The Bills had been shut down by the Patriots on a windswept Monday night and, six days later, their season was officially on life support. At 7–5, a loss in Tampa against the defending Super Bowl champion Buccaneers and Tom Brady would mean falling two games behind their old nemeses from Foxboro and make the rest of December and January a steep uphill climb.
Then, they fell three touchdowns behind the Buccaneers, and their walk to the locker room for halftime might as well have been across a metaphorical Green Mile.
But the Bills would soon figure something out—Josh Allen wasn’t going out like that.
In the locker room, the fourth-year quarterback was direct. He was forceful. He came across naturally, and authentically, and brought to life something that his teammates hadn’t seen from him. The guy who would pack Coors Lights for the golf course with them, who could take a prank and dish one out, could also flip a switch and do what so many in the organization had wanted from him over the previous months and years.
“He’s such a competitor; I think it was a combination of his competitive nature coming out in that form, at that moment, and also just him continuing to mature and say, ,” said coach Sean McDermott, leaning against a fence at training camp early one night in July. “I don’t want to go into detail; it’s just guys listened to him. And you gotta have that.”
“We were getting our ass whooped,” veteran safety and captain Micah Hyde added. “And it was one of those things where it was like, .”
On the Bills’ second possession of the second half, Allen ensured that, win or lose, that wouldn’t happen. He drove the Bills 81 yards in nine plays. He converted fourth-and-1 on a quarterback sweep that he cut back into the teeth of the defense. He scored three plays later on third-and-2, running a zone-read keeper up the middle for an 18-yard touchdown.
And on that last one, he hurled the ball as hard as he could into the back wall of the field area at Raymond James Stadium, as if to announce to everyone what was coming.
“That’s the projected growth that they had for me when they drafted me,” Allen said. “Not being as polished, trying to learn and grow in the game of football and as a quarterback. The first thing I tried to do is just show guys on the team how much I cared by playing as hard as I did and going the extra mile and jumping over people and putting my shoulder down. I wanted to show how much I love the game, how much I want to win.
“And then just like you said, it’s the natural progression of becoming a more vocal leader and taking ownership of the offense and the team and just trying to set us on a good trajectory and ultimately trying to be the example for what we’re trying to do here.”
The Bills wound up losing the game 33–27 in overtime after a furious comeback. But it’s pretty easy to argue now they gained more than they lost that night—in the step Allen took as the face of the franchise. Buffalo didn’t lose again until a historic divisional round shootout in Kansas City, choking out those Patriots twice along the way for good measure.
And now, going into 2022 under an avalanche of expectations, the Bills move forward with a quarterback they know is ready for the moment.
