Buffalo Bills: Josh Allen extension is GM Brandon Beane’s best move yet
Brandon Beane has made a lot of great moves since taking over as general manager of the Buffalo Bills in 2017, but getting an extension done with Josh Allen before the start of the 2021 season is his best yet.
At first glance, the Allen contract may look like a massive investment, and that’s because right now it is. The Bills’ gunslinger inked a six-year, $258-million deal that carries an annual average value (AAV) of $43-million. The contract makes him the second-highest paid quarterback in the league, only slotting behind Kansas City Chiefs superstar Patrick Mahomes who makes $45-million annually.
It may be hard to understand how signing Allen to a deal that pays him nearly as much as Mahomes is a bargain, but that statement in of itself proves why.
When Mahomes signed his monstrous 10-year, $450-million pact with Kansas City in 2020, it gave him the highest AAV of any QB by exactly $10 million, surpassing Russell Wilson’s AAV of $35 million. While that looked like a massive pay-up by the Chiefs at the time, it’s taken just one year to realize it wasn’t.
Since he inked his deal, three other quarterbacks have closed the vast AAV gap. Deshaun Watson signed a four-year deal with an AAV of $39 million, Dak Prescott agreed to a four-year pact with an AAV of $40 million, and now Allen has made the difference even smaller.
Suddenly, Chiefs fans are realizing that the Mahomes deal wasn’t an overpay by any stretch, but a contract that’ll surely turn out to be a bargain when it concludes at the end of the 2031 season.
And that’s where Buffalo Bills fans should be on Allen’s new extension.
As mentioned above, it’s only taken one year for other contracts to catch up to the Mahomes deal. In the case of Allen, Beane and Co. reached an agreement with two years still remaining on his rookie contract as the team picked up his fifth-year option for 2022. This means that even before his $43-million cap hit comes into effect at the start of the 2023 campaign, there are going to be two more years of QB signings that’ll likely near and even exceed what Allen agreed to.
Look no further than his own draft class, for example. Neither Baker Mayfield nor Lamar Jackson is under team control beyond the 2022 season, meaning both the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens, respectively, need to extend their QBs sometime before then. Allen’s new extension has set a basis for negotiations when it comes to passers from the 2018 draft class, which now makes it more likely that Allen’s deal actually ends up carrying the lowest AAV of the three.
And these are only players that need extensions before Allen’s begins. His new deal doesn’t expire until the end of the 2028 season. By then, there are going to be numerous quarterbacks earning a substantial amount more than Allen. If the Bills’ star quarterback continues to churn out seasons like the one he produced in 2020, this agreement will age wonderfully.
Next. Current, former teammates react to Josh Allen's extension. dark
In simple terms, the sooner you agree to an extension with your franchise quarterback, the better. And for Buffalo’s front office to complete an extension with two years still remaining on Allen’s rookie deal makes this an absolute masterpiece.