The Bills have Josh Allen. The Patriots do not.
This was an MVP performance from the Buffalo quarterback. Bill Belichick had zero answers. Also inside: the New York Giants miraculously discover a new rock bottom — will anything change?
There’s justifiable hesitancy any time any team jacks up the quarterback market.
Too many franchises suffer from buyer’s remorse a few months into breaking the bank.
Then, there’s Josh Allen. The $258 million contract the Buffalo Bills handed their long-lost savior felt like armed robbery on Sunday. Given the lost bodies, the stakes, the pressure and the presence of the greatest coach ever on the other sideline, this was Allen’s finest performance to date.
The Bills’ 33-21 win over the New England Patriots felt like a true flip of the script.
For two decades, the Patriots delivered this exact same message to all of Western New York: Our quarterback is better than yours. Foxborough is where the Bills’ dreams have gone to die every December. But not with Allen. Not with possibly the best quarterback in the sport. Every excuse was neatly lined up into this colossal AFC East rematch and all Allen did was throw the Bills on his back and make anything seem possible.
No Cole Beasley and no Gabriel Davis? Fine. All Isaiah McKenzie did was have the game of his life. The offensive line was mashed up again and then lost starting guard Ike Boettger to a torn Achilles? No sweat. Allen baited one, two, three rushers at a time before flicking first downs across his body. A run defense that’s been gashed for a good month was without defensive tackle Star Lotulelei due to personal reasons and mostly gashed again. Big whoop. It did not matter. And it’s taken four years but maybe, just maybe, Allen was able to rewire how his head coach manages a game, too. There was no punting at midfield this day. Hell, the Bills didn’t need to punt at all.
Sean McDermott finally coached like he had an MVP candidate at quarterback with his foot firmly on the accelerator.
And this is the effect the best players in the sport have.
They affect everyone and everything.
Allen is more than capable of throwing the Bills on his back and taking them as far as he pleases. We know Patrick Mahomes can do this. Maybe Jonathan Taylor can. Maybe Derrick Henry can, too, if he returns. The list of such singular forces of nature in the AFC likely ends there. On Sunday, Allen completed 30 of 47 passes for 314 yards and rushed for another 64 yards. He threw three touchdowns, was not sacked once and did not throw an interception.
This wasn’t against the Texans, the Jets or the Washington Football Team.
This offense imposed its will on a defense surrendering an NFL-low 16.2 points per game into this weekend. If not for two drops in the end zone, the Bills would’ve hung 40 on Bill Belichick’s defense. Which is remarkable. Most of this season, New England’s patriarch has penned brilliant gameplans for the best quarterbacks in the game — he made Tom Brady look ordinary, remember. And in the biggest game of the season, the greatest coach ever had approximately zero answers for Allen.
That’s why Allen’s performance this day cannot be illustrated in numbers.
This is the game that should have bubbled all of the 2018 ugliness to the surface. Belichick should have confused Allen on the back end with a variety of zone coverages, pressured him up front with Buffalo’s line decimated and — again — kicked the Bills to the curb.
Instead, again and again, Allen was the chief demoralizer.
Let’s take a close look at the damage…
On a fourth and 2 — ahead, 10-7, with 2:15 left in the first half — Allen sidearmed a 23-yarder to Stefon Diggs. Rewatch this one and you’ll see linebacker Jamie Collins appear to initially cloud the QB’s passing lane. Allen pumped to hold the ball and buy a split-second for Diggs to slither into an open passing lane. Three plays later, he rocketed a touchdown to his No. 1 target.
There’s the third and 10 four minutes into the second half. Allen was flushed right, had three defenders in his face and lofted a beaut completely across his body to Emmanuel Sanders. After the catch, Patriots defensive tackle Christian Barmore threw his hands up in disbelief. We can crown Belichick all we want. No X-and-O combination works against plays like this.
When the Patriots punched — cutting the lead to 20-14 — the Bills punched back. On third and 2, Allen zipped a breezy out to McKenzie. And remember the old days when Allen felt a magnetic pull to roll right and only right? The next snap, with pressure to his right, he had zero problem prancing left and flipping his hips around to drop this 28-yard dime to McKenzie. And remember the ridiculous lateral Allen attempted in a wild card loss to the Texans his second season? The next snap, he faked such a lateral on an 11-yard run.
