I started Joe From Queens back in February, which was basically right after the Bills season ended, so there’s been one pretty important part of this whole experiment that I haven’t really gotten to experience yet.
Writing about Josh Allen every week based on watching a game
I hate calling myself a content creator and blogger makes me feel like I should be writing about what I had for breakfast in 2007. Writer works, I guess…but that’s too suit and tie. Whatever the hell you want to call this thing, since February there’s been a lot of waiting.
Wait for free agency, wait for the draft, wait for training camp, wait through preseason games that I don’t give a shit about, and wait for Week 1.
And then the Bills went to Houston, Josh Allen did Josh Allen shit, and somewhere during that ridiculous 36-31 win I realized something:
Holy shit, I get to write about this guy now.
That may sound stupid because obviously I’ve written about Allen before, but this is different. This is my website. This is me watching a Bills game, reacting to it, writing about it afterward and getting to ball wash Josh P. Alan, Josh H. Allen, Josh whatever-the-fuck-his-middle-name-is Allen as much as I want.
And after what he did against Houston, I’m going to.
Because Josh Allen may be the greatest Buffalo Bill I have ever watched.
For me, right now, it’s Allen and Bruce Smith. Bruce is one of the greatest defensive players in NFL history and arguably the greatest Bill ever, so I’m not trying to erase anything he accomplished. I watched Bruce destroy quarterbacks for years. But Allen plays quarterback and it’s the most important position in football and maybe the most influential individual position in any major team sport.
And the guy is ours.
Sometimes I don’t think I appreciate how fucking ridiculous that is.
This also wasn’t Josh Allen beating up on some shitty Houston expansion team. The Texans have been a pain in the ass for him. His previous two trips to Houston ended in losses, including that 2019 playoff game that I would be perfectly happy never discussing again.
This time?
Allen walked into Houston and threw for 334 yards and two touchdowns, ran for two more touchdowns, didn’t throw an interception and led the Bills to 36 points.
And somehow those numbers don’t even properly explain the game.
Allen had 33 passing yards after the first quarter.
Thirty-three!
Then he threw for 301 yards over the final three quarters.
The Bills finally started pushing the ball down the field. DJ Moore arrived with five catches for 100 yards, a touchdown and forcing multiple PI calls…Dalton Kincaid had five catches for 130.
And when Buffalo absolutely had to have it at the end, Josh Palmer became the latest guy to benefit from having a mutant playing quarterback.
That final touchdown drive was basically the entire Josh Allen experience condensed into a few minutes.
There was a throw where Allen went full YOLO Josh and I was screaming at the television wondering what the fuck he was doing. It was terrible.
Then, because he’s Josh Allen, he comes right back and throws an absolute laser to Palmer for a 34-yard touchdown with 1:41 remaining.
Of course he did.
That gave Buffalo a 36-31 lead, and for once the defense actually finished the job for him. Deone Walker came up with a huge sack, and Greg Rousseau, who had already forced a fumble earlier in the game, strip-sacked C.J. Stroud with 16 seconds left to finally end the thing.
Ballgame.
And sitting there afterward, I started thinking about what writing about the Bills used to be like for me.
I wrote at Buffalo Wins during an era when the Bills quarterback depth chart felt like some sort of punishment.
Ryan Fitzpatrick. Jeff Tuel. EJ Manuel. Tyrod Taylor. Trent Edwards.
I lived through all of it.
It was fucking horrible.
I legitimately don’t know if I ever got to sit down after a Bills game during those years and write about a quarterback throwing for 300-plus yards and completely taking over a game. Maybe it happened and I’m forgetting one, but it sure as hell wasn’t something you expected.
Back then, you spent half your time trying to convince yourself that 185 yards, one touchdown and no turnovers was actually a pretty solid quarterback performance.
“Well, he managed the game.”
“He didn’t turn it over.”
“He made a couple of throws when they needed them.”
Jesus Christ.
Do you know what I would have done for Josh Allen during the Jeff Tuel years?
And that’s probably why I appreciate this more than someone who became a Bills fan five years ago ever could. I remember what came before this. I remember desperately searching for reasons to believe that the next guy might finally be the guy.
Now there isn’t a debate.
The Bills have the guy.
They have had him for years, and somehow he keeps doing things that make you realize how lucky this franchise is to have him.
You hear people say that the Bills want to win a Super Bowl for Josh Allen, and I kind of make fun of it as I’ve wrote in the past the Bills love using Allen as their shield whenever they fuck up. I understand that more now than ever, they gotta win for him. It isn’t simply because he seems like a good dude or because his teammates like him. It’s because when you have a player this fucking good, you cannot waste it.
There are maybe a handful of human beings on Earth capable of playing quarterback the way Josh Allen does.
He’s a unicorn.
And eventually this ends.
I hate even writing that sentence, but it does. Bruce Smith eventually stopped playing for the Bills, Jim Kelly eventually retired, and every player you grew up thinking would be there forever eventually wasn’t.
Allen won’t last forever either.
Which is exactly why I want to enjoy this part.
I spent years writing about Bills quarterbacks while desperately searching for something interesting to say about them. Now I get one of the most interesting football players on the planet every Sunday.
My first full Bills regular-season game with this website gave me 334 passing yards, four total touchdowns, a fourth-quarter comeback and a ridiculous game winning touchdown throw.
Yeah.
I think I’m going to enjoy writing about Josh Allen.
