Yesterday’s column, which raised the question of whether Josh Allen is indeed the Bills’ “franchise quarterback” of the future evoked all manner of response.
Interestingly, four of five emails agreed with my contention that, after two seasons, a definitive answer has yet to materialize.
But, as always, it’s the dissenters who grab my attention.
Oh, there were the obligatory “You need to retire” and “What are YOU watching?” emails, and that’s fine; part of the fun of sports is disagreeing. The bothersome comments were that I had something against Josh or held him responsible for the playoff loss in Houston.
I don’t and I didn’t.
From Draft Day 1 in 2018 I’ve been an Allen advocate. The first story after Buffalo traded up and made him the seventh overall pick, my assessment was that after seeing five of his games that final season at Wyoming, he was a superior quarterback to both Sam Darnold (USC, taken third by the Jets) and Sam Rosen (UCLA, picked 10th by the Cardinals), despite not playing in a power conference.
And Saturday, against the Texans, while it wasn’t Allen’s finest hour, he had his moments. That third-down pass to Devin Singletary, across his body, while rolling right and throwing to the left was sensational. And his touchdown reception from wide receiver John Brown displayed his ample athleticism.
My point in the column was not to blame him for the loss — playing-calling and missed tackles had their major roles — but rather to suggest that due to ball-security and decision-making issues, he had yet to firmly establish, after two seasons, that he’s Buffalo’s quarterback of the future.
AND, IN FAIRNESS, Allen is quick to put the onus on himself.
Indeed, last week he admitted “hero ball” wasn’t needed as much as relying on the other 10 players sharing the field with him.
At Monday’s locker cleanout session, he allowed, “I won’t be over this (loss) until we start playing again. I’m very self-driven and I understand things could’ve went differently.”
“I’m going to learn from it, I’m going to use it and I’m going to grow from it. This will be a chip on my shoulder until we start playing again.”
“We’ve got a lot of guys coming back next year and we’re going to have this feeling in our stomachs for the next eight months throughout the offseason. It sucks now, but we can’t win them all. We can learn from this and try to use it for the better. (With) the guys we have in this locker room I’ve got no doubt that’s what we’ll do.”
As for his first playoff game, Allen added, “The experience of being in that type of game, feeling the flow … obviously, there’s some things that we wish we had back … things I wish I had back. At the end of the day, we didn’t get it done.”
“Little things about the game, finding completions and taking care of the football. That one (lost fumble by Allen) really cost us, allowed them to get three more points and that’s what they ended up winning the game by.”
What did he take from the loss?
“We’ve got to go out there and execute and we didn’t do a good enough job of that,” Allen said. “It’s really no more than that. We’ve got to be better, we know that. “Unfortunately, a loss like this ends your season and leaves you with a sour taste in your mouth.”
As for next year, he added, “There’s no difference in my expectations — we want to come out and obviously play as best as we can and win as many games as we can. Ultimately, winning the division is great, putting ourselves in the playoffs and getting back there is our goal and that’s not going to waver.
“I really haven’t had a chance to step back and look at (this past season). My personal goals are team goals and we didn’t get the job done in the playoffs — I could’ve helped that and that’s how I’m feeling.”
(Chuck Pollock, a Times Herald senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@oleantimesherald.com)
