Thad Brown: Allen pushes Bills back where they’ve always been
Amari Cooper is still kinda new to the Josh Allen Experience. But he's learning quickly.
The final touchdown of this Bills win was classic Allen. Fourth down. Two yards to go. Let him go get his team a bucket. Dawson Knox said he knew Allen was scoring as soon as he got past the line of scrimmage. Even though there was a linebacker and a couple of defensive backs in the way. Khalil Shakir said he just started screaming when Allen took off and thought he might have blacked out. Dion Dawkins said the first thing he was doing after talking to the media was to find the play on social media so he could watch it again.
It wasn't just that play by Allen that impressed. It was the 12-yard TD to Curtis Samuel as Allen went head over heels fighting off the latest Chiefs blitz. It was the eight third downs he converted. Six of which from six yards or longer.
Allen's 262 passing yards were the second most all year against Kansas City's highly regarded defense. He led the Bills with 55 yards rushing. He led the first offense to put 30 on KC in 2024.
"Big time players make big time plays in big time games," Cooper said.
As mentioned above... Cooper's understanding is growing rapidly.
Allen will be the MVP favorite on Monday morning. There's still lots of season left and a good chance he'll fall from the top spot and regain it again before all is said and done. This win over the Chiefs has a good chance to be at the top of his MVP resume. Nearly 320 total yards with a TD rushing, a TD passing and 30 points while beating the last undefeated team. All with two top weapons and a starting tackle out injured.
I think this might end up Allen's best season in the NFL. The numbers won't be as gaudy, but hardly any quarterback has ridiculous numbers in the two-high, stop-the-big-play era of NFL football. On top of that, Allen isn't exactly rolling with an All-Pro cast of weapons. Maybe that will change when Cooper is fully healthy.
Allen is still making the offense go. The Bills have 30 points in four of the last five games. More important, they are leading the NFL in turnover differential and are yet to have a game with more giveaways than takeaways. Despite four consecutive weeks of interceptions, Allen deserves a lot of credit for that stat.
He's letting the offense work for him more and forcing less. It's easier to do when the rest of the offense is working so well.
The Bills had zero in the run game against the Chiefs, as expected. No problem. Shakir still had eight catches for 70 yards, including a tough as nails third down catch that set up Allen's late TD run. Samuel converted a third down almost on his own with a nifty juke and run in the first quarter. Cooper only had two catches, but both were release valve type plays handing the Bills an immediate big chunk.
We don't talk about Mack Hollins enough. The stat sheet says he had two catches for 27 yards. Stat sheets also have a limited vocabulary. They can't describe the legal and devastating pick he ran on the Samuel TD catch. They also don't have a column for the defensive holding he helped earn with some exaggerated flailing that got Buffalo's second touchdown drive moving. It was 100 percent a penalty, but Hollins made damn sure someone noticed.
Hollins does so much dirty work for the Bills offense. He's the best blocking receiver. He runs clear outs. And he does it yapping his mouth every second of the game like a kid having the best time ever. He's a gnat that gets under an opponent's skin and the teammate everyone loves to have on their side.
Kansas City came into this game with the league's top third down conversion rate. They also had the most 10-plus play drives. But, it was the Bills who went 9 for 15 on third down. It was the Bills who closed the game with three 10-plus play scoring drives to finish the wins. The Bills not only beat the Chiefs, they beat Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes at their own game.
Another week, another second half where the Bills defense held a team to 7 or less points. That makes it 9 of 11 so far. Greg Rousseau and Von Miller were constant threats. Kansas City's 78 rushing yards were their third lowest total of the season.
The Bills also did a great job on KC's top two receiving options. Deandre Hopkins didn't reach 30 yards. Travis Kelce had just two catches for eight yards. EIGHT! Only 13 of Xavier Worthy's team high 61 yards receiving came after the first play of the second quarter.
This win opens the door for Buffalo to be the 1-seed. Kansas City is still the favorite to end the regular season on top due to a softer schedule, but they would have all but locked Buffalo out of that contest with a win. Not anymore. The Bills are likely to be a constant threat the rest of the season, if they don't actually end up number one.
I could on lavishing the Bills with praise and selling them as a Super Bowl favorite. I could point out that many football experts will consider Buffalo the best team in the AFC after this win. But I don't want to go that far. I've written this column before. Three times, in fact.
This is the fourth consecutive year Buffalo has beaten Kansas City in the regular season and, of course, not once the previous three seasons did the Bills last longer than the Chiefs in the playoffs. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me four times and I'm looking into a restraining order.
I want to see more of the Bills against this level of competition. Buffalo's eight other wins only include one team with more wins than losses and none who hold a candle to the Chiefs resume, both this year and prior. I'm not saying I expect the Bills to lose when the Niners show up in two weeks or when Buffalo makes the trip to Detroit two weeks later. Let's all watch those games and save the conclusions for afterward.
It's actually a laudable accomplishment Buffalo is, once again, Kansas City's regular season kryptonite. This was supposed to be the Bills team that took a step back. Instead, Buffalo is off to their first 9-2 start since 1992.
McDermott has the Bills winning without a big chunk of the core that powered this team to the last four division titles. They are doing it with a rotating group of pass catchers that are wildly more than the sum of their parts. They are doing without, arguably, their best player on defense. A player who could very well be on the field for Buffalo's next game.
A few of the Bills got asked after the game why they thought this year's team was different than previous versions. They didn't really have a convincing answer. The correct answer is probably that we aren't yet sure if these Bills are different. Or at least if the end result will be.
For now, Buffalo is at least back in the place where they've always been even with a new cast of characters. Beating the Chiefs, dominating their division and threatening a return trip to the Super Bowl. That's a very good thing, considering where this season began.
And Allen is proving he can keep the Bills there. As Cooper is now finding out.
