ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — It’s beginning to feel like déjà vu in Orchard Park, but maybe with a twist.
If the Buffalo Bills’ road win over the Kansas City Chiefs last weekend was a statement, Sunday’s complete dismantling of the Dallas Cowboys — another bonafide Super Bowl contender — is an outright declaration to the rest of the NFL. The 31-10 victory sends a message — the Bills have figured things out.
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Most importantly, they’ve figured out themselves. They were a question without much of an answer for months on end. And perhaps there was a turning point, but not quite in the way they wanted or expected.
After their Week 12 overtime loss to the Philadelphia Eagles to fall to 6-6, the Bills’ worst record that late in the season since 2018, quarterback Josh Allen sat in his locker well past the point many of his teammates had showered, changed and began walking to the bus. Allen wore the entire loss on his face. His locker, right next to the exit, lent itself to many of his teammates stopping to say something to their quarterback. Left tackle Dion Dawkins stood and chatted with Allen longer than anyone else.
But maybe that night, with the unplugging from football for the next week, was the principal point of clarity for Allen — the moment he needed to bust loose of whatever was holding him back previously.
Being around the building daily, you couldn’t help but notice Allen in a funk for much of October and November. Yards and stats were there — wins sometimes. But something was missing from the franchise quarterback’s entire persona.
His “low positive” comments from late October were a rare window into him, and a change from the person who usually treats these situations in a press conference setting the same way he stiff-arms oncoming defenders. The happy-go-lucky quarterback of old, who radiated the entire energy of the team through his actions, was noticeably muted.
The most glaring example is Week 10 against the Broncos. Allen scampered into the end zone with only 1:55 remaining to put the Bills ahead 22-21. In any other year, Allen would erupt in celebration with his teammates and fans. But instead, in that very moment, Allen stopped himself just shy of the first row of seats, calmly turned just a few feet from the open-armed fans, and jogged back toward the sideline. Something was off.
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That loss ripped them of all their previous lofty expectations. At that point, they were close to counted out. At that point, some had written off their chances completely and thought they were dead in the water. All Super Bowl hopes dashed.
Chief among the reasons was the Allen of old missing in action. If they had any hope of saving their season, something had to change — a rescue mission of their franchise quarterback, perhaps most important of all.
Head coach Sean McDermott fired then-offensive coordinator Ken Dorsey, who had been with Allen in Buffalo for years on end. It was a last-ditch play to retrieve the season’s potential before it wriggled from their grips with the sense the entire operation was a bit off.
It was a jarring move for many. Several offensive players talked about how much they loved Dorsey as a person the day after it happened. They took accountability for his dismissal. And that’s when the shift started to happen.
Slowly but surely, in that Jets game, Allen started to become a little more demonstrative with his emotions. They cruised to a victory. Then a week later against the Eagles, Allen played at an MVP level and looked like he was having a bit more fun again. The result didn’t go their way, but he and the team couldn’t have helped but felt a shift in how things were going.
So while that loss stung, that night and the much-needed bye in Week 13 helped pave the path for the team that blew out the Cowboys on Sunday night. Allen arrived back at practice following the bye, and you could tell his energy was noticeably lighter than before the team fired Dorsey. Allen and the Bills seemed to be having fun again. The rescue mission worked.
Josh Allen: “I felt like the kid that didn’t do anything in the class project but got an A.” 😂 pic.twitter.com/PgOYLMXWGk
— NFL (@NFL) December 18, 2023
It’s a much different team these days and one that seems borderline dangerous as the end of the regular season approaches. They put away two great teams over the last two weeks in different ways. This time against the Cowboys, the Bills were unrelenting in their rushing attack, which led them to victory. The Bills had been a heavy passing attack and leaned on it virtually all season. Boasting the versatility to win in other ways has become eerily similar to some of their recent past.
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And you can’t help but think back to when the Bills were their most dangerous near the end of the season — in 2021. That year, the Bills rattled off four straight wins to end the season , winning each in several different ways. They committed to one running back, Devin Singletary, and watched as their offense turned into a multi-dimensional attack every team they played struggled to contend with.
