The Buffalo Payments are essentially the most fascinating story of the NFL offseason. Ever since Josh Allen ascended to the tier degree of NFL quarterbacks in 2020, the staff has headed into the season with Tremendous Bowl expectations … after which fallen bitterly quick.
Home windows within the NFL are by no means so long as groups hope. Accidents mount up. The cap bites. A botched free agent signing or a training snafu might be the distinction between successful all of it and exiting the playoffs early. Since 2021, the Payments have skilled all of it, from the painful to the weird:
This offseason has introduced a mini-reboot. Gone are stalwarts of the staff’s latest success. Tre’Davious White, Jordan Poyer, Gabe Davis, Mitch Morse, Tyrel Dodson and Leonard Floyd had been all allowed to stroll in free company. On Monday, they traded away Stefon Diggs to the Texans for a future second-round choose. And the commerce is an oddity: a win-win. The Payments had been in a position to unload an ageing participant on an costly contract and recoup a excessive choose. The Texans add a proficient veteran to a younger core.
By unloading veterans and selecting to not exchange them in free company, the Payments are betting on the concept Allen is the one participant who actually issues to maintain their title hopes on monitor. “It’s a must to have a franchise quarterback to be a constant contender … I don’t assume our window is closing,” GM Brandon Beane instructed ESPN final week. “There’s adjustments, wage adjustments, draft adjustments. All of the issues as you evolve your roster. All of it nonetheless builds across the quarterback.”
Via that prism, transferring Diggs is sensible. Diggs regressed final season. There had been tensions simmering between the receiver, group and Allen courting again to final yr’s coaching camp. His efficiency dipped drastically over the second half of final season, partially as a result of Payments switching out coordinators. Within the playoffs, he’s grow to be a non-factor. Diggs has not caught a landing cross in his final seven playoff video games and has didn’t high 60 yards in his six postseason appearances, averaging simply six yards a goal.
In Houston, Diggs will lineup on an offense with three top-30 receivers and CJ Stroud, one of many league’s rising stars, at quarterback. With their offseason strikes, the Texans have vaulted into the Bengals and Ravens class of contenders.
Issues are murkier in Buffalo. The Payments have signed or acquired simply three new starters up to now this offseason and just one on offense. The Ravens have added six new projected starters. The Bengals have added 5. The Dolphins, seven. The Texans, eight.
Buffalo sacrificed future flexibility to go all-in in 2022 after the ‘13 seconds’ debacle in Kansas Metropolis. When that failed, they delayed an inevitable teardown to take another run at a title. And it ended the identical means issues at all times do for the Payments as of late, with a disappointing outing within the playoffs. Now, they’re resetting, letting expensive veterans go, and hoping an injection of youth by the draft might be the difference-maker within the postseason.
It’s straightforward to rationalize Buffalo’s choices. They’re constructing a brand new staff, amassing younger expertise round a once-in-a-lifetime quarterback who remains to be simply 27. However by playing on youth and sitting out the veteran market, the Payments are at risk of letting this season slip by. Hoping you’ll be able to retool the roster for one more five-year surge would require believing that Allen can remaster his recreation or keep wholesome. And people are the nagging query on the coronary heart of the Payments group: who do they need Allen to be? And for a way lengthy can he do it?
Early Allen groups prioritized the run recreation and protection parts that McDermott, a defensive-minded coach, believed could be the distinction within the postseason. Now that strategy has fallen quick, they’re pivoting, stripping again their commitments on protection to attempt to put extra expertise round Allen. However the cap sins of the previous have left them with a mediocre receiver group.
“Are we higher at the moment?,” Beane mentioned after buying and selling Diggs. “Most likely not. It’s a piece in progress, and we’re going to proceed to work on that.”
Allen is an offense unto himself. If he had been throwing to a parade of giraffes, the Payments’ offense would nonetheless have a excessive flooring. However the Payments aren’t making an attempt to eke out outcomes; they’re engaged on a Tremendous Bowl or Bust timeline. No group is underneath extra stress to recover from the road. The Payments can’t afford to float into the NFL’s center class. Delaying the reboot by one yr was an error – and has ramped up the stress to nail this offseason. If it doesn’t work out, the Payments could have chucked away two prime Allen years.
The kindest comparability to Allen and the Payments is Peyton Manning with the Colts. Indy spent the higher a part of a decade slamming their heads towards the wall of New England. What Belichick and Brady had been to Manning and the Colts, Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid and the Chiefs are to Allen and the Payments. They’ve been bounced by the Chiefs twice previously three postseasons, with a drubbing from the Bengals within the center.
