“Allen took full blame for wasting a seeming obvious victory”
By Chuck Pollock, Senior Sports Columnist
A week ago, the Bills tip-toed past the graveyard and won a game against the Chargers at Orchard Park in which they made enough mistakes to lose it four times over.
But fate caught up with them Sunday afternoon at Highmark Stadium when Buffalo handed the Patriots a 29-26 victory that changed an AFC East runaway into a genuine race.
And what’s bothersome is that one of Buffalo’s chief culprits was their touted quarterback.
It could be argued that Josh Allen is the most popular Bills player in the 67-year history of the franchise, with apologies to O.J. Simpson and the five Hall-of-Famers from the Super Bowl era.
Josh is an extraordinary athlete with one of the best arms in the league, especially on the deep ball, as a runner, he’s fast, strong and fearless, his leadership skills are obvious, his fund-raising success is unchallenged and that’s all packaged in a charismatic personality.
But he’s not flawless.
Over his nine seasons with Buffalo, Allen has been plagued by bouts of poor decision-making.
And that was on display Sunday afternoon against the Patriots.
The Bills trailed 29-26 with 1:14 left and all three timeouts remaining. It seemed the only question was whether Allen would lead them to the tying field goal or the winning touchdown.
With 2nd-and-6 from the Buffalo 40, he uncorked a bomb to wide receiver Joshua Palmer, who just happened to be double-covered. Allen’s ill-considered throw was easily picked off by Pats’ safety Craig Woodson, which enabled his team to run out the clock and send the sellout crowd of 60,606 home in a foul mood.
AFTERWARD, as always, Allen took full blame for wasting a seeming obvious victory.
“I threw it up,” he said, “and I should have thrown that out-of-bounds and lived for another day … that’s what I should have done.”
But first-year head-coach Joe Brady assumed part of the blame.
“We obviously had plenty of time (to tie or win the game),” he said. “I’ve got to have a better play-call in that situation. We’ve got to protect and put (Allen) in a better position to have success. They got a free runner (defender) and that makes it a little tough (on Allen).”
Brady added, “Trusting that if it’s not there, he’ll throw it away … in those moments I’ve got to be better. Everybody on the field has to be better in that situation.
“There wasn’t a second during that drive that I didn’t think that we were going to go down and much less than kick a field goal but to score a touchdown. We obviously didn’t get it done.”
INDEED, it didn’t appear that Palmer knew the ball was coming to him, which seems to speak to a lack of communication.
“We didn’t get into a rhythm today,” Brady maintained. “We had a couple of drives … the three-and-outs. That can’t happen, especially on the first drive of the game. We obviously weren’t executing and we have to look to see why.”
As Allen mused, “It stinks, I feel like we hurt ourselves. These (losses) sting … it was a two-game swing (in the division).”
(Chuck Pollock, a Wellsville Sun and Olean Star senior sports columnist, can be reached at cpollock@wnynet.net.)