In the playoffs, they blew through the Patriots in the wild-card round. And as it’s well known, they had their divisional round game in Kansas City won before unraveling in the final seconds of regulation to allow a game-tying field goal.
That team, and how they were performing, was by far the most realistic their Super Bowl chances have ever been since 2017. They got hot at the right time and were an unstoppable force on offense.
The parallels between the 2021 season that got away and the current state of the 2023 Bills continue accumulating. It sounds strange for a team still not even technically in the playoffs with three weeks to go, but everything is beginning to click for the Bills.
The Bills have watched as their franchise quarterback has found the best version of himself again since interim offensive coordinator Joe Brady took over. Allen is playing with a sharpness to his game and continues to have the answers to whatever defenses throw at him. On third downs, he provides those backbreaking moments to opponents by converting plays most quarterbacks wouldn’t dream of. He’s playing with emotion, some fun, and being the energy that the team needs from him. All of that is very 2021.
The Bills’ ground game, led by James Cook, was dominant on Sunday with 266 yards and three touchdowns. (Mark Konezny / USA Today)On top of it, James Cook has emerged as their 2021 Singletary. After a week where the Bills gave him only 45 percent of offensive snaps, the Bills smartly had Cook on the field for 64 percent of their non-garbage time snaps against the Cowboys. And making it even more daunting for opponents than 2021 with Singletary is Cook being the total package the Bills have been searching for at running back since general manager Brandon Beane arrived. He’s explosive, can catch passes and get yards after the catch, run between the tackles and make defenders miss. The Bills offense is a different animal with Cook on the field.
Then there’s the defense, which, as constructed with all of their long-term losses, has no business limiting an explosive Cowboys offense to only three non-garbage time points. That defense helped get them through a tough game in Kansas City and then again by putting the Cowboys away early.
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There are also some key differences between this team and 2021. The four-man pass rush has shown up consistently this season, for one. The offensive line is playing at an extremely high level and is the best group the Bills have assembled since McDermott and Beane arrived. Both have been difference makers for the 2023 version of the Bills.
The Bills already have the template for a late-season playoff push. But this 2023 team has enough differences working in its favor to make Buffalo an even more difficult out for teams this time around.
The first step, of course, is to make the playoffs. They have highly winnable matchups the next two weeks against the Easton Stick-led 5-9 Los Angeles Chargers, who just fired their head coach and general manager, followed by a home game against the 3-11 Patriots. Those two wins, plus one Miami loss against either Dallas or the Baltimore Raven in the next two weeks, and then beating the Dolphins outright in Week 18 means the Bills could win the AFC East.
And even if they don’t get a Dolphins loss over the next two weeks, it still looks promising for the Bills if they win out. The four wild card teams ahead of the Bills, the 9-5 Browns, the 8-6 Bengals, the 8-6 Colts and the 8-6 Texans, may just clear a path for the Bills themselves. The Colts and Texans play each other in Week 18, as do the Browns and Bengals. Plus, the Browns play the Texans next weekend. A Texans win over the Browns in Week 16 means a playoff spot is assured to open up to an 11-6 Bills team, regardless of who wins those Week 18 contests.
No matter how it happens, the Bills are one of the most dangerous teams in the NFL right now. They just took down one of the top AFC contenders on the road, crushed one of the NFC contenders at home and nearly beat another NFC contender on the road over their last three games. The AFC is wide-open this year without a true dominant force, and teams with backup quarterbacks are all over the place.
Super Bowl hopes seemed as far away as they could have been when the Bills lost to the Broncos in Week 10. But even in their current playoff-less standing, it’s now a plausible scenario at the very least. Those optimistic feelings are permeating in and around the building, just the same as they did in 2021.
They saved their season before it was too late.
GO DEEPER
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(Photo: Lauren Leigh Bacho / Getty Images)
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