When the Patriots punched once more — cutting the lead to 26-21, midway through the fourth — Allen bid them farewell with a third-and-10 laser to McKenzie and saved his best for last. On fourth and 1, the quarterback froze Collins with a stutter-step straight out of backyard football, then evaded cornerback J.C. Jackson. The two defenders comically bashed into each other.
Game over.
Allen was a maestro in total command. He forced New England to play on his shootout terms.
Allen also proved he can overcome the deficiencies of his defensive-minded head coach. We shouldn’t be too surprised that the same coach who started Nathan Peterman twice inexplicably rendered McKenzie a jet-sweep decoy all season before benching him after his first fumble in 131 touches. Full disclosure: We do a show with McKenzie here at Go Long, one we’ll get back to this week hopefully. But as our loyal listeners know, McKenzie has been dying for this opportunity.
All season, on offense, McKenzie has been little more than a scout team wide receiver. Up until Christmas Week, he has pretended to be a player on the other team.
After the 41-15 loss to the Colts, McDermott then painted McKenzie the scapegoat by making his returner an inactive.
With two receivers down, the Bills had no choice but to play McKenzie and — with his first real shot at doing anything on offense — McKenzie was the best player on the field not named Josh Allen. Honestly, you felt bad for corner Myles Bryant after a while. He was slow. He was helpless. He couldn’t keep up as McKenzie caught 11 of his 12 targets for 125 yards with a touchdown.
I’d still be a tick worried about McDermott’s offensive acumen. Even though he doesn’t call plays, it is a problem that could come back to bite Buffalo one way or another. Instead of trying to #SendAMessage, he should’ve made McKenzie a part of this offense from Day 1.
McKenzie lit up Miami in the 2020 regular-season finale before being whisked back to the bench. Will 2021 be different once Cole Beasley returns?
For now, life is good again in Buffalo.
Allen flexed his biceps. Diggs yelled expletives at the Patriots fans. And, seconds after the win, the only thing on Jordan Poyer’s mind was a columnist back in WNY as he screamed “Where that Jerry Sullivan at? What the f---’s he got to say?” (So, I suppose Bills fans should all thank my old co-worker at the Buffalo News for the victory, right?)
We’ve said it in this space before. The Bills are a front-running bunch that’ll dance all over a team’s grave. They swaggered their way to a 13-3 season in 2020 before being humbled at Arrowhead Stadium in the conference title game. After four losses in six games, quite possibly, the swagger is back. The Bills forced the Patriots to play their brand of football and the Patriots could not keep up. Before tarring-and-feathering the methodically methodical Mac Jones, compare his rookie numbers to that of Allen and his supporting cast to that of Allen. Mac Jones could be special one day. The collection of wide receivers around him seems strikingly similar to Kelvin Benjamin ‘n the gang in 2018.
Right now, Allen is special. Even as the Bills looked like a soft football team through a sobering loss to Indianapolis, even as Belichick took Sean McDermott to school in that Dec. 6 game, the ultimate trump card was the quarterback.
So, no, those 50 MPH gusts didn’t blow this franchise back into the doldrums. With wins over the Falcons and the Jets, the Bills can win the AFC East again. They’re well-positioned to make another run at those Chiefs, too.
That’s $258 million well spent.
A giant meltdown
How bad is the state of affairs for the New York Giants? Mike Glennon was so abysmal in three starts that the team started Jake Fromm on Sunday. Fromm, in turn, was so abysmal that head coach Joe Judge benched him for Glennon. And together, two quarterbacks who shouldn’t be in the league combined for 108 yards on 44 pass attempts.
Averaging 2.7 yards per attempt in today’s NFL is an unfathomable milestone of ineptitude.
The Giants suffered through another lifeless, gutless performance — not that anybody should be too shocked. Other teams in the midst of lost seasons sure showed fight on Sunday. The Houston Texans stunned the Los Angeles Chargers, 41-29, with Davis Mills. The Chicago Bears beat the Seattle Seahawks, 25-24, with Nick Freaking Foles. Even the Tim Boyle-led Detroit Lions had the ball on the Atlanta Falcons’ nine-yard line with a chance to win before an interception. Meanwhile, these Giants continue to stop, drop and roll.
