Are the Bills Built to Win a Championship?
The Bills snapped a 25-year drought last year when they won their first AFC East title since 1995. They won 13 games, earned the #2 seed in the AFC, and made it to the AFC Championship game before ultimately falling short against the Chiefs.
From an outside view, most would have viewed 2020 as a major success for a franchise that hadn’t won a playoff game in over two decades. On the inside though, it wasn’t enough:
“You can always talk about the season that we had, winning the division, making it to the AFC championship game… I think that was good for a lot of people, but everybody in this locker room wanted more. Unfortunately, we got beat tonight. No other way to put it.” — Bills’ Safety Micah Hyde following the loss to KC
The Bills were undoubtedly one of the best teams in football last year, but coming into 2021 they wanted more. They wanted to establish themselves as the unquestioned best team by bringing the Lombardi Trophy to Buffalo for the first time in franchise history.
Fast forward to today, and with two weeks left in the regular season Buffalo has an 89% chance of repeating as AFC East champs. There’s no clear-cut Super Bowl favorite, and it looks as though the Bills have as good a shot as anyone at winning it all.
It may feel as though this team’s ascension to becoming a championship contender happened overnight, but the road they took to get here was anything but a shortcut.
If there were a masterclass in NFL team-building, Bills’ GM Brandon Beane would be one of the best teachers available.
The Bills hired Beane back in May of 2017. Because his hiring came after the draft and the opening of free agency, his first offseason in charge didn’t come until the following year where he wasted no time putting his stamp on the team.
The number one thing people look at when evaluating an NFL General Manager is how successful they are when drafting and developing the quarterback position. Beane knew how difficult it is to win in the NFL without a star quarterback, so he opted to swing for the fences and acquire the quarterback with the most upside in the 2018 draft class.
After a 9–7 season, the Bills had two first round selections and were slotted to select 21st and 22nd overall — well out of range to select one of the draft’s top quarterbacks. A month before the draft, Buffalo sent Cincinnati pick #21 and offensive tackle Cordy Glenn in exchange for the #12 overall. Then a month later with the draft right around the corner, Buffalo moved up once again by sending #12 and two second rounders to Tampa Bay for the #7 pick that they ultimately used to select Josh Allen.
The price paid to acquire Allen was undoubtedly high, but Beane clearly saw something special in the young kid from Wyoming and planted his flag.
When Allen first joined the team, the Bills were a group whose philosophical make-up seemed stuck in an older era of football. They were dedicated to the old school mantra of “run the ball and stop the run” which was a stark contrast to the pass-happy nature the rest of the league was gravitating towards.
Despite paying that hefty price to draft their franchise quarterback, the Bills didn’t rush Allen into becoming the focal point of the team. Instead, they showed patience, gave him time to develop, and forced him to earn his stripes along the way. The run-centric approach stuck around during Allen’s first two seasons when the young quarterback was arguably the league’s most sporadic player. To avoid the volatility that surfaced anytime Allen dropped back to pass, the Bills threw the ball at the 3rd and 7th lowest rates in the league during those two years.
Entering year three however, the Bills were ready to take the training wheels off.
During the 2020 offseason, Beane paid another steep price to acquire a player he viewed as a superstar. He knew that in order for Allen to continue progressing, he’d need some help in the passing game. So Beane sent a first round pick to Minnesota in exchange for Stefon Diggs whose arrival shook up the entire dynamic of the team
While Diggs is a phenomenal player, his acquisition was more than just a mere roster upgrade. It was a message to the other 31 teams in the NFL— a message stating the Bills’ were ready to fully unlock Josh Allen.
In 2020, Allen and Diggs instantly became one of the league’s premier QB-WR duos and the Bills became a high-octane passing offense that took the league by storm.
Over the past two seasons, Buffalo has evolved into a hyper-modern offense that wants to throw first and throw often. They’ve done this with incredible success as they scored the second most points in the league last year, and currently rank third this year in that same category.
