How can Allen and the Bills finally break through?
Jason Garrett, Devin McCourty and Mike Florio discuss Josh Allen's tenure in Buffalo and question what it'll take for the Bills to finally get over the hump and make the Super Bowl.
Video Transcript
All right, the, the Bills are running out of time when it comes to Josh Allen's career.
And the reaction- That's a hell of, that's a hell of a segue way, right?
It's a, yeah.
Well, it would've been even better if you didn't inter- you hadn't got interrupted.
If we're gonna hand out fines, segue of the year and you interrupt it.
Okay.
Sorry.
So, look at how the Bills reacted to last year's loss in the divisional round.
They fire the coach, they promote the GM, they promote the offensive coordinator.
There's just pressure on everybody.
They're going into a new stadium.
Josh Allen is entering year number nine.
I- you get one shot per year to try to do the thing you've yet to be able to do.
Let's listen a little to what Josh Allen had to say yesterday about what he learned from that heartbreaking division around loss in overtime to the Broncos.
Josh, a bit of a bummer question for you, but with the game, with the game- Set up.
With the game last year, obviously in Denver, you watch it.
Do you watch it to learn lessons?
Do you watch it as motivation?
Do you watch it just to see what went wrongly?
How do you process Or do you not watch it?
Do you, how do you process the end of the season to take the lessons from it, whether it be from, "Hey, I could have done this better," or, "I just wanna motivate myself throughout the summer"?
Next question.
I'm just kidding.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, I mean, definitely we've watched it.
We've put it in the past.
We've learned from it, and, you know, it's, you, you, we've been in the playoffs a lot of times in the last, you know, however many years I've been here now and, you know, just continuing to find ways to learn from it, and I think that's, it's a hard pill to swallow sometimes, 'cause we haven't gotten it done.
But, you know, you, you knock, you knock enough at the door, it's gonna open at some point, and that's just, what we have to keep doing, is keep knocking on that door and giving ourselves chances to be in that situation again.
Harder to swallow than a Carter's Little Liver Pill.
Listen, knock at the door long enough, it's gonna open.
Hey, Josh, that isn't always the case.
There have been teams throughout history in all sports that keep knocking on the door, and the door doesn't open, and before you know it, you're thrown off the porch.
So I don't buy this presump- at some point, you gotta go from knocking on the door to pounding on the door to kicking on the door, and I just wonder whether or not the Bills are doing enough to get to the point where they can accomplish that, coach.
Do you think he's not trying?
Oh, he's trying.
The question is, are they trying around him?
Yeah, they're trying.
Everybody in Buffalo wants to win as much as anybody.
And, and they're, they're trying to make the decisions that help him take that next step.
You know, you, you say there's a lot of stories in all of sports about where they keep knocking on the door, and then they're not knocking anymore.
I, there's a lot more stories in my view of guys who get to this point in their career and people are saying, "He can never do it.
He can never do it."
Let's go back to early Michael Jordan.
He's leading the league in scoring every year, all of that.
He can't win the big one.
Hey, he's a great scorer, and then obviously he wins six of them.
And, you know, think about Peyton Manning and so many others.
And, and to me, if you watch this guy play, he's a remarkable football player.
Beyond his ability, it's his spirit.
It's what he does to the offense and to the team and to the city, and he gives them so much hope.
And, I do agree with you.
You have to consistently make great decisions around these guys.
You have to manage the cap.
You have to build the defense.
You have to help the guy.
But, you know, I, I firmly believe he's gonna break through.
He's gonna win a Super Bowl.
They're gonna win multiple Super Bowls over the course of his career.
And think about these quarterbacks.
They play for a long time now.
They're getting protected.
He's an elite, elite athlete.
Mm-hmm.
So there's no part of me that says, "Boy, Josh Allen's getting old."
Watch the tape.
I mean, it looks like he's 22 years old, the way he runs around and the way he plays.
So they just gotta keep banging away.
The big thing for me in this story is Sean McDermott is a hell of a football coach.
Now, what he did in Buffalo for those nine years, to go to the playoffs eight times after where they have been for so long, to me, that's a hard one to swallow, that he's not the guy leading that team right now.
Does 'Cause that's, that's where I'm at too.
I, I think, I think what Josh Allen is saying is very true.
When you're in that position, you understand you're putting yourself in position to be right there year in and year out.
You, you can't allow what everybody else ta- talks about to defeat you to the point where, like, you, you sum up everything you've done as, like, it's just bad.
No, you've done a lot of good.
I get concerned with, hey, are we, are we doing enough?
Are we not doing enough?
All right, we're not doing enough.
Let's fire Sean McDermott.
Let's make all of these huge changes, because then I think there is a little bit of a sign of, hey, we are a little bit in panic mode.
We are worried around Josh, so let's do all of these big changes, and now let's create more pressure.
And I think for me, because I look at Josh, I played against him so many times, he's the first guy I would take.
If you said, "Hey, you get to pick your first quarterback," and I get it, there's a lot of great ones in the NFL right now.
For me, I, I love Josh Allen, how he plays the game, what he brings.
So I think that the pressure comes from there a little bit, because a lot of people do feel that way.
Like, I would take him first, and it, it feels like he has to be the first one out at Lamar, Joe Burrow.
Like, you feel like we wanna see him- Yeah step over that big hump first.
But I know I, I get concerned with as many changes, like, this guy's been awesome.
It's the little things that And, and it was really just this game, this past season and that playoff game where you looked- Yeah and you're like, "Ah."
