Opinion: Josh Allen's massive contract extension is a testament to Bills' carefully executed plan
When the Buffalo Bills reached agreement with Josh Allen on a six-year, $258 million contract extension that featured $150 million in guaranteed money – the most for any deal in NFL history – and an average annual salary of $43 million, the franchise reaffirmed their commitment to the young quarterback and rewarded the growth he has exhibited in three seasons.
But the deal also signifies the successful execution of a carefully crafted plan for developing the No. 7 overall pick in 2018 into a franchise quarterback.
Allen deserves credit for the work that he has put in each year. But the efforts of the Bills front office and coaching staff have factored greatly into Allen’s journey from big-armed prospect and apparent bust midway through his rookie season to MVP candidate and now the league's second-highest paid player in average annual salary.
Bills general manager Brandon Beane and coach Sean McDermott got it right and, in so doing, offered a blueprint on how to turn around a franchise and position a young quarterback for maximum success.
Based on how many highly touted quarterbacks and corresponding lucrative investments into them have failed in NFL history, it’s clear drafting and developing a franchise passer is anything but simple.
For Beane and McDermott, the plan was straightforward. After committing fully to it and never wavering, the Bills and Allen are reaping the benefits.
After making the massive extension official, Beane agreed to pull back the curtain for Paste BN Sports and provide insight on how Buffalo got to this point.
MORE: Fighting COVID-19 as a doctor gave Chiefs' Laurent Duvernay-Tardif new appreciation for football
OPINION: Duke Slater’s long-delayed Hall of Fame call provides 'uncomfortable' history lesson
Setting the table
When Beane and McDermott assumed control of the Bills in 2017, the former Carolina Panthers coworkers inherited a team on a 17-year playoff drought.
Bills Mafia desperately craved a return to the glory years of the 1990s, and ever since Jim Kelly's retirement in 1996, the team’s quarterback position largely had represented a revolving door.
“The first question was, ‘How are we going to get a quarterback? Let’s look at the 2018 class. Let’s figure out our current roster in 2017 and figure out what pieces we want to keep and what pieces we would be able to build to get extra draft capital for,’” Beane explained told Paste BN Sports.
“We moved (wide receiver) Sammy Watkins, (cornerback) Ronald Darby, (defensive tackle) Marcell Darius later just to add draft capital for the 2018 draft, which we knew was going to have some quarterbacks in it, and that was before we ever went and saw Josh Allen play live.”
In the months after ending their postseason drought, the Bills swung multiple deals to trade up, first from No. 21 to No. 12 and then to No. 7, where they took Allen out of Wyoming.
But getting a quarterback wouldn’t automatically translate into success. Unlike some rebuilding franchises' leaders who first obtain their quarterback and then hope he can carry the team, the Bills' brain trust knew any rookie passer – no matter how talented – would have little chance to excel given the state of the roster.
“The other thing was the salary cap was not organized or set up for long-term success, especially for a team that had not been a consistent playoff team,” Beane said. “There was just too much money on the books. So, we decided, while we plan to draft a quarterback in 2018, we’re also going to get the cap fixed.”
Assessing Allen
The salary cap purges of 2017 and 2018 allowed the Bills to hit a spending reset in 2019. But the Bills also used Allen’s rookie season to fully assess the QB’s play. Early on, it wasn’t pretty. Unlike peers Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson, who provided instant impacts once they took the reins as starters, Allen’s career got off to a shaky start.
He had all the physical tools – a 6-5, 237-pound build, a cannon for an arm and impressive mobility – but Allen’s struggles with accuracy and decision-making were alarming, at least from the outside. He completed only 52.8% of his passes (last among qualified passers that season) and threw 12 interceptions to 10 touchdowns. Many analysts believed Allen had “bust” written all over him.
But Allen’s coaches and GM understood the cause for some of his most consistent transgressions.
