BY: CULLEN TONGE
Take a second and close your eyes. It is April 26, 2018 and you are screaming at your TV because the Buffalo Bills took the wrong “Josh” with the seventh overall pick.
Now, a little over two years later, the wrong, “Josh,” is having himself one heck of a season and is a top-three MVP candidate.
Through four games, the 24-year-old Allen has led the Bills to their first 4-0 start since 2008. The offense is playing the best that we have seen in a long time, averaging 30.8 points per game and without Allen, that number would be under five. So far, Allen has accounted for 15 of the Bills’ 16 touchdowns this season. He has run for three scores, thrown for 12, and is confidently leading the Bills up and down the field.
Now, one might think that the Bills would be finding a way to put up points without Allen, but that does not appear to be the case. Allen is averaging 26.25 points per game. That puts him second behind only Russell Wilson of the Seattle Seahawks, who is averaging 28 points per game for his team.
Allen has also wasted no time putting the talent around him to good use.
When the Bills traded their first-round pick to the Minnesota Vikings for Stefon Diggs, they gave Allen another receiver to feed the ball to. Many analysts weren’t sure how Diggs would perform, let alone like being with a somewhat inaccurate Josh Allen, so they wrote off Allen going into the year. Man, oh man, were they wrong.
The addition of Diggs was the best thing Allen could have hoped for and it has shown. Through the first four games last season, Allen threw for 903 yards. This season, he surpassed that mark before the end of game three and now currently sits with 1,326 yards, 83 rushing yards and his completion percentage has soared to 71 percent on the season.
His counterpart, Diggs, has accounted for 403 of those yards. This has made them one of the best quarterback-receiver duos in the NFL.
Like any great quarterback, you have to be able to lead your team to victory, regardless of what the score is going into the fourth quarter. In two games this season, Allen has looked a fourth quarter deficit in the face and said, “watch this.” Fifteen minutes later, Allen stands victorious and walks away with a “W”.
It seems to be a recurring theme for Allen as he now has eight fourth-quarter comebacks in his NFL career.
Since he entered the league, Allen has been mocked; people said he would never be the quarterback that the Bills expected him to be when they took him seventh overall. Now, reporters and analysts are filling out “Josh Allen Apology Forms” on Twitter, asking #BillsMafia to forgive them.
Whether it was the salty taste of blowing the playoff game against the Houston Texans last season, the haters doubting him, or just the simple will to be the best, Josh Allen is a man on a mission this season: to parade a Super Bowl trophy through the streets of Buffalo for the first time in franchise history.
At the rate he is playing, it is very possible he brings home an MVP trophy back with him as well. So, close your eyes again; did the Bills take the wrong Josh?
The sports desk can be reached at editorialtrainwrecksports@gmail.com
2 Responses
Wow, what a great article. I could really see Josh being the MVP which would be so so cool
Well said!! I’m a believer!