Battle of QB titans: Josh Allen vs. Lamar Jackson with an AFCCG ticket on the line
Sean McDermott grew to "trust" his QB a little more with more fourth-down sorcery. Now, the nation gets exactly what it wanted and whichever MVP candidate pulls off the most herculean stunts will win.
ORCHARD PARK, NY — The play was straight out of a fever dream for this head coach. When Josh Allen pranced around for 6.78 seconds, Sean McDermott admits fleeting “Uh… uh… oh…” dread kicked in. Nerves are understandable. At this point of the third quarter, Buffalo only led by one touchdown. It was fourth and 1 at the Denver 24.
“Fourth and 1. It was fourth and 1,” repeated McDermott with a ever-so-slight tint of agitation. “So, we threw it, how far down the field was it?”
A reporter answered. A coach pursed his lips.
“Hey, you tell me, it’s complete, I’m going to sign up for it every week. But as those are the…”
Mid-sentence, McDermott remembered who’s playing quarterback for his team.
“Look, I trust Josh. You guys know that. I trust him and I believe in him. So that’s where that is.”
These are the plays McDermott does not exactly enjoy. He holds his breath when Allen shifts into Sicko Mode. But it worked. Again. And this should be the lesson gleaned from Sunday’s slaughter at Highmark Stadium. The seventh-seeded Denver Broncos never recovered from Allen’s uppercut to the chin and a close game became a 31-7 demolition. Next up, an epic showdown vs. Lamar Jackson and the Baltimore Ravens in the divisional round.
The voyage toward this seventh postseason tournament has been a thrilling, infuriating, Zelda-like quest for Western New Yorkers, so memories from the first few playoff trips may be fuzzy. But here’s estimating that there’s a 5 percent chance — tops — that the head coach goes for it on that exact fourth-and-1 spot his first three playoff trips. Old Sean makes it a two-score game, doesn’t think twice. And there’s a 0.05 percent chance he’s satisfied with the contents of that fourth-and-1 play back then: his quarterback darting, extending, Favre’ing a ball into the back of the end zone to a backup running back.
This may be the decisive step in the Bills evolution as a team toward finally getting to the Super Bowl.
Trusting Allen — fully — in high-pressure spot.
Thank you for making Go Long your home for independent longform in the NFL.
Here is our 1 on 1 with Sean McDermott, icymi.
McDermott will be prepared to preposterous proportions. Asked how difficult it is to gameplan for Jackson, the coach’s head turned in the direction of his office in the team’s fieldhouse. “I’m trying to figure out if I have to go back over there now,” he said. Numbers will be crunched. Gameplans, crafted. McDermott will meticulously calculate the cost-benefits of all “if X, then Y” scenarios. By Sunday at 6:30 p.m. (EST), the Bills head coach may know exactly how much tartar sauce Baltimore offensive coordinator Todd Monken spreads on his crab cakes. But nuts and bolts alone will not win this game.
The two best football players on the planet will determine the outcome.
Whichever quarterback pulls off the most superhuman stunts — exactly what we saw from Allen at that 3:06 mark of the third quarter — will punch his team’s ticket to the AFC Championship Game.
Take it from the quarterback.
“Ultimately, it’s not the X’s and O’s,” Allen said in the same postgame seat moments earlier. “It’s the Jimmys and Joes.”
This season, the Bills offense is more freight train than Lamborghini. That’s by design. McDermott has spent the last 1 ½ years reshaping the unit in his vision. Years past, they’d get 0-to-60 in a blink, race to double-digit leads and dance over teams’ graves. The problem was if an opponent punched first. Starting with the promotion of Joe Brady, the Bills have made a concerted effort to win at the line of scrimmage. Through the air, “everyone eats.” It can take a quarter or two for this diesel engine to reach max speed, but when it does? The Bills have proven capable of vanquishing everything in their path. Against the Broncos, Buffalo churned out 210 rushing yards on 44 attempts with Allen going 20 of 26 for 272 yards with two touchdowns and a shimmering 135.4 passer rating, which ranked as the 12th best of his 122-game career.
