E.J. Manuel's two-yard toss to Stevie Johnson goes down as the winning score in the rookie quarterback's first triumphant moment in a Buffalo uniform.
His emotional embrace with his father at the stadium wall is the iconic moment of the Bills' 24-23 win over Carolina (assuming the younger Manuel in fact goes on to become an icon).
The play before the decisive touchdown, though, provided the most encouraging sign that, after a half-dozen misfires, the Bills may have finally found the quarterback they have been seeking since Jim Kelly got tired of rehabilitating after knee surgery.
On the snap after a pass interference call properly negated what would have been a fatal interception, Manuel rolled right, saw a lack of open receivers, and took off. After buying himself a couple of feet of space with a pump fake, he glided toward the point where the goal line meets the right sideline.
This is where you would have expected a rookie, or even a veteran, to make a heroic lunge for the winning touchdown. Or, if he misjudged the spatial relationship between himself, the end zone and the defenders trying to keep him out of it, a spot at the bottom of a pile as the clock ran out.
But, as throughout what would soon go in the books as an 80-yard, 98-second, zero-timeout drive, and most of his brief Buffalo career, Manuel knew exactly where he was, how much time was left and what was at stake. He angled for the corner, so that if he was stopped short, he would also be knocked out of bounds.
That left him with six seconds -- time for two plays, provided the first was a fairly quick incompletion -- to cover two yards. He and Johnson only needed one of those snaps, as it turned out.
Not once during the final drive did Manuel look panicky, or even especially concerned, whether he was dropping off short throws under Carolina's soft coverage or bouncing out of what would have been a near-fatal sack.
There was something faintly familiar about Manuel's conduct during the closing moments. Nothing from Buffalo's recent history, of course, which is clogged with opponents celebrating victories nearly as a dramatic (like, say, the Patriots seven days earlier).
No, the flashback triggered Sunday was nearly 15 years old.
Not exactly the same -- that 1998 drive against Jacksonville was 70 yards in 1:50 with one timeout. But it was Doug Flutie's second game after replacing an injured Rob Johnson. Flutie and Manuel each showed impressive patience, as well as mobility along the way. The winning touchdowns even wound up in the same place -- the left side of the end zone at the tunnel end of what was then known as Rich Stadium.
And both drives elicited the same emotional progression from an understandably skeptical crowd, from "Well, at least they've got a chance," to "He might just pull this off," to "Holy shit!"
The excitement level was such that whoever runs the team's Twitter account momentarily lost the ability to count.
Kelly himself was there to hug Manuel after the game, attending the game as part of a ceremony honoring the members of the franchise's Wall of Fame (except one guy, who had another commitment).
Yes, the Bills -- Manuel included -- spent much of the first 59:04 minutes of game time Sunday making sure the Panthers had every opportunity to slip out of Orchard Park with a win.
There were the two drive-sustaining penalties, one of which led to Carolina's second touchdown. And Manuel's first two professional turnovers, which came within a span of four snaps and set up a pair of fourth-quarter field goals by Panthers kicker Graham Gano.
Until that final drive got underway, it looked like what seems like a hundred games over the past decade-and-a-half. A lot of positives (not even counting the throwback standing-buffalo helmets, which Bills management should give serious consideration to sticking with), and just enough negatives to make the good parts totally irrelevant.
But we'll get to all that, including a pretty big day by Mario Williams, as the week goes on and Manuel's first road game, against the Jets and the second quarterback selected in last spring's draft, Geno Smith, approaches.
For now, enjoy what happened Sunday. These people at a Bills bar in Santa Monica certainly did.
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