By The Buffalo Bills’ loss last week at the hands of the Los Angeles Rams was one of the most painful regular season defeats I could recall. How could Buffalo waste a historic six-touchdown (three passing and three rushing) day from quarterback Josh Allen?
But from the loss comes a rising hope from this diehard Bills fan that this is finally the year that the team finally wins a Super Bowl.
The reason is simple: Mr. Allen. He is putting together a historic year that not only may give him his first MVP award but will always keep the Bills alive in the hunt for the Lombardi Trophy.
Allen is the best quarterback in the league when you look at his passing and rushing statistics. Statistics that try to do this – such as ESPN’s QBR or expected points added (which is a component of QBR) – rank Allen as number one. The Buffalo signal-caller has never ranked first in either of these statistics at the end of the season.
Allen has been a top-10 passer this season. He’s in the top 10 for passing yards per attempt (7.7) and touchdown percentage on passes (5.9). In both categories, however, he ranks outside of the top five.
Where Allen has been special this year is that he’s playing nearly mistake-free football. He’s been sacked just 3.2% of the time when attempting to pass. That’s well down from his career average of 5.05%, and it ranks second in the NFL. It’s less than half the level of the average quarterback (7.06%), which is right about where Kansas City Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes sits (7.01%).
What makes Allen’s low sack percentage so impressive is he doesn’t just throw the ball away to avoid a sack. He tries to make something happen on almost every play – and often succeeds.
Such a playing style can be risky and lead to turnovers, which has been one of the main gripes against Allen over the last few years. In 2023, he threw an interception on 3.1% of all pass attempts for a total of 18.
This year, however, Allen has only thrown an interception every 1.3% pass attempts. That ranks not only as a career low for Allen, but it ranks sixth in the entire league. Allen is way below the league average of 2.1%, while last year he was well above it.
The lack of mistakes and high number of passing yards and touchdowns make Allen a prolific passer. In fact, according to adjusted net yards per attempt (a stat that takes into account passing yards, passing touchdowns, interceptions and sacks), Allen is second in the league.
What makes Allen really unique is when you factor in his rushing.
Yes, Allen is fifth for quarterbacks in run yardage at 416 yards. What makes Allen great at running is he runs in order to extend drives or end them with touchdowns.
Allen has nine rushing touchdowns this year, which ranks second among all quarterbacks. His 40 rushing first downs is also second among all quarterbacks.
That’s what differentiates Allen from someone like Lamar Jackson. Both Jackson and Allen are great passers who run with success. But while Jackson is more like a halfback who runs for more yards, Allen is like a fullback who can be trusted to pick up the necessary yards in a short yardage situation.
So if Allen isn’t like Jackson, who is he like? I was trying to find a historical analogy for Allen. Someone who doesn’t throw interceptions, doesn’t get sacks, throws for a lot of yards (over 3,000 for Allen) and rushes for a lot of touchdowns.
So I decided to plug Allen’s stats into Stathead, and I came up with absolutely nothing.
That is, Allen is literally the only quarterback through 13 games who has the stats that he has in terms of passing and rushing success.
This matches with a frequent meme posted to Bills forums, including on Reddit: Josh Allen is the only quarterback in NFL history.
Allen’s performance last week is the only reason the Bills stay competitive when their defense let up a touchdown on nearly every possession.
Indeed, it’s not clear that Buffalo’s chances of winning a Super Bowl declined much because of that loss. They have a 19% chance to win it all, according to the New York Times. Last week, the Bills were at 20%.
The Bills still have the best shot of winning the Super Bowl of any AFC team, if you believe the Times.
I’ll take that any day.
There were a lot of favorite play candidates from this past week, but I have to choose one that goes with this article’s theme.
Therefore, I go with Allen’s pass to Mack Hollins for a touchdown. It was a perfect throw with Allen dropping it into Hollins from a distance. In another year, Allen might have missed Hollins or thrown a pick. This year, he hit Hollins for six points.
After this score, I thought the Bills might make a huge comeback. Unfortunately, it wasn’t meant to be.
The late game management from head coach Sean McDermott left much to be desired. Whether it be accepting a penalty that allowed the Rams two cracks at a first down as well as wasting more clock or calling for an Allen run that failed and basically eliminating all chances of winning by then calling a timeout after Allen got stuffed, it caused me much emotional pain.
I dare say it reminded me of all the times I would be screaming at my television when former Bills head coach Doug Marrone would elect to punt when the ball was on the other team’s side of the field. He did it 39 times over two seasons and 10 times when the Bills had less than five yards to gain for a first down., which is a ridiculously high amount McDermott, to his credit, has only done it 17 times over the last two seasons and only twice when his team had less than five yards to gain a first down.
I’ve never despised a Bills head coach more than Marrone – a feeling I think we all have about one coach in our teams’ histories. Seriously, he was the worst.
