the day, it don’t matter, ultimately. It’s where we’re sitting now,” the veteran wide receiver said.

The officials’ explanation was clear, though.

“The receiver has to complete the process of a catch,” referee Carl Cheffers told a pool reporter. “He was going to the ground as part of the process of the catch, and he lost possession of the ball when he hit the ground. The defender gained possession of it at that point. The defender is the one that completed the process of the catch, so the defender was awarded the ball.”

Maybe more than the outcome, though, McDermott is mad about the process by which the call was made.

“I’m standing up for Buffalo, damnit,” McDermott said. “What went on is not how it should go down, in my estimation. These guys spend three hours out there playing football, pouring their guts out. That’s why I’m bothered.

“Even if it wasn’t (a catch) — and I’m being objective — the players are owed, to me, a ‘Let’s stop it, let’s slow it down.’ Let’s let the head referee have a chance to take a look at the monitor, just to make sure.”

Saturday was the latest in a long line of cruel, painful playoff defeats for Buffalo in the Josh Allen era — and this is the franchise that lost four straight Super Bowls in the early 1990s.

Allen, the former Wyoming star and reigning league MVP, was about as emotional as he’s ever been after a loss at any point in his career. He spoke for just a few moments and struggled to explain what is a seventh-straight season for him that ends with a playoff defeat.

“It’s extremely difficult,” Allen said. “I feel like I let my teammates down tonight. Can’t win with five turnovers. I fumbled twice, threw two picks. You shoot yourself in the foot like that, you don’t deserve to win football games.”

For someone who has lost twice in Kansas City with a spot in the Super Bowl on the line, this was about as cruel of a playoff loss Allen has suffered. Even down multiple top wide receivers and with a depleted defense trying its best to give him a chance to win, another potential Super Bowl run was literally ripped out of the Bills’ hands in overtime of the most intense game Mile High has seen in a long time.

Buffalo had its chances. The Bills became just the third team in NFL playoff history to score 30 or more points, not punt and lose. It’s so much more than the McMillian interception that Buffalo still believes was a catch by Cooks. It’s the five turnovers that led to 16 Broncos points. It’s the 100 more yards the Bills had and the better efficiency on third down and in the red zone. It’s all of it. 

“That’s gonna stick with me for a long time,” Allen said.