Jeff Howe<\/a> of The Athletic, an anonymous NFL executive backed the Bills because of Allen’s presence, saying, “I’m not betting against Josh Allen in the playoffs.”<\/p>\nAnother exec suggested Allen may have to get the job done largely on his own, noting, “Josh Allen scares me, but the rest of the team doesn’t.”<\/p>\n
Allen led the Bills to the playoffs for a seventh consecutive season, but they face a far different road than they did in recent years.<\/p>\n
After winning five consecutive AFC East titles, the Bills fell short this season. The New England Patriots took the AFC East crown, relegating Buffalo to the No. 6 seed with a 12-5 record.<\/p>\n
That means the Bills must win at least two road playoff games\u2014and likely three\u2014in order to reach the Super Bowl.<\/p>\n
Allen is the reigning NFL MVP and may very well be a finalist again this season, but his numbers took a bit of a hit, as he threw 28 touchdowns last season compared to 25 this season, and six interceptions last season compared to 10 this season.<\/p>\n
He did improve as a runner, though, going from 531 yards and 12 touchdowns to 579 yards and 14 touchdowns.<\/p>\n
The biggest difference for Allen this season compared to last is the fact that he was sacked a whopping 40 times after taking only 14 sacks in 2024.<\/p>\n
While offensive line play likely had something to do with it, a lack of consistent weapons in the passing game who can get open quickly undoubtedly played a role as well.<\/p>\n
Khalil Shakir led the team in catches (72) and receiving yardage (719), and no other wide receiver on the team had more than 38 receptions or 404 receiving yards.<\/p>\n
What Allen did have this season, though, was the NFL rushing champion in James Cook, who led the league with 1,621 yards on the ground to go along with 14 total touchdowns.<\/p>\n
Allen can also take solace in the fact that neither the Kansas City Chiefs nor Cincinnati Bengals reached the playoffs. In the five seasons prior to this one, the Chiefs eliminated the Bills from the playoffs four times, and the Bengals did it on the other occasion.<\/p>\n
Some may view that as a clear path for the Bills, but doing it on the road won’t be easy, especially if Allen’s pass-catchers don’t step up in a big way.<\/p>\n
The Bills’ playoff run will begin Sunday at 1 p.m. ET when they go on the road to face the AFC South champion Jacksonville Jaguars in the AFC Wild Card Round.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If the Buffalo Bills are going to make a deep run in the NFL playoffs, multiple league insiders…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402541,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-402540","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402540","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402540"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402540\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402541"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402540"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402540"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402540"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}