PITTSFORD, N.Y. — The doubters keep insisting that the proverbial window is shutting on the fingers of the Buffalo Bills, ending their run atop the AFC East, their push as a legitimate Super Bowl contender and basically leaving them as a nice sidekick to the Patrick Mahomes show for the past five seasons, including heartbreaking losses that still sting like a fiery-hot wing to the palate.
In fact, don’t dare say the phrase “13 seconds” in these parts. I dare you.
But back to the window shutting — or better yet the perception that it is — that so many pundits believe is happening with the Bills. They say that because they see a player like receiver Stefon Diggs traded to the Houston Texans, plus guys like corner Tre’Davious White and safety Jordan Poyer playing elsewhere, while veteran safety Micah Hyde is also gone from the middle of the field where he was such a big part of their defense.
So it makes sense to think it’s over for this version of the Bills — other than for one big reason.
“As long as we have Josh Allen, we’re good,” veteran Bills edge rusher Von Miller said. “There are teams that are trying to get a guy like him. And we have one. As long as we have him, the window will be open. You always have turnover on teams. They change. But this is a quarterback-driven league. I feel good about Josh Allen, and I feel good about this defense. We might not have big-time players like we’ve had in the past, but we still have Josh Allen. If he’s not the best quarterback, he’s top 3.”
It’s Allen who gives them Super Bowl hope, even in a transition year. He might not be Mahomes, but he isn’t far off. That’s why there is so much optimism here in Western New York, where it seems every other person wears a No. 17 Allen jersey. They love him. That’s obvious as he makes his way off the practice field, spending a lot of time — more than most franchise passers — signing autographs and taking pictures.
“As long as we have No. 17, and I do my job and we craft and develop our own guys and keep as many as we can, we will be fine,” Bills general manager Brandon Beane said. “As long as Josh is throwing it, I don’t see the window closing.”
There is no doubt the division is tougher with the return of Aaron Rodgers with the New York Jets and the Miami Dolphins still the track team playing football with their speedy, high-flying offense. But the Bills, at least in my mind, remain the division’s best.
Last year, they rallied to win their final five games, including beating the Dolphins at Miami in the final week of the season, to get into the playoffs. They beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in the wild-card game, but then lost at home to the Chiefs in another nail-biting game that could have easily gone their way.
It was the third time Mahomes has beaten Allen and the Bills in the playoffs, two of those gut-wrenching losses, including blowing the AFC divisional game two years ago in the “13-seconds” game in which they took the lead in the final minute only to cough it up with horrible time management in the final 13 seconds. They then watched Mahomes win it in overtime.
That’s the type of loss that could have ended a team, sent them into despair, but somehow the Bills remain one of the best teams in the conference.
As coach Sean McDermott said this week, “I really like this team as a team.” That speaks to the chemistry, which hasn’t always been as good as they had hoped.
Allen has put the team on his back in recent years. Sure, he’s turned the ball over too much, but that’s because he’s been asked to do too much. He’s also totaled 44 combined rushing and passing touchdowns to lead the league last season. In fact, he’s had four consecutive seasons with 40 or more combined touchdowns, which is an NFL record.
Since 2020, Allen is second in the league to Mahomes in passing yards and touchdown passes and he’s third in the league in quarterback rushing yards in that time frame, behind Lamar Jackson and Jalen Hurts.
The detractors will point to his 75 turnovers the past three seasons, but much of that comes from trying to do too much. Those turnovers, coupled with not winning a Super Bowl, led to one unnamed executive calling Allen overrated in an ESPN.com story.
That led to Beane going off. I asked Beane about it during practice Tuesday.
“To say he’s the reason we haven’t won a Super Bowl is an unfair statement,” Beane said. “You don’t truly follow the Bills or him if you are going to say something like that.”
Said Allen: “It’s probably Brandon who said it, but he’s backtracking his statements. I am kidding. It doesn’t bother me to be honest. I come out here and I am internally driven. I want to be the best quarterback and best teammate. The other stuff doesn’t matter.”
