ClutchPoints
If the Buffalo Bills are going to beat the Jacksonville Jaguars and go on a run in the AFC playoffs, they are going to have to ignore a key football truism.
Football is a team game and that the play of a superstar is not enough to help a team win any game — let alone a playoff game.
There have been players who have been good enough to challenge this canon. Start with Patrick Mahomes.
The Chiefs quarterback has seen his team play in 5 Super Bowls and win 3 of them. He is surrounded by great teammates, but he was close to a one-man team in his first full season under center was 2018. He completed 383 of 580 passes for 5,097 yards with 50 TD passes and a 9.58 yards per pass average. The Chiefs went 12-4 that season. They beat the Indianapolis Colts in the divisional playoffs before losing to Tom Brady and the New England Patriots in the AFC title game.
Mahomes carried his team as if he was Hercules that season.
Another player that comes to mind is perhaps the greatest defensive player in the history of the NFL. Lawrence Taylor is always one of the candidates for this honor and he was an intimidating opponent to anyone who played against the New York Giants.
The Hall of Famer was basically impossible to stop throughout the decade of the 1980s, and he was at his best in the Giants’ Super Bowl season of 1986. He had a league-leading 20.5 sacks that season and New York garnered its first Super Bowl title by beating John Elway and the Denver Broncos. The Giants had a decent supporting cast and QB Phil Simms had the best game of his career in Super Bowl XXI, but it was Taylor and his powerful presence that carried the Giants to the Vince Lombardi Trophy.
The Bills are in a similar position. They have their own Superman in Josh Allen, and they need their quarterback to play the best football of his career in the postseason. That has to start in Sunday’s game against the Jaguars and continue throughout the games that follow.
It will not be easy, as Allen is not 100 percent healthy. He had a right foot injury that he sustained in the Bills’ Week 16 game against the Cleveland Browns and he was clearly not at his best the following week against the Philadelphia Eagles. Allen played just one snap against the Jets in Week 18, but he was a full participant in Wednesday’s practice session. He appeared fully healthy, and that’s outstanding news for head coach Sean McDermott and Allen’s teammates.
Allen’s ability as a passer and a runner makes him a unicorn of sorts. He completed 319 of 460 passes for 3,668 yards with 25 TDs and 10 interceptions. He completed an impressive 69.3 percent of his passes. Allen also ran for 579 yards with an incredible...
