Is This Finally the Most Balanced Josh Allen Team?
For most of the Josh Allen era, the Bills have had one pretty reliable plan whenever things start going sideways, and that plan is basically Josh, please fix this shit.
To be fair, that has worked out pretty well because Josh Allen is fucking awesome, but it has also been one of the weirdest things about this team for years. No matter how good the roster looked, no matter how many weapons they had, no matter how many offseason stories we got about how the defensive line was deeper now or how this was finally the year the running game would take pressure off Allen, eventually everything somehow ended up back in No. 17’s lap.
Need a first down? Josh.
Need a touchdown? Josh.
Running game disappeared? Josh.
Protection breaks down? Josh.
Defense just gave up a 12-play drive and now you need an answer? Josh again.
At a certain point, that’s not really “having a franchise quarterback.” That’s making one guy the football equivalent of the dad who gets called every time something in the house makes a weird noise.
So three games into this season, I’m starting to wonder if this might finally be the most balanced Bills team Allen has had.
I don’t mean the best, because it’s September and I have watched enough September football to know that this is the month when half the league is apparently fixed and every rookie is going to Canton.
I mean balanced.
There is a difference.
The Bills have had better offenses than this one. They have had scarier passing games. They have had stretches where they looked like the best team in football and made opposing defenses look like they had spent the week preparing for a different sport.
But a lot of those teams still had the same underlying problem: if Josh Allen wasn’t playing like one of the best quarterbacks on earth, things got uncomfortable really fast.
This team, at least so far, feels like it has a few more ways to survive.
The biggest reason for that is James Cook. He feels like somebody who can take over a stretch of a game and make the offense normal again when things are starting to get weird.
And “normal” is a wonderful thing when your quarterback’s natural instinct is occasionally to turn third-and-7 into a Die Hard movie.
Every time Cook gives Buffalo something steady, that’s one less possession where Allen has to escape two guys, reverse field, throw across his body and somehow convert a first down while half the fan base has a cardiac event.
That matters.
The receiving group has the same kind of appeal.
I don’t think this is the most talented group Allen has ever had, and I don’t think anyone is going to sit around in ten years talking about this receiving corps like it was the Greatest Show on Turf. But it might be one of the healthier groups he’s had in terms of how the offense actually functions.
There isn’t one guy where it feels like the entire passing game has to orbit around him.
One week it can be Kincaid. Another week it can be DJ Moore. Somebody else makes a big catch. Shakir gets involved. Keon Coleman is getting better and Rocking the best silver chain since Buff Bagwell in 1998. Another guy quietly moves the chains.
We have already seen what happens when an offense becomes too dependent on one relationship. Eventually defenses figure out what you’re trying to do, the quarterback starts forcing the issue, and then by January everyone is staring at the All-22 like they’re examining if they can see Sydney Sweeny’s boobs in a commercial.
This feels less complicated.
Allen can just find the open guy.
You know, quarterbacking.
But the biggest reason I think this team might actually be more balanced has nothing to do with the offense.
It’s the possibility that the defense might finally be capable of bailing Josh Allen out once in a while, and a big part of that is Greg Rousseau.
For years the Bills have had goos defensive linemen. They’ve had deep defensive lines. They’ve had guys who can get pressure and guys who can put together a really good season. What they haven’t really had, at least to me, is that one guy on the edge who makes an offense spend the week worrying about where the hell he is going to line up and whether he’s about to ruin the entire play.
Rousseau is starting to look like that guy.
And I honestly can’t remember the last Bills defensive lineman who felt like a legitimate game-wrecker quite like this. Mario Williams is probably the name I keep coming back to.
That’s a long fucking time.
The Bills have spent years searching for this. They drafted pass rushers. They signed pass rushers. They rotated seven defensive linemen at a time like eventually one of them was going to turn into Bruce Smith if they just kept everybody fresh enough.
There have been good players in there, obviously. But there is a difference between having a good pass rush and having a guy where the quarterback comes to the line already thinking about him.
Rousseau is starting to feel like that. He’s also doing it during clutch times in a game when you need a stop or sack.
Four of the six came either in a one-score game or before the game had really separated, and two were strip-sacks at the beginning and end of the Houston game.
You notice him before the ball is snapped, or where he’s lined up, or when the other team is sliding protection toward him. And when Buffalo desperately needs somebody to wreck a possession, I’m starting to expect Rousseau to be the guy who does it.
That’s something this defense has lacked.
It also changes what you can ask everybody else to do. If one player can win a matchup without Jim Leonhard having to send six guys and draw something on a cocktail napkin, suddenly everybody else’s job gets a little easier.
That’s the kind of defensive help Allen hasn’t always had.