Maybe so, but criticism seems to be part of being Josh Allen. It was that way when he came out of Wyoming. It was that way his first few seasons when he was labeled a bust by some. And it remains that way.
Some will never admit they were wrong about him, so they keep hoping he fails to make them right.
“It’s not admitting it,” Beane said. “There are a lot of guys who can’t admit their mistake about him. He checks every single box you want from a quarterback.”
That does’t mean there isn’t some refining going on. McDermott fired offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey in the middle of last season, replacing him with Joe Brady. The offense got better. They ran the ball more, which helped lesson some of the need-to-do-it-all approach for Allen.
This summer, they are fine-tuning the offense. The ball is getting out quicker. Allen is doing a better job of pre-snap reads, which Brady is emphasizing. Everything can’t be for him to make special plays outside the concepts of the offense when things break down.
During the practices I watched, the ball certainly got out quicker. That doesn’t mean Allen won’t take his shots down the field. He will still do so without Diggs, which might end up being addition by subtraction.
Diggs was a good player, but he wasn’t the same player in the second half of last season. He didn’t have a 100-yard game in any of the team’s final 11 contests and had less than 35 receiving yards in five of those games. In what would be his final game as a Bill, he had three catches for 21 yards in the season-ending playoff loss to the Chiefs. He also turns 31 in November, which is never a good thing for a receiver. Diggs also has a reputation of being a give-me-the-ball guy, although nobody here really bashed him for it. They liked him, but I think privately the Bills aren’t heartbroken by the breakup.
The Bills will instead piece together the offense in terms of receiving threats, with the focal point expected to be tight end Dalton Kincaid. He will catch 100 or so passes. That’s how good he’s looked in camp. First-round rookie receiver Keon Coleman will play a big part as will free agent addition Curtis Samuel. If there is one knock, it’s the lack of big-play speed down the field.
That’s why execution and patience will be key for Allen.
“The concepts we now have present us with more options to get the ball out quicker,” Allen said. “As you progress through, you have outlets coming from the other side. It’s been a fun process. It’s the same system, but we’ve made a lot of tweaks. It’s a better offense. We have a lot of receivers who might not be the big names, but we will do it by committee. I love this group.”
To help prepare for the season, Allen dropped 8-10 pounds and he’s noticeably leaner. He hired a chef this spring to cut out some of the bad stuff and said he feels better. He also told Beane that the lost weight will force him to run less, which is something he wants to do.
“Yeah, until that other psycho takes over on the field,” Beane told him back.
We all know. Allen plays like a wild man sometimes, throwing his body around, but he does want to cut that back some.
“I will do whatever the team wants me to do,” Allen said. “But I want to get the ball to the guys catching the ball. I don’t want to continue to take those hits.”
The Bills were basically crippled on defense last season because of injuries, so this unit should be better. Getting Miller back all the way healthy after his 2022 knee surgery will be big. He said he thought he’d be back to his old form last year, but it didn’t work out that way. He wasn’t the same player. He has flashed that old explosive ability again in this camp, although he is getting rest days.
“I feel great,” he said. “I thought I would be back last year like I was after my first knee injury when I was younger. But it didn’t happen.”
They need Miller to be their closer in December and January games. If they can get that to go with Allen and the offense, this can be a deep-playoff team again. I expect it to be. So does Allen.
When asked about people saying the window is closing, he grinned.
“I say let us play a game before people say that,” Allen said. “I know I am throwing it better than I ever have in my career.”
Allen really does seem to like this group. So does McDermott. So does Miller.
It might not be the Bills team from recent years, but it also might be a closer group.
“I applaud Beane for bringing in the guys we have,” Allen said “We go out there and compete and work hard, but at the end of the day we are hanging out in the dorms. We are playing video games. We are playing board games. Guys are going out to eat with each other. Guys are getting along. It really is a family-like atmosphere right now. I know we’ve said that in the past, but I think there is a different vibe with this team and that’s a really good thing.”
The only thing that isn’t different is the window being open. If you think it’s closed, you are woefully mistaken. Josh Allen just might be the MVP this season, even without Diggs. Maybe then, he will finally get the idiots to stop saying he’s overrated.