Denver’s defense, second in EPA, was rendered debris on the tracks.
Snap to snap, all 11 players have reached a point of conviction where it doesn’t really matter what offensive coordinator Joe Brady calls — they believe they’ll dominate. This is not the Bills offense that failed to score points on nine of 11 possessions in a 35-10 loss at Baltimore on Sept. 29.
“It’s belief in Brady and what he’s calling for us,” said the towering Spencer Brown. “And it’s fun because you can get into the flow of the game and understand what we’re trying to do and attack. You can almost start guessing what we’re going to do or how the defense is playing — loading the box up or if they’re playing ‘Penny’ or whatever it is. But it’s just fun to see Brady’s belief in us. He tries to mix it up and get the ball in everybody’s hands. Everybody’s going to get a touch.”
If the Bills force a turnover, Brown usually has a feeling that Brady will take a shot deep. Or work play action. And when the play clock ticks closer to zero, it usually doesn’t matter what sort of disguises and blitzes they see. For a front five that’s essentially started the entire season together, there’s no guesswork.
Everyone knows who to block. Everyone’s in-sync. A sweet, sweet feeling.
“It all goes into the flow of it,” Brown said. “It’s clean, there’s no hiccups along the way and that breeds confidence in the offensive line and the running backs.”
McDermott’s insistence on owning the line of scrimmage used to elicit eye rolls and scorn from assistants past. Remember, everything turned for those 2021 Bills with a sweltering second half at Tampa Bay. The offense abandoned fantasies of half-nelsons in the trenches and what could’ve been a postseason for the ages for Allen, what could’ve led to a Lombardi Trophy ended with those 13 tragic seconds in Kansas City.
The staff’s totally different now. Aaron Kromer may be the best offensive line coach in the sport. James Cook is the new RB1. Allen has become more disciplined.
Over time, the Bills morphed into a club equipped to win in any climate.
Said McDermott: “The line of scrimmage is huge every week.”
And yet, the conductor of this freight train is still Allen in his purest form.
His heroics get this offense accelerating at maximum velocity. Pick any game at random from this season, and you can pinpoint a moment: the Air Jordan leap vs. Arizona, the fourth-and-2 TD run vs. KC, the lateral vs. San Francisco, an absolute bomb to Keon Coleman at Detroit and a high-risk, high-reward, cross-body heave to Coleman vs. the New York Jets. Inside the stadium, the energy’s palpable after such plays. A 14-play drive is nice. But it’s as true now as it was last season — you want to accumulate as many possessions as you can with Josh Allen.
That means striking quick and letting Allen stray from the quarterback handbook.
These are the moments that have a visceral effect on your entire team. Veteran Von Miller assured everything that you, the fans, feel at home is exactly what courses through his veins after such theatrics. Teammates see Allen chuck it across his body to Coleman and cannot wait to get their quarterback the ball back. Added Miller: “We’re witnessing something special.”
McDermott is still coming around. During our 1 on 1, I asked McDermott to describe the dynamic between him and Allen and he brought up that risky touchdown pass to Coleman against the Jets. “He’s always made that play,” McDermott said. “He’s always attempted that throw. But I think there’s been less of those this year and his growth reflects that. Meaning, that’s a great play. But that could also go the other way, too.”
Turnovers hijack games. Vigilance is always a virtue at the position.
But not at the expense of what a quarterback does best. Statistically, Allen has been one of the best playoff quarterbacks of this century. Through 11 games, he has completed 65.3 percent of his passes for 2,995 yards with 23 touchdowns, four interceptions, a 102.3 rating with another 609 yards and five scores on the ground. And right there is why McDermott is correct to “trust” Allen to make the correct play-to-play calculations in these elimination games. He’s been nearly perfect in the playoffs, and he’ll need to sustain this elite level of play against a peaking Ravens team.
