With a 'nearly' reputation in sport comes mounting, ever-intensifying year-on-year pressure. Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills return to the NFL playoffs desperate to quash their own 'nearly-men' anguish - this has to be their moment, their time.
The Masters-chasing Rory McIlroy of the NFL? That may be a step too far. But the Bills have similarly outstayed their welcome in the realm of Championship heartbreak and ensuing wall-to-wall scrutiny.
There had been emotional scenes on the final day of the regular season as Buffalo bid farewell to Highmark Stadium following what is likely to be their last game at the team's 53-year-old home. As tears were shed, memories reminisced and hugs shared, it was as if Sean McDermott's team were being shipped off for their biggest battle, buoyed up by the magic of Orchard Park and its table-snapping, snow-shovelling, raucous Bills Mafia-enriched history.
Home comforts and cosy backyard chaos was about to be shelved for the toughest, most important road trip of their careers, the Bills likely needing to win three straight away playoff games to reach Super Bowl LX in Santa Clara, California. Only five teams have ever lifted the Lombardi Trophy after three road wins on their way to the big dance, the latest being Tampa Bay with their Tom Brady 'GOAT' asterisk in 2020.
The Bills have won just four road playoff games in 65 years, while Allen is 0-4 on the road in the postseason. If they are to do it, they must do it the hard way.
Equally, it might be argued the door has been swung open wider than ever. Patrick Mahomes, Andy Reid, Steve Spagnuolo and the Kansas City Chiefs are nowhere to be seen after missing out on the playoffs, having reached five of the last six Super Bowls while beating the Bills in the postseason in four of the last five years, including twice at the AFC Championship Game. Joe Burrow's Cincinnati Bengals will be absent for the third straight yea,r having knocked the Bills out in the Divisional Round of the 2022 playoffs, while Lamar Jackson's Baltimore Ravens are also forced to watch on from home as mutual victims to Kansas City supremacy over the years amid their own championship window.
With the AFC's 'big four' fracture comes opportunity; the Bills should be favourites, but there are new kids on the block.
Buffalo's pain, of course, stretches beyond the Mahomes monopoly and back to their four consecutive Super Bowl defeats behind Jim Kelly and Marv Levy from 1990-93, since which they have failed to return to the NFL's showpiece finale. It would take a hero to remedy so much pain. And they have one. But he needs help.
The NFL's top individual accolade will likely be contested by Drake Maye and Matthew Stafford this year, but in his own right Allen remains the most valuable player in football. There is nobody among this season's contenders capable of strapping an entire team to his back, torpedoing unfavourable momentum, rescuing a lost game or flipping the field quite like the Bills quarterback.
By now judgement of Allen is reserved for performances in the postseason, where his seven wins are the most in the postseason without a Super Bowl appearance by any quarterback in NFL history. Fine margins, 13-second Mahomes-incited magic and Spagnuolo genius has cost him, but he continues to come back.
The Bills shall never stray into 'last chance' territory so long as Allen is under center. He weathered erratic accuracy and turnover issues as a rookie to transform into one of football's exemplary controlled-chaos playmakers, and has only since continued to grow as a more disciplined, more commanding, shrewder version of the destructive field-titling quarterback that would inspire Buffalo to perennial contention.
He has seen every defense, been faced with every scheme and encountered every possible scenario to prepare him for anything come playoff time. Defenses across the league have rallied to limit his influence, be it the downfield passing prowess or his unique steamrolling running threat. Few, perhaps with the exception of playoff Spagnuolo, have found a sustained answer.
Allen just finished the regular season 319 of 460 passing for 3,668 yards and 25 touchdowns to 10 interceptions, while rushing for a quarterback-most 579 yards and 14 scores. Behind him and James Cook, who led the NFL with 1,621 rushing yards, the Bills' offense ranks No 1 in total yards and in the running game while sitting fourth in scoring.
Ground control is their formula for success, while there remains a narrative that points caution to Buffalo's lack of needle-moving receiving threats. Khalil Shakir and his slot exploits lead the team with 72 catches for 719 yards through the air, followed by Dalton Kincaid with just 39 catches for 571 yards in 12 games. It looms as a familiar, uneasy talking point within an offense reliant on Allen hero ball and the two-way influence of Cook, veteran Brandin Cooks having been acquired mid-season as a make-shift vertical outlet and Gabe Davis re-entering the fold amid Keon Coleman's tumultuous exit from his quarterback's trust group. Such is their lack of oomph on the outside that it is often a surprise Cook isn't used more often in the passing game, making just 33 catches from 40 targets for 291 yards.
McDermott himself might have been perceived to offer a thinly-veiled jibe at Buffalo's receiver depth, or lack of it, this week when he singled out Jacksonville Jaguars mid-season addition Jakobi Meyers for praise since his arrival in Duval.
It has forged a Mahomes-esque situation whereby the Bills have faith in their mutant quarterback's ability to accentuate what might be considered an understaffed Super Bowl contender. Allen and Cook now face a Jacksonville Jaguars ranked best in the league against the run this season.
He has meanwhile been sacked a career-high 40 times this season, a reflection of both pass protection frailties and separation issues on the outside. Playoff football isn't the time to find yourself behind the chains too often, particularly for this Bills team.
On defense the Bills rank seventh in yards allowed, first against the pass, fifth-worst in rushing and 12th in scoring, tasked with slowing a Jacksonville Jaguars team riding an eight-game winning streak having seen Trevor Lawrence enter the form of his life with 19 total touchdowns and just one interception in his last six outings.
A wide-open campaign sees Allen rivalled by Lawrence, Bo Nix and Drake Maye as part of a remodelled AFC landscape, the likes of which the Bills are built to blunt in their pursuit of a ticket to Santa Clara.
On occasion the Bills offense can look stale and pedestrian, counting on customary Allen magic. On occasion it can look world-beating behind a bruising ground game. No quarterback in the playoffs possesses the same luxury to flick the switch but Buffalo know it means more than just No 14 at this time of year.
Allen promises box office postseason football, whose arsenal comes with a proclivity for deep shot and game-breaking run explosives. There is no greater test of four-quarter mental and physical stamina than the job of containing the Bills quarterback, who yet again shoulders the entire weight of Buffalo in their toiling Super Bowl quest.
Watch the Buffalo Bills face the Jacksonville Jaguars in the Wild Card round of the playoffs live on Your Site NFL at 6pm Sunday.