John Mara’s franchise has become an unwatchable product in 2021.
The gold jacket running back selected to cure all once upon a time had 28 yards on 16 touches and it’s probably not even his fault. The roster is that bad around him.
Uninspired efforts are stacking now. That’s on coaching.
So, now, the question is whether or not the Mara family will look into the mirror and get to the root of the problem.
For now, it sounds like the Giants will instead live in delusion and promote from within like they always do. ESPN reported Sunday that ownership plans to bring back Judge and quarterback Daniel Jones, preemptive moves in line with what we wrote in “The Autopsy” last week. Maybe both deserve another season, but wouldn’t you want a new GM — an independent thinker — to conduct a full evaluation and reach that conclusion? Early signs point to familiar-face Kevin Abrams being the new general manager. I’m not sure how any owner can witness losses like this and truly believe the remedy is anything in-house but, then again, this is a team that has now missed the playoffs nine of 10 seasons.
ICYMI, here’s our deep dive on the Giants. Again, I cannot thank our new subscribers enough for joining our community.
The organization was not pleased with our stories. That’s fine. We also heard from several other people who worked in Giants personnel over the holidays. There’s more dysfunction at Giants HQ than anyone realizes so, no question, our readers can expect to read a Part III whenever the team does finally move on from Dave Gettleman and chart a new path.
I fear the new path may resemble the old path, too.
No Huddle
Baker Mayfield wasn’t as bad as his four-interception evening at Lambeau Field would suggest. You can make the case that only one pick was on him. But let’s not forget that Mayfield was also the No. 1 overall pick back in that Allen draft of 2018. By now, the Cleveland Browns expected Mayfield to have this team exactly where Buffalo is — in clear Super Bowl contention. Hence, the harsher-than-normal criticism from the national media. The crazy thing? The Browns (7-8) still have a reasonable shot at winning the AFC North…
… that being said, it’ll be awfully difficult for Cleveland to stomp the Cincinnati Bengals again if the division boils down to their Week 18 rematch. Joe Burrow throttled the Baltimore Ravens for 525 passing yards and four touchdowns. Only three quarterbacks in NFL history have thrown for more yards in a game. Burrow isn’t a rising star. He’s just that — a legit star—and, oh my, what a fun time an Allen/Burrow playoff game would be.
Matthew Stafford was bad. No question. He threw three picks on Sunday. But it just feels like the Los Angeles Rams (11-4) have been in dire need of gritty, grimy, disgusting wins like these, doesn’t it? Since a crushing loss in Green Bay, the Rams have rattled off four wins in a row. The last two weren’t pretty — 20-10 over Seattle, 30-23 over Minnesota — yet quite necessary. In both games, Sean McVay re-embraced the run once again with Sony Michel rushing for 223 yards on 35 attempts. They’ll need this threat of a run to tango with Green Bay, Tampa Bay and Dallas come January.
A Covid-19 outbreak didn’t slow the Chiefs down as they pounded the Steelers, 36-10, for their eighth straight win. Byron Pringle, Derrick Gore and Mecole Hardman took turns knifing through Pittsburgh’s defense with Weapons 1 and 1A, Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelcem both sidelined. The road to the Super Bowl for the fourth straight year will likely go through Arrowhead and this is not the same team pummeled by Buffalo and Tennessee two months ago.
What a sneaky fun game tonight between a pair of 7-7 teams in the Miami Dolphins and New Orleans Saints. We declared the Dolphins dead in this space back in September, only for the Dolphins to win six in a row. OK, so their schedule’s been friendly. Brian Flores still deserves credit for getting his defense right. And quarterback Tua Tagovailoa, finally healthy, has been extremely efficient. That’s not a bad formula this time of year. Don’t expect mass layoffs in Miami now, but this schedule certainly finishes with a bang. After the Saints, the Dolphins will face the Titans and Patriots.
Scrambling for a post-Christmas gift? We’ve got you covered right here.