These are not the same defenses from Sept. 29.
The Ravens moved Kyle Hamilton to safety permanently, and improved dramatically. They’ve allowed less than 300 yards of offense in six of their last seven games. Opponents have averaged only 14.8 points in those games. At each level, Nnamdi Madubuike, Roquan Smith and Marlon Humphrey are indisputable stars.
The Bills didn’t even have three of their best defensive players in that game: Taron Johnson, Matt Milano and Terrel Bernard. A backup linebacker now on IR, Baylon Spector, played 96 percent of the snaps that night. Nor does this Bills defense resemble the decrepit group chasing the Chiefs around in a divisional round playoff loss last season. Cornerback Rasul Douglas later revealed to Go Long that he played all 50 of his snaps that night on a torn MCL.
“Last year, we were playing with a handicapped team,” Douglas said after this Broncos win. “But we’re a lot better now.”
Expect a close game. Both quarterbacks will need to be spectacular. The margin for error will be razor-thin.
Jackson was (again) half-man, half-amazing in Baltimore’s 28-14 win over Pittsburgh. At the end of the first half, he faced the same moment of truth Allen did on that fourth and 1. Out of timeouts, he couldn’t afford a sack. With only 11 seconds left, he needed to act fact. All Jackson did was deftly evade multiple rushers — including T.J Watt — to find Justice Hill for a score with two seconds.
There was no use chatting with Bills players about dispatching the Broncos.
They’ve got to start thinking about this quarterback ASAP.
“He can do everything,” Bills defensive end A.J. Epenesa said. “Obviously, he’s the fastest quarterback. That’s a threat in itself. His ability to throw the ball. They’re such a high-powered offense. They’ve got Derrick Henry in the backfield. Threats at receiver. Big O-Linemen. They’re just a good, put-together team.”
The presence of Derrick Henry (378 carries, 2,107 yards with 18 touchdowns) has clearly alleviated pressure off Jackson’s shoulders.
Defending these two players as Jackson sticks a football inside the belly of Henry is not as simple as hitting Jackson every time because the Ravens can present this RPO action in complex ways. (“Way easier said than done,” Epenesa said.) There’s never been a quarterback quite like Jackson, just as there’s never been a running back quite like the 6-foot-3, 245-pound Henry.
Epenesa calls both players “unicorns” that’ll require an excellent gameplan.
Still, he assured the Bills are not afraid of either player. Nor will anyone be in a rush to put them up on a pedestal.
“We definitely respect them,” Epenesa said, “but there’s a way to beat everybody and that’s our mindset.”
Each playoff exit has been ugly for this Bills defense. This is McDermott’s chance to rewrite the narrative of his career.
Odds are, he’ll also face the same fourth-down predicament of Januarys past. When he chooses to go for it — learning from playoff failures past — there’s a very good chance the Ravens have everything covered up in the secondary, Allen is flushed and Allen is forced to create. The swooping strokes on the NextGen graphic of his touchdown to Ty Johnson looks more like something our 3-year-old sons scribbled on construction paper than a play carefully crafted by an offensive savant.
Playoff football often boils down to those jimmys and joes improvising… a good thing when you’re in possession of one the best quarterbacks in the NFL.
The other 10 players on the field know the deal.
“When he has a ball in his hands, he can do whatever he wants,” Brown said. “So just keeping him upright and give him an opportunity.”
Linemen must find someone to hit. Receivers and backs must improvise. The head coach might feel his heart jump into his throat but, hey, when you’re a team trying to reach Super Bowl LIX, that’s a welcomed side effect.
Said McDermott: “This is what everyone’s been waiting for, right?”
Another quality piece. Go Bills.
Honestly, regardless of who emerges into Championship Sunday, Bills-Ravens feels like the game of the year. Those quarterbacks, those running games. The narratives dogging both quarterbacks. I really can’t wait to see it unfold.