Finally, Manning was in a position to break by due to the Colts nailing all the massive choices. The Payments, in contrast, have whiffed on their massive targets. They constructed a staff within the model of their head coach, prioritizing a defensive position that changed into a sieve within the playoffs. Of their final 9 first- or second-round picks, 4 have been defensive linemen. In the identical span, they’ve chosen zero receivers within the first two rounds. Miller, whom the staff handed a six-year, $120m contract to on the age of 33, tore his ACL in his debut season. He performed solely 258 downs final season and totted up zero sacks and three tackles. He turned 35 in March and is on the books for $15m subsequent season.
Most significantly, although, Manning performed a method that aged effectively. He was a technician. He was constant. The Colts had been in a position to construct a bombs-away offense round a supercomputer who allowed them to compete yr after yr. However whereas Manning was the final word card counter, Allen performs quarterback like a labrador who has escaped from the home.
In distinction, Allen weaponizes chaos in contrast to any of the league’s high quarterbacks. Mahomes is a distinct model of himself at the moment than the participant who first entered the league. Even Lamar Jackson has grow to be a participant who submits to the broader offense for big stretches earlier than exploding with moments of particular person brilliance. For Allen, it’s the inverse: the offense is a tough framework by which he can embrace his whims. He runs by linebackers. He jumps over safeties. He’ll stiff arm a defensive finish whereas hurling a deep shot 30 yards down the sector.
It’s in these how-does-he-do-that moments that Allen’s genius is revealed. When slipped into the normal quarterback straitjacket, Allen’s flaws – his questionable decision-making and the pointless gambles – are uncovered. Ask him to drive down the sector methodically, and he slips into Brett Favre territory.
No quarterback performs the place as violently as Allen. It’s what makes him Josh Allen. However how lengthy can his physique maintain up underneath that model? The Payments acknowledge it received’t final eternally. They need Allen to take off the cape, to play a extra conventional model of from-the-pocket soccer, to summon his interior Manning to assist the staff climb over the Chiefs.
“I don’t assume that’s a wholesome method to play quarterback on this league and it’s undefeated that issues are going to occur once you play that model, model of soccer,” head coach Sean McDermott instructed NFL Community earlier this offseason. Beane agrees. “If it’s the primary quarter of Week 2, we don’t want you making an attempt to run over a linebacker or a security,” the GM mentioned on NFL Radio.
The Payments are asking Allen to vary his recreation. To cut back the violence. To attenuate the dangers. In different phrases, to be another person.
Asking Allen to change his strategy is one factor. Offering him the help to take action is one thing else. If Allen goes to play in a extra restricted style, he wants playmakers who can do the heavy lifting. Including receiver Curtis Samuel in free company was a begin, however it’s removed from sufficient. Hopes of the Payments leaping up the draft to seize certainly one of this yr’s high receiver prospects are uncertain: the Payments wouldn’t have the cap room to pay a top-10 rookie, and nearly each rookie, irrespective of how proficient, takes time to mattress in.
Manning with the Colts is the best-case state of affairs for this Payments staff. However you don’t must squint laborious to have a look at Allen with the Payments and see Cam Newton with the Panthers. McDermott lived by the Newton period in Carolina when he was the staff’s defensive coordinator. He is aware of what it seems like when an amazing quarterback begins to interrupt down and is requested to depend on part of their recreation that has not been absolutely developed. Carolina reached one Tremendous Bowl with Newton when the roster round him was ok. As soon as his athleticism began to wane, and the accidents began to take their toll, the remainder of the squad was now not proficient sufficient to compete.
The Payments are working this offseason as if their window to win championships is open for so long as Allen is their quarterback. However, primarily based on all proof, Allen is nearer to Newton on the quarterback continuum than Manning or Joe Burrow. Until you’ve Mahomes or Tom Brady, alternatives to win Tremendous Bowls are fleeting. Drew Brees received Tremendous Bowl and Dan Marino, Phillip Rivers and Jim Kelly didn’t win any, regardless of contending for big chunks of their careers.
The AFC stays a gauntlet and is enhancing. Any staff seeking to get to the Tremendous Bowl although the AFC has to run by a postseason the place they may most likely face two of Mahomes, Burrow, Jackson or Stroud. The Browns, Dolphins and Chargers are nonetheless lingering on the fringes. Aaron Rodgers will return to the Jets in 2024. By the point December rolls round, Trevor Lawrence or Anthony Richardson might have taken a step ahead.
Assume regular luck, and the Payments ought to nonetheless high of the AFC East once more, significantly after the Dolphins misplaced good gamers in free company. However they should discover a pair of playmakers who may also help push them previous the Chiefs in January. Relying on rookies to be the difference-makers is a non-starter. With Diggs gone, the Payments should chase confirmed additions.
The window isn’t closed for Buffalo, however it’s shrinking.