Bills fans know there have been plenty of games over the last few years where Allen makes one mistake and immediately everyone starts doing advanced calculus.
Very normal way to watch football.
As much as I can fall into the spell or post a ton about whether this offense is averaging more yards than some previous version of the Bills or whether a national power ranking has them first this week, because congratulations to everyone involved in winning the September Power Rankings Championship.
I want to know if this team can survive when Allen isn’t the best player on the field for 60 minutes.
Because we already know he can win games by himself. We’ve seen that movie plenty of times.
The question has always been what happens when he doesn’t. The Josh Allen Bills have been very good for a long time, but being very good and being complete are not always the same thing.
There have been better Bills teams on paper. There have been more explosive offenses. There have been defenses we all talked ourselves into by October because apparently we never learn.
But this one might have a chance to be something slightly different.
For once, Buffalo doesn’t look like Josh Allen dragging a very good football team behind him while everyone else waves from the wagon.
It looks like a very good football team that happens to have Josh Allen playing quarterback.
That’s a much different thing.
And if that feeling lasts beyond September, then maybe this really is the most balanced team he has ever had.
Stathead of the Week: 5
Greg Rousseau has 6.0 sacks through Buffalo’s first three games, tying him for the fifth-highest total through three games of an NFL season since 2010.
The only bigger starts in that span belong to Shaquil Barrett (8.0), Justin Houston (7.5), DeMarcus Lawrence (6.5) and Aidan Hutchinson (6.5). Not a bad way for No. 15 to announce himself in 2026.
Buffalo social media moment of the week
I mentioned this in my stadium piece Thursday about how the Bills stadium account has gotten really into dunking on what it considers “fake outrage.” Well, here’s another one.
And maybe I’m reading this wrong, but it sure feels like this is another joke aimed at people complaining about obstructed views or the grass or did I miss something or reporting on the stadium miscues before the season.
Sorry, I’m not laughing and maybe it’s too soon for the Bills to start the comedy routine based on what happened in August. If outsiders, say the Chargers complained about the stadium, I would be fine with it. But the complaints seem to be coming from the people inside the house is another story.
If people bought tickets without fully understanding just how obstructed some of these seats would be, I don’t think making them the punchline is particularly cool. Additionally, there were a number of players and experts who weren’t fond of the grass, so it’s more than just jimmybilly7272627 complaining.
Yeah, I get it. It’s social media. It’s a cheap pop and I’m old and I still don’t get what the hell those weird 3 minute out of context videos the team posts after wins. I probably wouldn’t even care about this and know I may come across as Grandpa Simpson yelling at a cloud.
But they’ve been doing this a lot lately and joking about the field complaints, the obstructed views, basically being passive-aggressive toward criticism that, in some cases, is completely legitimate.
I like my stadium account to tell me about new beer, when the gates open, new gear, fireworks and whatever ridiculous food item they’re selling that week. I don’t really need it doing crowd work on fans who have legitimate complaints.
Whatever. I’m sure I’ll get shit on for saying this too by those who love the humor or think I’m just not with the times.
Dad Shots:
Last week, Dan Le Batard brought up the story that Mike McDaniel turned down the Bills head coaching job because of his relationship with Sean McDermott. I’d posted about it back in June. Maybe nobody locally picked it up because I buried it halfway through Dad Shots, which, yes, are long as fuck.
Le Batard did that thing a lot of journalists do now: “I’m hearing this, but I can’t really confirm it, so don’t blame me.” It lives in a podcast clip or a tweet, never quite making it into a reported story.
The reaction in Buffalo was basically, No way McDaniel turns down a chance to coach Josh Allen. On the surface, I get it. What annoyed me was seeing someone in the local beat dismiss the story out of hand. Why not call the Bills? Text Derek Boyko or Brandon Beane and ask. If they say it’s false, report that. You’ve got a story, you’ve got your clicks, and you’ve done more than just offer a take.
—The John Murphy story started getting legs last week. Pro Football Talk, Buffalo Business First and Awful Announcing picked it up. The Bills still haven’t commented, and as far as I can tell, nothing has changed for Murphy, except his Twitter account is gone.
Since I wrote about John Murphy losing his credential, I’ve gotten pushback from people in the media and the league community. They’ve pointed to his history of liking/commenting on suggestive posts online. I decided to check in…
One source told me they spoke with two people they believed would know why Murphy lost access. Neither knew of any connection to his online behavior. The source also raised a question I keep coming back to: if this was the reason, why did Murphy have a credential in August?
There are a number of Murph tweets responding to well…thirst traps on X that have been happening for over a year. That doesn’t rule anything out. It means the reason remains unconfirmed, and the Bills still haven’t explained their decision.
