The Buffalo Bills are essentially the most fascinating story of the NFL offseason. Ever since Josh Allen ascended to the tier degree of NFL quarterbacks in 2020, the workforce has headed into the season with Tremendous Bowl expectations … after which fallen bitterly quick.
Home windows within the NFL are by no means so long as groups hope. Accidents mount up. The cap bites. A botched free agent signing or a training snafu might be the distinction between profitable all of it and exiting the playoffs early. Since 2021, the Payments have skilled all of it, from the painful to the weird:
This offseason has introduced a mini-reboot. Gone are stalwarts of the workforce’s current success. Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer, Gabe Davis, Mitch Morse, Tyrel Dodson and Leonard Floyd had been all allowed to stroll in free company. On Monday, they traded away Stefon Diggs to the Texans for a future second-round choose. And the commerce is an oddity: a win-win. The Payments had been capable of unload an ageing participant on an costly contract and recoup a excessive choose. The Texans add a gifted veteran to a younger core.
By unloading veterans and selecting to not substitute them in free company, the Payments are betting on the concept that Allen is the one participant who actually issues to maintain their title hopes on observe. “It’s a must to have a franchise quarterback to be a constant contender … I don’t assume our window is closing,” GM Brandon Beane told ESPN final week. “There’s modifications, wage modifications, draft modifications. All of the issues as you evolve your roster. All of it nonetheless builds across the quarterback.”
By that prism, shifting Diggs is smart. Diggs regressed final season. There had been tensions simmering between the receiver, group and Allen relationship again to final yr’s coaching camp. His efficiency dipped drastically over the second half of final season, partially because of the Payments switching out coordinators. Within the playoffs, he’s grow to be a non-factor. Diggs has not caught a landing go in his final seven playoff video games and has did not prime 60 yards in his six postseason appearances, averaging simply six yards a goal.
In Houston, Diggs will lineup on an offense with three top-30 receivers and CJ Stroud, one of many league’s rising stars, at quarterback. With their offseason strikes, the Texans have vaulted into the Bengals and Ravens class of contenders.
Issues are murkier in Buffalo. The Payments have signed or acquired simply three new starters to this point this offseason and just one on offense. The Ravens have added six new projected starters. The Bengals have added 5. The Dolphins, seven. The Texans, eight.
Buffalo sacrificed future flexibility to go all-in in 2022 after the ‘13 seconds’ debacle in Kansas Metropolis. When that failed, they delayed an inevitable teardown to take yet another run at a title. And it ended the identical method issues at all times do for the Payments as of late, with a disappointing outing in the playoffs. Now, they’re resetting, letting expensive veterans go, and hoping an injection of youth by the draft might be the difference-maker within the postseason.
It’s simple to rationalize Buffalo’s selections. They’re constructing a brand new workforce, amassing younger expertise round a once-in-a-lifetime quarterback who remains to be simply 27. However by playing on youth and sitting out the veteran market, the Payments are at risk of letting this season slip by. Hoping you’ll be able to retool the roster for an additional five-year surge would require believing that Allen can remaster his recreation or keep wholesome. And people are the nagging query on the coronary heart of the Payments group: who do they need Allen to be? And for a way lengthy can he do it?
Early Allen groups prioritized the run recreation and protection parts that McDermott, a defensive-minded coach, believed can be the distinction within the postseason. Now that strategy has fallen quick, they’re pivoting, stripping again their commitments on protection to attempt to put extra expertise round Allen. However the cap sins of the previous have left them with a mediocre receiver group.
“Are we higher immediately?,” Beane mentioned after buying and selling Diggs. “Most likely not. It’s a piece in progress, and we’re going to proceed to work on that.”
Allen is an offense unto himself. If he had been throwing to a parade of giraffes, the Payments’ offense would nonetheless have a excessive ground. However the Payments are usually not making an attempt to eke out outcomes; they’re engaged on a Tremendous Bowl or Bust timeline. No group is underneath extra strain to recover from the road. The Payments can’t afford to float into the NFL’s center class. Delaying the reboot by one yr was an error – and has ramped up the strain to nail this offseason. If it doesn’t work out, the Payments could have chucked away two prime Allen years.
The kindest comparability to Allen and the Payments is Peyton Manning with the Colts. Indy spent the higher a part of a decade slamming their heads in opposition to the wall of New England. What Belichick and Brady had been to Manning and the Colts, Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and the Chiefs are to Allen and the Payments. They’ve been bounced by the Chiefs twice previously three postseasons, with a drubbing from the Bengals within the center.
