There were many who insisted Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen would be a bust when the long-suffering franchise chose him with the seventh selection in the 2018 draft.
Critics belittled his footwork, insisted he made poor decisions and said his raw talent wouldn’t be enough to make him a competent NFL leader.
The critics were wrong. Allen has worked tirelessly on details and has since evolved into one of the league’s elite players — lifting the Bills to their first AFC East title in 25 seasons. The Wyoming product was recently named to his first Pro Bowl and he’s the first player in NFL history to record at least 4,000 passing yards, 30-plus passing TDs and at least eight rushing scores in a season. And the Bills still have two games remaining on their schedule.
For Allen, who grew up in California, lessons in sound footwork and mental discipline seemed the perfect Christmas gift to present to the big bodies up front who protect him each week.
Bills QB @JoshAllenQB’s gift to his offensive linemen this year: a set of Callaway golf clubs and lessons at Crag Burn Golf Club pic.twitter.com/QCRsxPagFm
— Marcel Louis-Jacques (@Marcel_LJ) December 22, 2020
According to an article penned by veteran reporter Jay Skurski of the Buffalo News, the signal-caller gave his offensive linemen a pretty special Christmas gift in the form of custom-fit golf clubs — Callaway Mavrik woods and irons, an Odyssey putter and an Ogio golf bag.
Each of the bags came in the team’s red and blue and were personalized with the player’s name and number. He also provided lessons with the head pro at Crag Burn Golf Club, a Robert Trent Jones design that sits less than 30 minutes east of Buffalo, and just eight miles from the team’s stadium in Orchard Park.
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“It’s really cool. Obviously, gifts are extremely hard to buy for guys that have basically everything already,” Allen told Skurski. “I talked to them, and none of them had their own custom golf clubs, so it’s something that many of these guys maybe haven’t even done yet.
“Giving them the opportunity to go out and expand their horizons, try something new and just hang out on the golf course and get away from football for a little bit in the offseason, it’s something I love doing and hopefully one or two of them – or maybe even all of them, pick the game up and start to enjoy it as much as I do.”
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