Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen is prepping for the Denver Broncos with his teammates this week. With a win over the 3-7 visitors at New Era Field on Sunday, Allen’s team will be 8-3 overall on the year.
But the second-year QB knows the job won’t be done there.
In order to get his team into the postseason for the second time in three years and the first time in his career, Allen put a number on it.
While admitting he and his teammates are guilty of “keeping an eye on” the scoreboard around the AFC playoff picture, Allen predicted it will take double-digit wins to crack the playoffs on Wednesday.
“Ultimately, at the end of the day, I think you need to get at least 10 wins to get into the playoffs,” Allen said. “I know we got six or seven games left, whatever it is. We got to win some more games to kind of get in there. Whether we have an opportunity to make the playoffs, I think we’ve got a good opportunity in front of us right now.”
Naturally Allen didn’t want to get too far ahead of himself, though.
“Guys aren’t looking forward, we’re not talking about it, we’re taking it one week at a time, trying to win a football game this week,” Allen said.
While four games under a .500 mark, the Broncos will be among the better opponents the Bills have faced this year. At least, in terms of their defense.
After five weeks, the Broncos defense was the No. 15 unit in the NFL. Middle of the pack. Since then, they’ve blossomed into the fourth-best unit. The Bills’ stout defense ranks third.
While the Bills are a 7-3 for the first time since 1999, the group is planning to do their best in not worry about those types of figures at all. Veteran linebacker Lorenzo Alexander, like the youthful quarterback, only has the Broncos in mind even with the standings looming.
“Anytime you start looking past teams, you can get bitten,” Alexander said. “This Broncos team can come up and bite us.”
That type of message is coming from the top, down, as well. This week-to-week approach isn’t anything new for various NFL coaching staffs, with Sean McDermott being no different. He compared his team’s postseason approach in 2017 to their current one this week.
“We took it week to week back then, we take a week to week now,” McDermott said. “A lot of [his message] has remained the same because I believe in it. And then, I’m hoping that I’ve gotten better with age, as well and experience.”
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