IS THIS THE YEAR WHEN JOSH ALLEN, WITH A FIANCEE, OVERCOMES TAYLOR SWIFT?
We must ask after an abused Mahomes left with an ankle injury while Allen rolled into Detroit and scored 48 points versus the Lions, which has us asking if the Bills finally might overcome ‘90s infamy
He rushed for 21 yards, slid on the turf and grinned like a man engaged to an actress while gunning for the NFL’s MVP award. Josh Allen was about to hammer 52 points upon the Lions in Detroit with a double-handed touchdown pass, until his lineman held. So the Bills settled for 48 in the biggest slam-bam finish of the season, which suggested Buffalo could slip past an ankle-harmed Patrick Mahomes and win the Super Bowl.
This is the town that lost four straight championship games in the ‘90s. Don’t say “wide right” anymore and gut Marv Levy. Celebrate Allen as the most inspirational player in the sport, then order the chicken wings if a snowstorm allows. Does Niagara Falls flood and will Rick James sing “Super Freak” forever if the Bills win it all? “The Lions are one of the best teams in the league. We understand that — the magnitude of this type of game,” Allen said. “The mindset we have is great. Win every play. Focus on the next one. This is going to help us in the long run.”
When someone in the media room sneezed, Allen said, “God bless you.”
No Travis Kelce? No Taylor Swift? A change for humanity?
“It’s the best I’ve seen him play and I’m not surprised,” Bills coach Sean McDermott said of Allen after the 48-42 victory. “When he sets a goal for himself, for the team, he’s hard to stop. People have tried, and they’ll keep trying, but I mean just incredible. An incredible performance week after week, and what more can you say? Every week we’re watching an incredible player play incredibly consistent, and I’ll let you guys fill in the rest of the sentence.”
Sports fandom is at the rage point where we ask who is real about a title. I would have stuck with the Chiefs, who are 13-1, until Mahomes was clobbered in Cleveland while throwing a fourth-down pass in the fourth quarter of a 21-7 victory. He should not have been in the game, but Andy Reid is smug after three titles with a quarterback who never fades to injuries. Will he play through a vulnerable schedule that includes a home game Saturday against Houston and two loseable road games — at Pittsburgh, Merry Christmas, if Netflix doesn’t screw up — and in Denver on Jan. 5?
“It's hard to say right now,” Mahomes said. “You just do what you have to do to get back. We get back to the rehab part, the treatment part, and try to get ourselves ready.”
He’ll be back. He’s Mahomes, who might be made of AI software. But in a season of imposing tumult, when the Chiefs have won games they should have lost, are they about to plunge? Before his ankle was abused by three Browns defenders who might impact his MCL, Mahomes wasn’t fond of three games they’ll play in 11 days. “It's not a good feeling. You never want to play this amount of games in this short of time. It's not great for your body,” he said. “But at the end of the day it's your job, your profession, you have to come to work and do it.”
Could the Chiefs lose twice? If they do, and the Bills win out, guess who has the bye week and the home-field advantage throughout the AFC playoffs? That would be Allen, who threw two touchdown passes and ran for two scores in what might have clinched his MVP cloth no matter what Saquon Barkley accomplishes. When the Bills beat the Chiefs last month, it created a vibe that Kansas City will fall short of a third consecutive league championship. Carson Wentz is the backup. He entered the game as Mahomes stumbled to the sideline. The Chiefs will not achieve a three-peat with Wentz involved in any way.
“We’ve got good support there behind him with Carson, and it was good to get him a few reps in there and let our guys hear that snap count in case he has to go,” Reid said.
In case he has to go? Mahomes was pressured 21 times against a 3-11 team headed nowhere. “I was trying to run up in the pocket, obviously fourth down, trying to make a play happen. And as I threw the ball, I kind of got hit, but it felt like someone hit me from behind as well,” he said. “And so I kind of just got rolled up on. It kind of happens in football, and so I tried to bounce back up but obviously, it hurt a little bit.”
It might be safe to say the NFC will struggle in any serious mash breakdown. The Lions cannot allow 48 to Allen. The 49ers have collapsed from their championship dreams and need an about-face from coach Kyle Shanahan, who has lost three Super Bowls and might not return to another. Thursday night, linebacker De’Vondre Campbell didn’t want to play football and refused to enter a loss to the Rams. “You guys heard from me, you guys heard from our players, his actions from the game, it's not something you can do to your team or your teammates and still get to be a part of our team,” Shanahan said.
“It's just stupid, and it's very immature. I just don't see how you could do something like that to your team,” tight end George Kittle said. “It's one person making a selfish decision. I've never been around anybody that's ever done that, and I hope I'm never around anybody who does that again.”
Who’s left? The Eagles? They beat the Steelers but remain at odds. It could be receiver A.J. Brown trashing Jalen Hurts or coach Nick Sirianni chewing out Jalen Carter after he smacked an opponent, which was followed Sunday by defensive line coach Clint Hurtt firing back at Sirianni. Does anyone believe in the coach or the team?
Allen is the leader who had to overcome online racial slurs as he entered the league. Now he’s the golden boy after announcing his intention of marrying Hailee Steinfeld, who doesn’t create Swift megadrama — thank God. “If I could go back in time, I would never have done this in a heartbeat," Allen said years ago of his Twitter ugliness. “At the time, I obviously didn't know how harmful it was and now has become. I hope you know and others know I'm not the type of person I was at 14 and 15 that I tweeted so recklessly. That is not me. I apologize for what I did.”
Gaze at him now. He’s about to become the face of football as an ultramodern stadium emerges in Orchard Park. Allen amassed 430 yards while running backs James Cook, Ray Davis and Ty Johnson combined for 285 yards and three touchdowns. They beat up the Lions and might have ended thoughts of two Rust Belt teams playing in New Orleans.
“Look, he poses a huge issue for any team, and we knew that was going to happen,” said Lions coach Dan Campbell, who suffered more injury blowouts. “We wanted to handle him better and we just didn’t. When he makes a play, I can live with it, but what is frustrating is all the self-inflicted wounds. You can’t give that team anything, and I feel like we helped them a little bit. I didn’t have the guys ready to go. I put this on me.”
At present, the Eras Tour has ended, and Kelce doesn’t look anything like he once did. Mahomes is cracking. Can we do research on Steinfeld? I’m sensing something new in football, which means something is new in America.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.