You reverted a little bit back- No doubt to trying to make the huge play.
But other than that, he's turned a corner in that s- s- situation, so Well, the, the big step for me, and I felt like they took it three or four years ago when Joe Brady took over as the offensive coordinator, is y- you can't play that position and be expected to do everything every play.
I mean, remember those games.
Mm-hmm.
Remember the game in Miami?
I mean, he, he, the guy couldn't have played better, but he literally had to make- Every every pl- like, 60 out of 65 plays, the whole city was on his shoulders.
And at the end of the game, he wasn't able to come through.
And, and, and, and for me, the big thing is the way these guys break through in all sports is the burden gets spread around.
And so if they keep running the ball, playing better defense, all of that, where he doesn't always have to do it in the big moments, that pressure gets alleviated.
And then when, when the time comes where he's gotta make the plays, much more capable of doing that.
And they've made a trend that way over the course of his career.
They just gotta keep going in that direction.
And look, it's impossible to break down the psychological nuances of what happened against Denver.
But was he trying to force things?
Was he pushing a little too hard?
Was he feeling that weight?
Was he wondering, "If we lose this game, are they gonna fire Sean McDermott?"
It can't be that it was just out of the blue surprise for him.
Yeah.
He's around there observing the dynamics, getting a feel for what's riding on it.
Remember that week before against Jacksonville, he visibly seemed to be carrying the weight of Sean McDermott's future on his shoulders- Oh as they tried to win that game.
So it's one thing to patiently keep knocking on the door.
They're starting to panic- Mm-hmm so they're knocking all over the place.
Are we hitting the door?
Are we hitting the jam?
Are we hitting the wall?
What are we doing here?
What are we doing here?
And, and, uh- And, and, and this, this is no knock on Joe Brady.
Yeah, yeah.
Right.
I think Joe Brady's a hell of a coach.
Mm-hmm.
You know, i- if, if we're gonna take Sean McDermott out of it, I think that's a great choice for their team, but I just get a little sick that Sean McDermott's not- Right.
I agree not, not part of this whole thing together as they try to break through.
It, it puts more pressure on everyone.
That's my point, though.
Yeah.
They're getting more panicked.
They're getting more antsy- Right and they're overreacting to each individual failure.
And if they do that every year, they're gonna lose their minds.
And I, I think about, again, different scenario, but you look in New England, you win three Super Bowls, and then there's a 10-year gap.
A 10-year gap.
So like yes, Bill had already won t- three Super Bowls, so it would be harder to move on.
But would we have said, after year eight, "Does Brady have a better chance to win a Super Bowl now that they moved on from Bill Belichick, and now appointed, you know, a, a, a different coach, maybe a defensive coach?"
Maybe it was Matt Patricia.
Whoever, would, would people have walked away from that and been like, "Hey, I think he has a better chance now-" No. "
that that guy is gone"?
That, I think, of what you're saying, to me, is the biggest question mark for Buffalo.
Joe Brady's been an awesome offensive coordinator, all those different things.
Now, everything we look at from Buffalo from a game management standpoint- Yeah what they do, we're all gonna say, "Well, what did Brady do?
What did Joe Brady do this?"
Right.
And now that's like, okay, here we go.
We have another dynamic.
We have to overcome what a new stadium and everything else own.
It's, it's I think it's gonna be very difficult this year for them with all the narratives that'll be happening.
So you mentioned Joe Burrow and Lamar Jackson.
You've got those two.
You've got Josh Allen.
You've got Patrick Mahomes still lurking around.
You got Drake Maye ascending.
One of these guys isn't gonna win a Super Bowl.
Yeah.
Two of these guys isn't gonna win.
You still got Matt Stafford.
But I'm just talking about the AFC.
Yeah, yeah.
Just on the AFC side.
One of these guys isn't gonna get to a Super Bowl.
So that's the reality that Josh Allen and the Bills are dealing with.
You can look at it in the abstract and, yeah, obviously this team deserves to go to a Super Bowl.
That fan base deserves a Super Bowl win.
They suffered for too long.
Josh Allen is too good to not cap his career without a Super Bowl ring.
But you know what?
Dan Marino did.
Dan Fouts did.
Fran Tarkenton did.
There have been greats throughout history that haven't won a Super Bowl.
And I think the Chiefs are a big p- obviously, a big part of what's happened the first eight years is you continue to run into the Chiefs.
They ran into the Bills Or the Bengals one year and lost at home 27 to 10 in the snow, a game that you would think the Bills would win.
So I just think that it's too simple to say, "Just keep knocking on the door- Yeah and eventually it'll open," because everybody else is knocking on the same door.
Yeah.
But if you're in it, if you're the guy- That's all you can do that's all you can do.
That's all you can do.
No, you're right.
No, I agree with you.
But the reality is s- there's no guarantee the door's gonna open.
Someone's gonna miss out.
Yeah.
One of those great quarterbacks.
And it could be Josh Allen.
Yeah.
If they keep overreacting and panicking every time they blow an opportunity to get to a Super Bowl, that's where a steady hand from ownership is gonna be critical.
And we did not see a steady hand.
That did not make sense.
It does not make sense to fire the coach, promote the GM, promote the offensive coordinator.
Those three moves together just don't make sense.
Unless they win.
Unless they win.
Then they make all the sense in the world.
Yeah.
But that just puts more pressure on them- Yeah, no doubt to indicate the decision.
No doubt.
So we'll see what happens