It took time to get to where they are today, but the slow and steady approach Buffalo took with Allen put him in a position to be successful at a pace that worked for him and the team. He wasn’t asked to do too much during his first two seasons, and when the Bills were ready to put the team on his shoulders in year three, he was given an elite pass-catching option to ease some of the burden.
These last two seasons from the Bills are the product of a multi-year plan that emphasized patience and well-thought-out team building. They invested heavily in their quarterback, not only by paying a steep price to acquire him, but also by investing draft picks and cap space to bolster his supporting cast. They showed the patience necessary to let him fully blossom before putting the entire team on his shoulders, and the result has been an MVP-caliber player who’s quarterbacking one of the league’s best teams.
The vision Beane had in place when implementing this plan is clearly paying off, but the question now becomes, will it be enough to win a championship?
There’s no such thing as a perfect team in the NFL. With a salary cap in place, each and every team is forced into making choices when it comes to building out their rosters.
For the Bills, investing heavily in Allen and the passing game meant there were limited resources left to address other areas of their roster. The days of “run the ball and stop the run” are no longer at the forefront of their philosophy, and they’re largely ok with that because… well… they have to be.
Given how good Allen and the passing attack are, the Bills can typically win despite their lack of attention to the ground game. They’ve gotten little production out of the running back position these last few years, and their offense operates almost exclusively out of three-receiver sets. They don’t waste time pretending to be something they’re not, but instead they hone in on what they do best and execute at an extremely high level.
Because their offense can put up points against anyone, they’re oftentimes able to dictate the pace of play and force their opponents into playing Buffalo Bills style football. We’ve all heard the saying “the best defense is a good offense” and there’s nowhere in the NFL where that statement rings truer than in Upstate New York.
The Bills are constantly throwing the football and keeping their foot on the gas pedal regardless of who’s lined up across from them defensively. This forces their opponents into passing the ball at a higher rate as well, so Buffalo built their defense accordingly.
The Bills are one of the NFL’s best defenses, and it’s largely because of how great they are at shutting down their opponents through the air. They’ve allowed the fewest passing yards all season, and their strength on defense perfectly complements the offense that acts as the focal point of this team.
This whole team was built around their quarterback, and they’ve found a formula that blends everything together perfectly. The problem with this approach is, when one thing goes wrong, everything can collapse like a house of cards.
The teams that have given the Bills fits this year have been those featuring ground and pound offenses that go against the league’s passing trend. We saw Derrick Henry score 3 touchdowns back in week 6 en route to a Titans’ victory, Jonathan Taylor led the Colts to victory in week 11 when he found the end zone 5 (!) times, and when the Patriots came to town in week 13, mother nature even got involved when a violent wind storm prevented either team from passing the ball effectively.
The Bills’ defense is great overall, but they’re vulnerable against the run because of how heavily invested they are in the passing game. When opposing teams can attack this chink in the armor, a herculean effort from Josh Allen and the passing offense is required for victory to even be possible.
That’s the gamble Beane and the Bills’ organization took when they opted to build their team in this manner. This philosophy had them knocking on the door of a Super Bowl last year, and the hope is it can take them even further this year.
This Bills’ team certainly has its faults, but they handed Josh Allen a $258 million extension this summer because they believe he can nullify those faults. For Allen to be worth all that money, he’ll need to prove there’s no style of opponent that he can’t overcome.
Against teams like the Titans, Colts, and Patriots, he’ll need to keep his foot on the gas pedal, dictate the pace of the game, and force them into playing Buffalo Bills football.
In a potential rematch with the Chiefs, he’ll need to go toe-to-toe with Patrick Mahomes when the stakes are highest and outscore one of the league’s best quarterbacks.
There may not be a team in the NFL whose success is more tied to their quarterback than the Buffalo Bills. They invested time, draft capital, money, and just about everything else into their franchise quarterback. With the playoffs just a few short weeks away, it’s time to see if that investment can start paying dividends.