I’ve also heard through the grapevine that some people at Channel 4 didn’t even know John Murphy worked there, whether as an employee or in a part-time role. Well…I have news for those people…but Murphy has been writing for the site dating back to last year.
Even if they didn’t know he was working there, or was sitting in the break room liking thirst traps on twitter, or they thought he was the oldest intern ever…it doesn’t change the point of my report last week:
Murphy had a press credential, and then he lost it. Whether he worked one day a week, five days a week, or showed up to drive the van doesn’t explain why the credential was taken away.
I’ve also heard people debate what “part-time” means here. A source brought up Vic Carucci, saying he has a part-time arrangement with a contract as if the contract makes it part-time but with benefits. I don’t know the terms of that deal, and I’m not going to pretend I do. But TV and media work often runs on contracts and freelance gigs. A person can work regularly for an outlet without fitting neatly into the usual full-time or part-time boxes on their W4. If someone from the AP gets sick and needs someone to fill in, does that person being called in mean they are part-time or they are a freelancer? As a person with over 24 years of TV experience, that’s not called part-time..it’s called freelance.
So if the argument is that Murphy’s employment status somehow explains what happened, I’m still waiting for the connection. He was approved for a credential. Then he lost it. Why?
—Stealing Pat Moran’s stat that James Cook is 1041 yards away from passing Fred Jackson for 3rd in club history.
—These wretched Bills nickel city uniforms robbed us of this awesome jersey matchup yesterday. Pathetic!
—Let me also be the 2,000th person to crap on the NFL for fining players for mimicking drinking a beer while the league has lucrative sponsorship deals with beer companies.
It’s such classic NFL shit. Beer commercials everywhere. Beer logos everywhere. Official beer sponsors. Please gamble responsibly while drinking the official beer of the NFL.
But a player pretends to crack one open after scoring a touchdown? FINE HIM.
I’m sure there’s some line buried in the rule book about celebrations involving alcohol or protecting sponsors or whatever the fuck. Still, it’s hilarious. The NFL will happily take every dollar a beer company wants to throw at them, but they just apparently don’t want the players pretending to enjoy the product.
Fucking weirdos.
—I hate watching a zoom interview online and the person’s background is blurry. What are they hiding? It distracts me and I hate it.
— Gonna start putting together a blurb every couple of weeks of ex-Bills and see how they are doing. Pat Moran’s hero Mack Hollins seems to be doing well and Diggs might be the best #2 possession WR in football.
—Trump banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico reporters from the White House. Shocking, said absolutely no one. Their journalists were turned away and their credentials confiscated.
Of course he wants attention as he always wants attention. But this is also happening weeks before the midterms, when voters need reporters asking questions he doesn’t get to approve first. I can’t tell you what his private election strategy is. I can tell you that deciding which news outlets are allowed through the door is a hell of a way to head into an election. It’s going to be a shitshow.
I also really don’t need to see a fucking commercial trying to sell me on how great Donald Trump is for being a dictator during an NFL game where he’s walking towards the camera like he has a broom stuck up his ass. I don’t care what party you’re in, what algorithm decided I needed to see it, or how much somebody paid to put it in front of me. If your political pitch is basically, “Wouldn’t it be awesome if one guy had more unchecked power?” maybe that’s the part where we’ve completely lost the plot.
—We’re entering the Andy-goes-from-a-crib-to-a-big-boy-bed era. Yes, we’re late on this transition. But he recently decided he was done with the sleep sack, which feels like his way of telling us the time has come.
We bought a bunk bed. So far, it’s still sitting in the box, awaiting its big reveal like Chainsaw Charlie. “We bought” is also doing a lot of work in that sentence, because my wife is the one who will have to put it together. My handy skills are garbage. I can hold a flashlight and ask if she needs the little wrench that came with it. We also had to lock Andy’s closet because he keeps trying to change his pants at least 6x a day.
Meanwhile, Luke had the worst blowout in the history of mankind. He loves his BabyBjörn bouncer, which keeps him on a bit of an incline. Great for bouncing. Terrible for shitting. You know the old saying, “Shit rolls downhill”? On a BabyBjörn, it absolutely does. We needed a cleanup crew at the bottom of that thing.
—If you made it this far, I thank you. Do me a favor and Buy some steaks, shirts, women’s hats, peanut butter, and store 716 gear. You can also just pay me 5 bucks a month by pledging so I can show my wife that this is more than a hobby.
Have a good rest of the week and make sure you have a pumpkin flavored donut NOT from a chain.
With Benford possibly out for sometime, our lack of depth at cornerback could really hurt ( great move by Beane not to add some depth at cornerback when he constructed roster , lol )
The mainstream press are a complete joke controlled by billionaires that only care about getting a tax break and kissing the stark raving mad orange assholes big fat ass/-