Finally, Manning was capable of break by because of the Colts nailing all the large selections. The Payments, against this, have whiffed on their large targets. They constructed a workforce within the type of their head coach, prioritizing a defensive position that changed into a sieve within the playoffs. Of their final 9 first- or second-round picks, 4 have been defensive linemen. In the identical span, they’ve chosen zero receivers within the first two rounds. Miller, whom the workforce handed a six-year, $120m contract to on the age of 33, tore his ACL in his debut season. He performed solely 258 downs final season and totted up zero sacks and three tackles. He turned 35 in March and is on the books for $15m subsequent season.
Most significantly, although, Manning performed a mode that aged properly. He was a technician. He was constant. The Colts had been capable of construct a bombs-away offense round a supercomputer who allowed them to compete yr after yr. However whereas Manning was the final word card counter, Allen performs quarterback like a labrador who has escaped from the home.
In distinction, Allen weaponizes chaos not like any of the league’s prime quarterbacks. Mahomes is a distinct model of himself immediately than the participant who first entered the league. Even Lamar Jackson has grow to be a participant who submits to the broader offense for big stretches earlier than exploding with moments of particular person brilliance. For Allen, it’s the inverse: the offense is a tough framework by which he can embrace his whims. He runs by linebackers. He jumps over safeties. He’ll stiff arm a defensive finish whereas hurling a deep shot 30 yards down the sector.
It’s in these how-does-he-do-that moments that Allen’s genius is revealed. When slipped into the normal quarterback straitjacket, Allen’s flaws – his questionable decision-making and the pointless gambles – are uncovered. Ask him to drive down the sector methodically, and he slips into Brett Favre territory.
No quarterback performs the place as violently as Allen. It’s what makes him Josh Allen. However how lengthy can his physique maintain up underneath that type? The Payments acknowledge it gained’t final without end. They need Allen to take off the cape, to play a extra conventional model of from-the-pocket soccer, to summon his interior Manning to assist the workforce climb over the Chiefs.
“I don’t assume that’s a wholesome option to play quarterback on this league and it’s undefeated that issues are going to occur whenever you play that type, model of soccer,” head coach Sean McDermott told NFL Network earlier this offseason. Beane agrees. “If it’s the primary quarter of Week 2, we don’t want you making an attempt to run over a linebacker or a security,” the GM mentioned on NFL Radio.
The Payments are asking Allen to alter his recreation. To cut back the violence. To attenuate the dangers. In different phrases, to be another person.
Asking Allen to change his strategy is one factor. Offering him the help to take action is one thing else. If Allen goes to play in a extra restricted style, he wants playmakers who can do the heavy lifting. Including receiver Curtis Samuel in free company was a begin, however it’s removed from sufficient. Hopes of the Payments jumping up the draft to seize one in all this yr’s prime receiver prospects are uncertain: the Payments shouldn’t have the cap room to pay a top-10 rookie, and virtually each rookie, irrespective of how gifted, takes time to mattress in.
Manning with the Colts is the best-case situation for this Payments workforce. However you don’t must squint onerous to take a look at Allen with the Payments and see Cam Newton with the Panthers. McDermott lived by the Newton period in Carolina when he was the workforce’s defensive coordinator. He is aware of what it seems to be like when an amazing quarterback begins to interrupt down and is requested to depend on part of their recreation that has not been absolutely developed. Carolina reached one Tremendous Bowl with Newton when the roster round him was ok. As soon as his athleticism began to wane, and the accidents began to take their toll, the remainder of the squad was not gifted sufficient to compete.
The Payments are working this offseason as if their window to win championships is open for so long as Allen is their quarterback. However, based mostly on all proof, Allen is nearer to Newton on the quarterback continuum than Manning or Joe Burrow. Until you’ve gotten Mahomes or Tom Brady, alternatives to win Tremendous Bowls are fleeting. Drew Brees gained Tremendous Bowl and Dan Marino, Phillip Rivers and Jim Kelly didn’t win any, regardless of contending for big chunks of their careers.
The AFC stays a gauntlet and is bettering. Any workforce seeking to get to the Tremendous Bowl although the AFC has to run by a postseason the place they’ll most likely face two of Mahomes, Burrow, Jackson or Stroud. The Browns, Dolphins and Chargers are nonetheless lingering on the fringes. Aaron Rodgers will return to the Jets in 2024. By the point December rolls round, Trevor Lawrence or Anthony Richardson might have taken a step ahead.
Assume regular luck, and the Payments ought to nonetheless prime of the AFC East once more, notably after the Dolphins misplaced good gamers in free company. However they should discover a pair of playmakers who will help push them previous the Chiefs in January. Relying on rookies to be the difference-makers is a non-starter. With Diggs gone, the Payments should chase confirmed additions.
The window isn’t closed for Buffalo, however it’s shrinking.
