The Buffalo Bills have the best quarterback in the NFL. Sure, we can quibble over whether he’s actually second, or if we really want to be crazy, third. But, I will gladly die on the hill that Buffalo’s QB1 is the best pure talent at the position right now.
After one week in the 2025 NFL season, that opinion has really only been reinforced. In a league full of talented players, the Bills are fortunate that they have an absolute stud at the most important position in the game. As fans, we are incredibly
lucky that we can watch him do what he does on the field on a weekly basis. Add in that he’s a tremendous human being off the field, as well, as we’re talking about an all-time great who hasn’t even turned 30 years old yet.
And with that, we come to the end of our “90 players in 90 days” series for the 2025 season. Thanks to me starting much later than I usually do—I’m a high school softball coach, and this series began when we were right in the middle of a playoff hunt last school year—this offseason piece has dragged on into the following regular season. Note to self: start earlier next time!
Thank you to all of you who have read, commented, discussed, debated, and dissected these pieces throughout the the last few months. Let’s end it with a discussion about the most important player on the 2025 Buffalo Bills roster.
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Name: Josh Allen
Number: 17
Position: QB
Height/Weight: 6’5” 237 lbs.
Age: 29 (30 on 5/21/2026)
Experience/Draft: 8; selected by Buffalo in the first round (No. 7 overall) of the 2018 NFL Draft
College: Wyoming
Acquired: First-round draft choice
Financial situation (per Spotrac): Allen is in the first year of a six-year deal worth a total of $330 million. For the 2025 season, his cap hit is $36,338,431, the highest on the team. The Bills aren’t going to release him unless Mike McDaniel hacks their system, but even if they did, Allen’s dead cap number is an absurd $209,804,281.
2024 Recap: What can we write that hasn’t been written already? Allen’s first season since 2019 without Stefon Diggs was initially thought by some to be one where he might see some regression. All Allen did instead was win the league’s MVP award by accounting for over 40 touchdowns for the fifth consecutive year, extending his own NFL record in that category. He completed 64% of his passes for 3,731 yards, which was actually his lowest total since that 2019 season. He threw it just 483 times, again his lowest attempt number since 2019, mostly because the Bills were ahead in so many games that he either stopped throwing or exited the contest early. He set a career-low with only six interceptions. He threw for 28 touchdowns, rushed for 12 more, and added a receiving touchdown on one of the most fun plays of the year. Allen rushed 102 times for 531 yards and 12 scores while fumbling a career-low five times on the year. In the playoffs, he was exceptional yet again, completing 71% of his passes for 636 yards and four touchdowns without an interception. He carried 29 times for 105 yards and two scores, but he did lead the NFL in postseason fumbles with three. It was a banner year for No. 17.
Positional outlook: Allen is the top dog in the QB room. Mitchell Trubisky is the backup, and Shane Buechele is on the practice squad.
2025 Offseason: Oh, nothing much happened. Allen just married Hailee Steinfeld, herself an Oscar-nominated actress and singer. Other than that major life milestone, though, it was a quiet offseason.
2025 Season outlook: Allen started the year with a bang, throwing for 394 yards and two scores while rushing for 30 yards and two more scores in a 41-40 comeback win over the Baltimore Ravens in Week One. He looked to be in total command of the offense, especially in the second half when offensive coordinator Joe Brady opened things up with the Bills trailing by two scores. The Bills hope that they don’t need to score 40 points or more each week to win, but it’s nice to know that they have the offensive firepower to do so when they need to, and given that they were able to do it against a defense as highly regarded as Baltimore’s that bodes well for the future.
Allen has improved his accuracy, his ball placement, his ball security, and his decision-making in every year of his career. No longer is he merely a gunslinger running out there like Yosemite Sam, firing at will regardless of what he sees. Allen is processing defenses, finding solutions, and thinking like the greats. There are times where a defense can still manipulate him into adverse checks (early in the game, for example, Allen checked into “rip,” which is a screen to the outside receiver, when he saw a Cover-0 look. We saw that same play fail on a third down against the Kansas City Chiefs in January when Amari Cooper couldn’t gain a first down, and it happened again when Dalton Kincaid stumbled and fumbled out of bounds in Week One). Sometimes, those checks will work, but if I can identify the audible from my couch based on some great work our old friend Dan Lavoie did many years ago, what do we expect defenses who have studied the Bills extensively to do?
As the season progresses, I’d love to see a little more of that free-wheeling, spread it out and sling it offense that we saw at the end of the Baltimore game. Perhaps coming out of the gate with that mindset could help keep the Bills out of a situation where they need that kind of offense to pull out a win at the end. With a defense built best to play with a lead, using the reigning MVP to do just that feels like smart strategy. If it sounds like a familiar strategy, perhaps one that Ted Marchibroda and Jim Kelly used exquisitely in the early 1990s, you’d be correct. This is a team that has that kind of potential, but they’ll need to keep doing their thing in order to reach it.
All I know is this: If 17 is upright and in uniform, the Buffalo Bills have a chance to win.
