Buffalo Bills: Top takeaways midway through the 2020 season

Josh Allen’s third-year progression

The step that Josh Allen has taken this season to the prior one has been leaps and bounds and he is almost unrecognizable under center this season. Improving his completion percentage, making better decisions with the ball, not running after his first read, and throwing fewer interceptions is what we have seen out of Allen this year.

This transition has been almost a complete 180 from what we saw from him last season, particularly in the AFC Wild Card game against the Houston Texans. Thus far in the season, Allen has completely changed as a quarterback and the Bills are better off because of it.

Due to the level of his play, the offense has been thriving. Though there is reason to believe that Allen had this level of play in him all along, he just did not have the tools to get it done.

When entering the NFL, Allen had the very bare-bones offense, to say the least. Throwing to players like Zay Jones, Kelvin Benjamin, and company, he was not put into the position to succeed. The opposite has been true the past two seasons as Sean McDermott and Brandon Beane have done a tremendous job of building around Allen. Bringing in players such as Stefon Diggs, Cole Beasley, John Brown, and their running backs, for the first time in his young career, Allen has weapons.

What he has been able to do with those weapons has been remarkable. Sitting second in NFL passing yards, only behind Seattle’s Russell Wilson, Allen has not been afraid to air the ball out. In doing so, he has catapulted the Bills to one of the most potent offenses in the NFL.