Sean McDermott ‘Can’t Imagine’ Anybody Playing Better Than Josh Allen

Never one for declarative statements, the Bills’ coach makes it known who should be the NFL’s Most Valuable Player.

Allen led the Bills to a dramatic second-half comeback win over the Patriots. / Kathryn Riley / Getty Images

After a wild 24 hours and a hectic three hours on the Gillette Stadium turf, Bills coach Sean McDermott had a minute to gather himself and think about what he wanted to say.

Never one for declarative, cage-rattling statements, the question—whether he’d make the case for Josh Allen as the league’s Most Valuable Player through 15 weeks—was one that he might typically try to sidestep or avoid. But he saw the same thing you did on Sunday, too, so he was going to have his most important and most valuable player’s back.

“I don’t do a very good job of knowing what’s going on around the league, but I can’t, in my mind, imagine anybody else has done more for their team on a more consistent basis than Josh Allen,” McDermott told me, as he was leaving snowy Gillette Stadium late Sunday afternoon. “I mean, who out there is playing better?”

I then mentioned the MVP leaders entering Week 15, Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford.

“That’ll work itself out in the end,” he replied. “And everyone’s going to vote how they want to vote. But there is absolutely no question in my mind who the MVP of this league is.”

And on this day, Allen meant everything to a team that needed every bit of him.

Not a great statistical performance

The cool part was that Allen’s performance had very little to do with statistics. Indeed, Allen threw for a relatively pedestrian 193 yards and three scores on 19-of-28 passing, and rushed for another 48 yards on 11 carries. That added to his fourth-lowest passing total of the year, and fourth-highest rushing total.

But as the great Aqib Talib once said, “People that dry hump stats to make a point probably prefer reading sheet music to hearing the song.”

In this case, the song Allen played was beautiful.

It was heard in the 20-yard run he ripped off on a critical third-and-3 with his team down 24–7 after the half. It played again with the risk he took, and a dime he dropped to Khalil Shakir for a 37-yard gain that also drew pass interference, on fourth-and-3 early in the fourth quarter. More notes came with a bullet he delivered to Dawson Knox on a third-and-goal from the 14 after a holding call wiped out his own four-yard touchdown run, and the seven-play, 65-yard drive he pulled together after the Bills fell behind again, 31–28, late.

But more than anything else, Allen gave the Bills belief when they were down 21–0 midway through the second quarter, 24–7 at the half, and even after a very game Patriots team swung back at them with TreVeyon Henderson’s 65-yard touchdown run, which seemed to stem the tide of 21 consecutive Buffalo points.

So how does that belief show up? First and foremost, the Bills are never out of a game, no matter how poorly things start. Buffalo’s now won four of five, erasing second-half deficits in each. It closed out the Bucs on a 23–6 run, the Steelers on a 23–0 run, the Bengals on a 21–6 run, and the Patriots on a 35–7 run.

“You kind of develop this kind of resilient nature over the course of a season, through a lot of the adversity that you face,” McDermott said. “If you’re able to stick with it, you learn something about yourself. You develop a bit more toughness naturally, both physically and mentally. The team develops a little bit of this composure, quality or trait that they don’t panic.

“You’ve got to think about some of these young guys that are out there, that this is their first time playing NFL football this year, and they’re just kind of looking at the older guys after falling behind, Does this just keep going?”

Of course, it does. And in this case, it even gave the defense time to get its act together.

In the first half, the Patriots rushed for 177 yards. In the second half, they went for just 69, and 65 of them were on Henderson’s run. In the first half, Maye was 9-of-11 for 108 yards. In the second half, he was 5-of-12 for 47 yards.

Patriots OC Josh McDaniels had the Bills on the run early. But Buffalo didn’t panic, as McDermott said, made adjustments, and held the Patriots without a first down on offense in the fourth quarter (outside of the long touchdown, of course), with a three-and-out and turnover on downs standing as New England’s final two possessions.

“[Coordinator] Bobby [Babich] did a great job, and the defensive staff, I’m around trying to manage the game, and also to assist them here and there, but it’s really those guys,” McDermott said. “We quieted down the run, and we were able to get after the quarterback a little bit more than maybe we did the first half, and got off the field on third downs. So that was really how it came together.”

And in the end, the Bills churned out the final first down they needed, running James Cook twice and Ty Johnson once to pick up 10 yards and put Allen in victory formation.

Bills and Patriots trade places

The interesting thing is that the Patriots came into this one in the sort of spot that McDermott and Allen were in years ago when they’d play Tom Brady–led New England teams. This division game was Maye’s and the Patriots’ shot to clinch the title against the established standard-bearer. And McDermott did confirm that there was a sense that his team gave him that they weren’t going to let that happen so easily, and that there was some measure of pride on the line Sunday.

“Of course there is,” McDermott said.

All the same, he’s also aware that this season’s split with Mike Vrabel and his young superstar at quarterback is the beginning of a story, not the end of one.

“They’re two really good players. Josh has been around a little bit longer, as we know, and Drake’s on his way,” McDermott said. “He’s a very talented player, and he’s got a good cast around him, and they coach really well over there. So it’s going to be tough, game after game, year after year, against those guys.”

On this Sunday, though, the Bills squared their jaw, took the Patriots’ best shot and came back with a flurry of haymakers after a long weekend that began with the Bills in a shelter-in-place at their team hotel (We’ll have more on that, and the Bills’ reaction to the tragedy at Brown University in the takeaways), and a long game that began with everything going the home team’s way.

All that ended, of course, the way it did because the Bills have the best player on the planet.

And this game was just confirmation of that, as was the way McDermott answered when I asked if there was a play or two from Allen that he’ll remember from this one.

“Really, the whole second half,” he said. “Down 24–7 at halftime against a good football team, they’ve won 10 straight. It’s like you cemented yourself for the Heisman; he went against the guy who’s arguably the favorite. I mean, again, we were down 24–7, and they just won 10 straight games coming off a bye, and he goes about his business.”

And, clearly, if you were watching, you could see that business is still really, really good.

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