On Wednesday, New Orleans Saints star pass rusher Cameron Jordan drew the ire of Buffalo Bills fans with his outlandish take on Josh Allen, suggesting that Allen isn’t a capable quarterback when the postseason lights come on.
“Josh Allen, if I thought anything, I thought this year was the year. I said, ‘Oh, all these guys are out. It’s his time.’ And he proved what I thought about him: He plays excellent during season, he shows up, he is Superman, and at the same time, he can’t win those big games, right now,” the 15-year veteran said on ESPN’s First Take.
Thankfully, not every analyst with an ESPN-branded microphone agrees with Jordan, as the likes of former NFL center Jeff Saturday, former NFL wide receiver Harry Douglas and former NFL offensive lineman Damien Woody all came to Allen’s defense Thursday morning on ESPN’s Get Up.
ESPN Panel highlights why Cam Jordan's Josh Allen postseason narrative is flawed
“Like what Cam Jordan said, ‘can’t win the big game’ is not facts,” Saturday said. “You talk about even the 13-second game against the Kansas City Chiefs, how many times has he walked off the field with a lead? It’s a three-phase game, and unfortunately, the defense hasn’t held up their end of the bargain.”
Saturday expanded on his point, echoing Bills Mafia’s thoughts since media pundits around the NFL landscape began putting extra pressure on Buffalo’s postseason run simply because Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson and Joe Burrow didn’t make the playoffs.
“When everyone kept saying this was his year, my problem with that was, his team wasn’t as good as they’ve been in the past," Saturday said. "I thought that was way overblown when you talk about ‘Oh, it’s now because Lamar’s not in or Mahomes isn’t in. That doesn’t have anything to do with– you don’t play those guys, by the way. Quarterbacks don’t play each other; they play the defenses, and unfortunately, Denver got the best of him this year,”
Harry Douglas backed up Saturday’s defense of Allen, pointing to the successes Allen did have against Denver despite the ugly turnovers that turned the game away from Buffalo’s favor.
“Even though Josh Allen wasn’t his best, that offense still put up 30 points. They put up 30 points versus a vaunted defense in the Denver Broncos, and their defense didn’t get stops when they needed to get stops," Douglas said. "We can also make the argument there are two passes that Josh Allen actually made in overtime, if the receivers just catch the football, the game is probably over, and the Buffalo Bills are advancing.”
Of course, Bills Mafia would probably argue that had the officials just taken another look at the Brandin Cooks play in overtime, then the Bills wouldn't be dealing with this situation in the first place.
Nonetheless, added one final line that even many in Buffalo would agree with:
“You take Josh Allen off that team, I don’t believe they even make the playoffs.”
Finally, Damien Woody pointed back toward the fact that Jordan framed his entire take around Allen’s postseason failures based on the results of his worst postseason performance, an outlier among his 14 other starts in the playoffs.
“I said the Divisional game was the first time you could pin it on Josh Allen. Other than that, Josh Allen has been absolutely brilliant in the postseason. When your head coach, his specialty is on the defensive side, and consistently that side of the ball keeps letting you down, you see what happened to Buffalo,” Woody said.
There’s no denying that Allen is creeping toward Dan Marino/Philip Rivers territory with his postseason narrative. But the John Elway comparisons still have time to materialize in his Super Bowl narrative, too. Yes, Allen turned the ball over four times against the Broncos, even if the final one was a controversial ruling, as Douglas alluded to. And yes, as the quarterback, it’s Allen’s weight to bear when the entire team falls short.
But it’s silly to paint Allen as a failure in the postseason as Jordan did by leaning on his turnovers against Denver as if it backed up a preconceived notion in the public that Allen is holding the team back when, in 14 prior postseason games, it was his team that wasn’t ready for the moment.
The Buffalo Bills had a real shot at winning this year’s Super Bowl, and that’s because of Josh Allen, not despite him. And their chances at winning a Super Bowl next year, and the years beyond that, are framed exactly the same way. And that certainly doesn’t mean that their chances are any worse than the past few seasons.