Bills Notebook: Josh Allen Honored, Marquez Stevenson Still Sidelined
Josh Allen is fast approaching AFC Offensive Player of the Week as his default setting. The Buffalo Bills quarterback was was honored with that award Wednesday for the seventh time in his career.
It comes three days after he completed 32-of-43 passes for 358 yards in a 43-21 romp over the Washington Football Team. Four of his passes went for TDs and he ran for another score.
It was the fifth time Allen has thrown for at least four touchdowns and passed for at least 300 yards. The only others in NFL history to accomplish that within their first four seasons are Patrick Mahomes, Dan Marino, Andrew Luck and Kurt Warner.
David Culley had a hand
As far as Allen's development goes, Bills offensive coordinator Brian Daboll and quarterback coach Ken Dorsey are widely considered mostly responsible for his breakout season a year ago.
But David Culley, now the head coach of Buffalo's next opponent, the Houston Texans, contributed too. Allen as a rookie in 2018 had Culley as his position coach, and on Wednesday he talked about how Culley helped him.
"Other than being a great coach, he’s a great man," Allen said. "Being able to just talk through things, slow the game down, he’s been around this league for such a long time. He’s been around some really great players, extremely knowledgeable.
"Glad we got to spend the time that we did. To have someone like Culley, who had such great knowledge and has been around the game for so long and to listen to what he had to say, extremely helpful."
Culley departed for a promotion with the Baltimore Ravens the following season and this year was given a head-coaching position for the first time at age 65.
"Hope that he thrives," Allen said, "except against us."
Stevenson not ready
Coach Sean McDermott said Wednesday that rookie wide receiver Marquez Stevenson will not be coming off the injured reserve list this week.
Stevenson became eligible to play for the first time after Buffalo's Week 3 victory, but McDermott said they'll take his continuing recovery from a foot injury week by week.
Even if Stevenson is fully healed, he could wind up being stashed on the list for the season. That technically is not allowed but is a common practice throughout the league for players teams would like to protect while still being developed.
Squeezing Stevenson onto this loaded roster could be tricky, because the Bills already have six receivers on the active roster and presumably don't want to give up on players like Jake Kumerow or Isaiah McKenzie, who won the kick- and punt-return jobs coming out of camp.
Stevenson, if activated, would be a candidate to take over on kickoff returns, especially after McKenzie's failure to pounce on a short kickoff by Washington last week essentially gave the Football Team a gift touchdown.
Nick Fierro is the publisher of Bills Central. Check out the latest Bills news at www.si.com/nfl/bills and follow Fierro on Twitter at @NickFierro. Email to Nicky300@aol.com.
