There’s no doubt that this season, Josh Allen had no choice but to reach the Super Bowl; the Bills were the favorites in the AFC alongside the Baltimore Ravens. Anything less than the NFL’s biggest game would have been a failure for the Buffalo Bills quarterback. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened: they fell to the Denver Broncos and were left just short of the AFC Championship.
Josh Allen is the player with the most playoff wins in NFL history without ever reaching the Super Bowl. The Bills quarterback has 8 victories in the playoffs, yet he has not been able to take the next step. This loss stings even more because key players like Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson, and Joe Burrow weren’t in these playoffs.
Going forward, the pressure will only increase, and the goal will become harder, as competition in the AFC grows. For example, Bo Nix has already proven to be elite with the Denver Broncos despite an injury, and to make things even tougher, Drake Maye, in just his second year, is already one step away from the Super Bowl after defeating the Houston Texans.
Dawson Knox knows the pressure Josh Allen faces
The Buffalo Bills reached 4 consecutive Super Bowls and didn’t win any; the last one was in 1994. After that era, the team went through rough years until Josh Allen arrived in 2018 and put them back on the competitive map. Allen’s talent has generated high hopes for the franchise to return to the Super Bowl, but it simply hasn’t happened yet.
With the painful loss to the Denver Broncos, tears were seen in Josh Allen after another year without reaching the goal, and Dawson Knox, the Bills’ tight end, had moving words for his quarterback: “He carries the weight of this whole franchise, of this whole city on his shoulders, and that’s the type of pressure I can’t even fathom,” Knox said.
The reality is that Josh Allen had some good moments against the Broncos, but five turnovers – four of them by the quarterback – were fatal in the loss. Incidentally, Allen has never won a game in overtime in his career; he has an 0-7 record, three of those losses coming in the playoffs.
Next year, the Bills with Josh Allen will likely start as contenders, but it will get increasingly difficult, especially in the AFC East, where they even gave up the division title to the Patriots this season after winning it five consecutive years. Yes, the NFL is a very cruel league.
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