You carve Josh Allen in the playoffs the way you carve a turkey at Thanksgiving. Cut off the legs.
Don’t let him be John Elway in John Elway’s house. It’s bad enough that Allen comes into Denver with Disney dropping rose petals at his feet and the NFL blowing sweet kisses at his back.
He’s the best player left in the postseason. He’s the last generational quarterback standing in the AFC. He’s the only sexy name still swinging at a party that usually has Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson or Joe Burrow waiting to break his heart.
It’s his turn, they say.
Fine. Make him earn it.
Make him throw.
into Peyton Manning.
Take away the feet.
Score enough points to force the arm.
Allen’s got an 8-6 lifetime record in the NFL playoffs. He’s also 2-5 when he’s had to pass it more than 36 times in a game. Allen’s 0-3 when he’s chucked it 40 or more times.
The talking heads want to make Saturday’s AFC Divisional tussle at Empower Field complicated. It isn’t.
Want to beat the Bills? Don’t let him run. Don’t let them run.
“Yeah, I think, with him, it’s just understanding the type of player he is,” Broncos defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers, who saw plenty of Allen as a member of the New York Jets, told me earlier this week. “That’s a physical football team. That’s a physical player. (He’s) a big guy also — you’re talking about a guy that’s 6-foot-5 and 250 (pounds), so he’s bigger than every linebacker in the NFL and half of the ends in the NFL.
“So you understand that the brand of football they’re going to play. And you have to match it. You have to be willing to match it.”
It was too easy for him last January. Too easy for all of them. The Bills brought baseball bats and two-by-fours to last January’s AFC wild-card tussle. The Broncos brought a happy stare.
James Cook’s first carry went for 16 yards around his right tackle, the Broncos were gashed, Bills Mafia smelled blood, and the tone was set. Buffalo ran it 17 times on first down in a 31-7 rout a year ago before their game-ending kneels. The Bills averaged an unsightly 6.5 yards per carry on those first-down runs. In terms of execution and physicality, it was like watching the JV tackle the varsity.
Allen did the rest. On third-down-and-3-yards-or-fewer, he converted all five of the chances he faced vs. Denver — four of them on QB runs. The Bills’ signal-caller was 2 for 2 on fourth-down-and-2-or-less, with one conversion turning into a 24-yard touchdown.
“He’s a special player, obviously,” Broncos defensive coordinator Vance Joseph noted earlier this week. “(There are) certain guys in this league that can take over games, and (Allen is) one of those guys. But we knew to win the championship here, it was going to go through Patrick (Mahomes) and Lamar (Jackson) and Josh and Joe Burrow. I mean, thatap the AFC side. Unfortunately, thatap where we live. So we knew we (had) to face one of those guys eventually.”
In hindsight, maybe we should be a little thankful. Allen and the Bills reminded the Broncos of what they weren’t. What they lacked. So coach Sean Payton and general manager George Paton went out and added steel to the spine last spring, signing away safety Talanoa Hufanga and linebacker Dre Greenlaw from the 49ers.
Hufanga was a heat-seeking missile who came exactly as advertised. Even though Greenlaw was hurt much of the year, Denver allowed the fourth-fewest average rush yards on first down (3.91 per carry) in the NFL during the regular season. (The Bills’ offense, meanwhile, ranked sixth in yards per rush — 4.84 — on first down.)
The Broncos had the NFL’s No. 3 defense in average rush yards allowed on third-and-3-or-less (2.75 per carry). Denver allowed just one 100-yard rusher all year (Jonathan Taylor, back in Week 2). That hadn’t happened since 2015. The Broncos’ defense had allowed an average of five 100-yard rushers over the previous three regular seasons.
“We were watching that (31-7) game, seeing how (the Bills) played us last year and all that different stuff,” wideout/returner Marvin Mims told me. “But so many different pieces (are gone) that you don’t even think about. It’s like, ‘Dang, he’s not here anymore … we’re not doing this as much anymore.’ So it was kind of weird, looking back at it.
“But at the end of the day, (it was) a learning experience, for sure, for the guys that are still here and for everyone that was a part of it. And just kind of knowing (that) those dudes (in Buffalo) know what they’re doing. They’ve been in this stage multiple times, within all their careers, their core — and so (it’s about) just going out there and just trying to do the best we can and knock them off.”
You can’t let up, either. Since the ’20-21 postseason, Allen has led the Bills on 10 playoff drives in the final 8:30 of the fourth quarter while Buffalo was trailing. His numbers:
• 36 completions on 59 pass attempts (61%)
• 14 rushes, 78 yards, 5.6 yards per carry
• 3.8 points per Allen possession
“And that truly is the tough part,” Franklin-Myers continued, “is that you have to be willing to play (all the way). If it’s 60 minutes, if it’s 100 minutes — you have to be willing to play every second, because that’s what they’re going to do.
“And at the same time, no lead is big enough for them. You can be up 30 points on them. That’s a smart team. One play sparks them and they come back. So, man, you’ve got to be physical.”
You’ve got to take away the lower body. You’ve got to force Allen to play to your strengths — not his. You’ve got to make him test Patrick Surtain II, Riley Moss and Ja’Quan McMillian.
When Allen has had to throw it 41 times or more in the regular season, he’s 10-13. The dude’s 1-3 in postseason games when he commits a turnover. He’s 7-3 when he doesn’t. To win in January, it’s about making the finest miss on the finest of margins.
“I mean, it truly is,” Franklin-Myers stressed. “It’s about who’s going to make the most mistakes. But, I mean, Sean (Payton) says it all the time: ‘It’s the turnovers.’
“You have everybody’s hopes and dreams in your hands when you have the ball in your hands. You only hope that, as a home defense, every chance we get, we punch it out. And on offense, that we protect as much as possible. In the playoffs, these games are close, and teams are either taking care of the ball or making awful mistakes. And that’s how you see some of these games getting out of hand, too.”
Don’t sweat the narrative. You’ve already lost it. Sweat the small stuff. Make Allen throw. If the Winter Soldier is one-dimensional, it won’t be long before everybody in apountry eats.
