The Bills defeated the Jets in a blowout 32-6 contest on a cold and windy Sunday at home in Orchard Park in Week 11 of their 2023 season.
The win came at a much-needed time for Buffalo.
In offensive coordinator Joe Brady’s first game calling plays for QB Josh Allen and company, the victory avenged Buffalo’s road loss in the seasoning opener at the Meadowlands of New Jersey.
“We got a lot of true professionals in this room,” Allen said to open his postgame press conference. “Wasn’t an easy week, I’ll tell you that. I’m proud of everybody that stepped up and filled roles that they maybe didn’t expect to fill this year. You know that’s Joe that’s Shuls, that’s Kyle Shurmur, that’s Mark Lubick, that’s the whole entire offensive staff pulling together.”
While the Bills didn’t find the endzone until late in the first half, they did put offensive points up consistently across all four quarters,
Right around the three-minute mark before halftime, Allen found RB James Cook for a 5-yard score. He’d add two third-quarter TD tosses to former Jet Ty Johnson for 28 yards and to second-year receiver Khalil Shakir for 81 yards for the longest touchdown pass in the NFL this season. K Tyler Bass added 14 total points in a balanced Bills scoring effort as well.
Allen went 20/32 for 275 yards with three passing touchdowns giving him the most total TD’s of any player in NFL history in their first six seasons. He also led a clean well-managed performance despite a hail-mary attempt at the end of the first half getting intercepted.
The win ended a two-game losing streak and was Buffalo’s first time scoring more than 25 points in seven weeks of play.
Allen knew the important role his energy played in the win.
“I think our team was energetic as we needed to be and a lot of that, for better or worse, can come from the quarterback,” Allen added about the balanced and up-tempo offense Sunday that had some more rhythm and imagination in its play-calling.
His head coach noticed a change in Allen’s first game with Brady calling plays in the booth.
“I saw a little bit more of his personality and our offenses’ personality,” he noted during his media availability. “It’s more of just us getting back to just an energy on offense and guys having some fun.”
Even with the Bills season teetering on the line, Allen hasn’t lost perspective amidst all the transition on the importance of having fun while continuing to fight.
“Just making that a point of emphasis throughout the week, like ‘let’s have fun playing this game’,” he said. “It’s football, at the end of the day we get to do, in my opinion, the most amazing job on the planet and come out here and play football. So got to enjoy it when we can. Obviously, losing sucks, and we don’t want to lose, it’s literally the worst feeling in the world when you’re working hard and trusting the process and things aren’t going your way. Sometimes you you have a good process and a bad result, and it feels terrible and you feel like you need to switch everything but we really don’t. We got to keep coming together as a team, keep fighting, keep playing complementary football, and put our head down and take it week by week.”
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