“Josh’s biggest problem, and if you go back to Wyoming and if you look at his errors, he threw picks and did some dumb things,” Beane said. “Josh has always been the best athlete, he’s always been a fireball, even in high school, and it didn’t matter what sport it was. So, he does want the ball in his hands, and you want that from someone of his talent. But it was getting him to understand that you don’t have to do it all yourself, and that was the biggest thing, I thought, his rookie year. ‘We’re down two touchdowns, so I’m just going to throw a bomb here, and we’re going to get 7, they’ll go three-and-out, and I’m going to do it again. Just like that, we’ll be back.’ But it was understanding how the game’s played and understanding what kind of game we’re in.”
The Bills did observe encouraging signs.
“Even though he made a lot of mistakes as a rookie, it wasn’t ever like he was out of place in the huddle,” Beane said. “I’ve seen rookies walk into huddles and it looks like a kid stepping into a grown man’s game. Guys by the middle of that year were really starting to rally around him. And I think word started to get around, and that helps attract other players here to Buffalo, which had been an issue here for so long.”
The supporting cast
Allen’s bosses identified the problems and how to fix them. They knew Allen at times got overwhelmed, trying to make sure both he and his receivers knew where to be, and which blitzes the line needed to be mindful of. Some of his interceptions also were a result of young receivers being out of place.
“One of the things we learned in talking to (offensive coordinator) Brian Daboll is, he just needs some guys that he knows are going to be in the right spot. Some veteran guys that can help him,” Beane said. “Guys he could trust to be where he needed them to be.”
Enter the 2019 acquisitions of veteran wide receivers Cole Beasley and John Brown. The Bills also drafted and signed a total of seven offensive linemen to improve protection.
Armed with improved weapons, Allen began to settle down and trust his teammates to make plays. He also started to better grasp when to go for broke and when to cut his losses. Allen improved his completion percentage to 58.5% and threw 20 touchdowns and nine interceptions
The Bills went from 6-10 in 2018 to 10-6 a year later, and they made the playoffs.
Buffalo’s mission of improving the supporting cast continued the following year as they traded for a legitimate star wideout in Stefon Diggs and drafted another big target in UCF's Gabriel Davis.
From there, the quarterback - and the Bills as a whole -- continued to ascend, ranking second in the NFL in points (31.3) and yards (396.4) per game, going 13-3 and reaching the AFC championship game, where they lost to the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
Allen ranked fifth in the NFL with 4,544 passing yards, fifth with 37 touchdown passes, fourth in completion percentage (69.2%) and threw just 10 interceptions.
“He’s still the biggest piece,” Beane said. “This dude is driven. He is ultracompetitive, he is ultrasmart.”
Sealing the deal
After Allen made another seismic leap forward in 2020, extending him was a no-brainer. The Bills knew they would have to fork over a hefty chunk of cash following the record-setting contracts Mahomes and Deshaun Watson signed the year before. And they saw no point in waiting until he played out his fifth-year option to negotiate, as they knew the quarterback market would only further drive up the price.
What helped, however, was Allen’s willingness to agree to an extended deal rather than a common four-year pact. The additional six years tacked onto the final two years of his existing deal helped Beane and his financial team spread the money out over a longer period of time.
“It’s never going to be easy giving someone $40-plus million a year, but it’s a quarterback league, and you’ve got to have them. Those prices are always going to be going up,” Beane said. “Josh wanted to have his worthy amount, but he was willing to structure something a little longer, which would help us working with the cap.
"It was a win-win because he got what he wanted and we have a guy now for the next eight years that we know what his cap numbers are going to be, so if we have someone we need to extend here or need to bring someone in from the outside, we’ll have a better idea of how all of that needs to be structured because we know what Josh’s numbers are, so we can stay within the cap.”
With the future of their union now resolved, the Bills and Allen can focus exclusively on continuing their climb. The quarterback’s confidence is at an all-time high, those close to him say, and his leadership and command of the offense continue to improve as well.
Buffalo’s grand plan all sounds so logical. But teams often struggle to execute similarly because they’re guilty of expecting a talented quarterback to mask their deficiencies.
Buffalo, meanwhile, found it equally important to ensure maximum support for Allen.
The Bills got it right. Coach and GM attacked their mission in lockstep, which isn’t always common in a league filled with so many powerful and ego-driven men.
Now, the both franchise and quarterback are reaping the fruits of their labor.
Follow Paste BN Sports' Mike Jones on Twitter @ByMikeJones.